Hostage

Florent-Emilio Siri’s French work had caught Bruce Willis’s eye, and it was Willis who asked him to direct; Willis is also credited as a producer. Siri had also directed the opening cinematics for two Splinter Cell games. Doug Richardson adapted the screenplay from Robert Crais’s 2001 novel. The adaptation removes the spine of the book’s crime plot. Crais had a West Coast mob boss named Sonny Benza; the film replaces him with an unnamed syndicate and leaves it largely open whom Walter Smith has been laundering money for. The teenagers who storm the house were written younger than in the novel. Smith’s house was shot outside at a real property in Topanga Canyon and inside on Hollywood sound stages. Alexandre Desplat wrote the score. Miramax took North American rights in April 2004, after being shown 40 minutes of footage while the film was still shooting. Talley’s abducted daughter is played by Rumer Willis, who is the daughter of Bruce Willis and Demi Moore. Against a $65 million budget it made $77.7 million worldwide, and more than $63 million again in United States home video rentals. A good fit if you want a hostage negotiation built out of a floor plan, sightlines and who can see what. Not for anyone troubled by long stretches of children held at gunpoint.