When struggling dam builder Peter Bowman (Morse) is kidnapped in Latin America by anti-government terrorists. His wife Alice (Ryan) turns to kidnap-and-ransom specialist Terry Thorne (Crowe) to help, but Bowman�s insurance company reveals that he isn�t covered for kidnapping. So Alice and Terry go it alone to raise the money and rescue Peter. As time progresses, their relationship develop into something that crosses the boundaries of professional.
All in all, this movie is disappointing for many reasons; firstly, Ryan shows little emotion and concern for someone who has just had her husband taken away from her, possibly forever, this comes across as just plain bland, thus making us care a lot less for Peter than we should do. Morse controls himself very well for an engineer, being kidnapped for more than 125 days and he has hardly broken down in tears or lost his mind. Instead, he constantly keeps the will-power up trying to outwit his captors at every given opportunity, and gains a nice collection of wounds as a result. Sorry, but these two don�t exhibit typical human behaviour, maybe some people would react in this way but its certainly a very small percentage.
Crowe on the other hand proves he�s no fluke, riding on the waves of Gladiator's success. He gives a great performance as the Aussie SAS bloke. but the growing romance between Crowe and Ryan lacks substance and depth to make us give a damn. The camerawork is just ordinary, nothing to strike out and impress the audience, and the overall story line is disappointing, the intro is rushed, we remember little about Crowe�s background, and about the politics in Latin America. Don�t get me wrong, its good entertainment, but ultimately forgettable |
