Samuel L. Jackson plays a hostage negotiator.
He is good at his job. He gets himself in a pickle and must take
hostages to clear his name and get to the bottom of it. Kevin
Spacey is then called in. He too is a hostage negotiator. He too
is good at his job. The rest of the film has Jackson and Spacey
screaming into a walkie talkie or a telephone "I'm in
charge!" or the equivalent thereof. I am a stickler for not
revealing anything of import. Trust me. I have done no more than
ape the preview.
The plot is absurd. The action sequences are
ridiculous. The shortcuts taken are many, and they are
ham-handed. The surprises are as surprising as Gary Oldman
playing the psycho (thankfully, he does not in this film). Spacey
and Jackson are boring in their humorless professionalism. The
hackneyed is prevalent, from stone-faced FBI men with very neat
haircuts to a wise-cracking ex-con who gets all the good lines.
But I did learn two things about the Chicago
Police. In hostage situations, they are capable of rousing 4000
of their brethren to handle the situation, none of whom appear to
be marginally competent. Also, they are beer and a shot kind of
guys. Imagine that.
