The Negotiator

F. Gary Gray builds on one reversal: a hostage negotiator who knows every move the team outside will make turns that team against himself. Unable to break an embezzlement and murder case otherwise, Danny Roman seizes the Internal Affairs floor and demands a negotiator he does not know. The premise came from a real siege in St. Louis, brought to producer David Hoberman by Robert and Webster Stone before the setting moved to Chicago. Gray named his two dream leads and got both. Samuel L. Jackson and Kevin Spacey had already promised each other at a party, after A Time to Kill, that whichever signed, the other would. The location shapes the film. Internal Affairs is 77 West Wacker, a 50 storey tower on the Chicago River, with a 9 block perimeter closed for exteriors; the command post is a battered maintenance barge, designer Holger Gross’s idea. Interiors were built on a 3 storey set at Raleigh Studios. The film is dedicated to J. T. Walsh, who died months before release and plays the inspector Roman takes hostage. A good fit if you want the siege from both ends, counting barge and rooftop as much as the talking. Not for anyone expecting a sealed one room thriller; street, river and crowd keep breaking in.