From director F. Gary Gray and writers James DeMonaco and Kevin Fox we get a thriller of a movie involving a Chicago P.D. hostage negotiator who has been framed for his partner's murder.
Samuel L. Jackson plays Lt. Danny Roman, a savvy hostage negotiator who is the best in the biz. When his partner Nathan Roenick (Paul Guilfoyle) confides in him that the police disability fund is being raided by cops, Nathan catches a bullet and Danny is the fall guy. In an effort to get to the truth and clear his name, Danny takes hostages in the Internal Affairs Division office of the Chicago administration building.
Being that Danny couldn't trust anyone from his own department, he requests Chris Sabian (Kevin Spacey), a negotiator from a different district. It would become a race between Danny getting the answers he seeks and the unknown crooked cops looking to take his life to shut him up.
I liked the plot and pace of the movie though I took exception with Danny's action at the end. Allow me to explain.
Danny has had the entire police force and even the FBI buzzing around him all night looking for an opportunity to blow him away. He finally gets the absolution he'd been looking for when his superior, Frost (Ron Rifkin), admits to stealing from the disability fund. While Frost is on the ground and totally defeated--and while dozens of cops are all facing Frost and Danny with weapons drawn--Danny picks up a gun and points it at Frost's head. The very act of picking up the gun was enough for an gung-ho cop to shoot him down. Are we to believe that Danny was smart enough to navigate that entire night without being killed, just to do something so reckless to potentially get himself killed? I didn't like it at all.
Having said that, that scene did not ruin the movie. SLJ and Spacey were excellent as was the plot. One, albeit, poorly written scene wasn't going to crash the entire movie.
Samuel L. Jackson plays Lt. Danny Roman, a savvy hostage negotiator who is the best in the biz. When his partner Nathan Roenick (Paul Guilfoyle) confides in him that the police disability fund is being raided by cops, Nathan catches a bullet and Danny is the fall guy. In an effort to get to the truth and clear his name, Danny takes hostages in the Internal Affairs Division office of the Chicago administration building.
Being that Danny couldn't trust anyone from his own department, he requests Chris Sabian (Kevin Spacey), a negotiator from a different district. It would become a race between Danny getting the answers he seeks and the unknown crooked cops looking to take his life to shut him up.
I liked the plot and pace of the movie though I took exception with Danny's action at the end. Allow me to explain.
Danny has had the entire police force and even the FBI buzzing around him all night looking for an opportunity to blow him away. He finally gets the absolution he'd been looking for when his superior, Frost (Ron Rifkin), admits to stealing from the disability fund. While Frost is on the ground and totally defeated--and while dozens of cops are all facing Frost and Danny with weapons drawn--Danny picks up a gun and points it at Frost's head. The very act of picking up the gun was enough for an gung-ho cop to shoot him down. Are we to believe that Danny was smart enough to navigate that entire night without being killed, just to do something so reckless to potentially get himself killed? I didn't like it at all.
Having said that, that scene did not ruin the movie. SLJ and Spacey were excellent as was the plot. One, albeit, poorly written scene wasn't going to crash the entire movie.