- Overview
The police try to arrest expert hostage negotiator Danny Roman, who insists he's being framed for his partner's murder in what he believes is an elaborate conspiracy. Thinking there's evidence in the Internal Affairs offices that might clear him, he takes everyone in the office hostage and demands that another well-known negotiator be brought in to handle the situation and secretly investigate the conspiracy.
- Release Date
29 July 1998
- DirectingF. Gary Gray
- Budget
$50,000,000.00
- Revenue
$44,547,681.00
- Stars
Videos
User Reviews
See moreCinemaSerf
08 July 2022
Samuel L. Jackson is renowned hostage negotiator "Roman" who is shocked to learn of the murder of his partner. A little further investigation reveals that he had been looking into a multi-million dollar pension fraud. Next thing he knows, "Roman" is being charged with his friend's killing and decides to turn the tables. He goes to the office of the Internal Affairs department, seizes some hostages, barricades himself into the locked office and summons another negotiator "Sabian" (Kevin Spacey) to the scene. What now unfolds is a cleverly crafted detective mystery as the two must overcome their initial professional suspicions of the other, and gradually try to piece together what actually did happen to his pal and to ascertain just who did steal all the cash! It's a good, solid, story this and it's well told with Jackson and Spacey delivering a tale of corruption and mistrust that illustrates just how tough it is to fight back when the very people there to enforce the law are those abusing it. The supporting cast are a bit lacklustre - maybe a bit like an episode of "Hill Street Blues" but it flows well with a tricky denouement that though predictable enough, is quite well executed. It's maybe a bit on the long side, it does take a while to get up an head of steam - but once we get going, it is at the better end of the genre.
More Like This
Absolute Power
A master thief coincidentally is robbing a house where a murder—in which the President of the United States is involved—occurs in front of his eyes...
See more
Memento
Leonard Shelby is tracking down the man who raped and murdered his wife. The difficulty of locating his wife's killer, however, is compounded by...
See more
Miami Vice
A case involving drug lords and murder in South Florida takes a personal turn for undercover detectives Sonny Crockett and Ricardo Tubbs...
See more
Beverly Hills Cop II
Axel Foley returns to the land of sunshine and palm trees to investigate the near-fatal shooting of police Captain Andrew Bogomil. With the help of...
See more
Scarface
After getting a green card in exchange for assassinating a Cuban government official, Tony Montana stakes a claim on the drug trade in Miami...
See more
The Untouchables
Elliot Ness, an ambitious prohibition agent, is determined to take down Al Capone. In order to achieve this goal, he forms a group given the...
See more
Freaks
A circus' beautiful trapeze artist agrees to marry the leader of side-show performers, but his deformed friends discover she is only marrying him...
See more
Bad Education
Two children, Ignacio and Enrique, know love, the movies and fear in a religious school at the beginning of the 1960s. Father Manolo, director of...
See more
Knockin' on Heaven's Door
Two young men, Martin and Rudi, both suffering from terminal cancer, get to know each other in a hospital room. They drown their desperation in...
See more
K-PAX
Prot is a patient at a mental hospital who claims to be from a far away planet. His psychiatrist tries to help him, only to begin to doubt his own...
See more
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
A renegade Vulcan with a startling secret hijacks the U.S.S. Enterprise in order to find a mythical planet.
See more
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
After years of war, the Federation and the Klingon empire find themselves on the brink of a peace summit when a Klingon ship is nearly destroyed by...
See more
The Interpreter
After Silvia Broome, an interpreter at United Nations headquarters, overhears plans of an assassination, an American Secret Service agent is sent...
See more
Minority Report
John Anderton is a top 'Precrime' cop in the late-21st century, when technology can predict crimes before they're committed. But Anderton becomes...
See more
The Good German
An American journalist arrives in Berlin just after the end of World War Two. He becomes involved in a murder mystery surrounding a dead GI who...
See more
Jackie Brown
Jackie Brown is a flight attendant who gets caught in the middle of smuggling cash into the country for her gunrunner boss. When the cops try to...
See more
Lucky Number Slevin
Slevin is mistakenly put in the middle of a personal war between the city’s biggest criminal bosses. Under constant watch, Slevin must try not to...
See more
Sin City: A Dame to Kill For
Some of Sin City's most hard-boiled citizens cross paths with a few of its more reviled inhabitants.
See more
Hotel Rwanda
Inspired by true events, this film takes place in Rwanda in the 1990s when more than a million Tutsis were killed in a genocide that went mostly...
See more
Arsenic and Old Lace
Mortimer Brewster, a newspaper drama critic, playwright, and author known for his diatribes against marriage, suddenly falls in love and gets...
See more