Cady's Take:

Jeff Talley is an LAPD hostage negotiator whose botching of a tense standoff leaves him with innocent blood on his hands and prods him into moving to a sleepy community where the crime rate ceases to exist. Things seem to be calm and quiet for Talley until 3 misfit teenagers decide to break into a monster mansion in the hills with the idea of stealing a car. The situation rapidly escalates into a violent hostage situation, with a father (Kevin Pollack), a teenage daughter and an elementary-aged son.

Turns out dad is a mob accountant and in the house is a DVD with important information on it, so, the organized crime lords obviously want to get it back. They kidnap Talley's wife and daughter in a persuasion tactic to get him to control the situation in their favor. Now every choice he makes has two ramifications, one for the family inside the house, and one for his own family.

This is a good old-fashioned Bruce Willis Movie in " yippee-ki-yay" Die Hard territory. Hostage has definite momentum and does a good job doubling up on the suspense to distract the viewer from its more obvious leaps in logic. Don't get me wrong it is far from perfect, but if you're looking for a decent rental this weekend I would pick Hostage off the shelf over Vin Diesel changing diapers.

If I could not buy Nic Cage as an action adventure hero when viewing last week's "National Treasure" I am having absolutely no trouble buying Bruce Willis as Jeff Tally, a hostage negotiator-turned-small town sheriff, and mind blowing hero of "Hostage".

I will freely admit that I had serious doubts about this movie when I first popped it in. A scruffy, greasy, hairy Tally decides to leave his stressful job as a hostage negotiator in L.A. after he botches a negotiation, which ends in the death of a young child. We see Tally with his hands covered in the child's blood, and then the movie cuts to a year later when a bald, clean-shaven Tally is washing his hands, getting ready for work. I found this, if you will pardon the expression, a little heavy-handed in the metaphor department. The movie moves quickly past this and keeps a good pace.

When three youths take a man and his family hostage inside their home, Tally quickly hands the investigation off to the local sheriff's department. Unfortunately for Tally, the man whose home has been invaded has some seriously dangerous friends, who then take Tally's family hostage until he can retrieve a DVD with "important" (read: illegal) information from inside the home. Now Tally has to somehow resume command of the hostage situation and negotiate with the three boys without endangering the lives of his wife and daughter. Well, further endanger.

Ok, is it a little weird that one of the hostage-takers just happens to be a psychopathic, serial killer type? Yes. Bit of a stretch, there. It ends up being resolved fairly well, and ultimately did not hurt the credibility of the rest of the movie. "Hostage" is an excellent film, and the addition of Tally's hidden agenda (saving his own family) keeps the viewer engaged, as we try to figure out not just how his next step will help the hostages inside the Smith house, but his own family as well.