Russel Crowe´s follow-up to "Gladiator" is marketed as an action-movie, but turns out to be a rather slow kidnaping-drama, with some action in the end. This way, "Proof of Life" loses valuable points from me from the very beginning.
The story circulates around three people, Terry Thorne (an expert with kidnaping-situations), Peter Bowman (an engineer who is kidnaped by the guerilla while visiting South Africa) and Alice Bowman (Peter´s wife, she hires Thorne to save her kidnaped husband). And while Peter is sitting high up in the mountains waiting to be rescued, Terry and Alicia falls in love...
The problem with "Proof of Life" is that there are only some parts of it that are interesting, and those are up in the beautiful mountains when Peter is being moved from place to place by the terrorists, and in the last ten minutes, when Terry and his team are going to save him. But all the other stuff is slow and uninteresting. The love story is tasteless and silly and should have been skipped from the beginning.
The movie has three very talented actors in the leading roles, but one of them (Meg Ryan) is just being irritating and not very helpful at all. But David Morse (Peter) and Russel Crowe (Terry) are excellent. David Morse proves why he is being considered as one of the best supporting actors Hollywood has to offer, and Russel Crowe is totally believable as the negotiator. The man, simply, is a star.
But an actiondrama that doesn´t please neither the action-fans or those who enjoy dramas, doesn´t feel that appealing. An okay film to watch at home when it´s raining outside, but it was NOT fun to see it at the cinema, like I did.
* * ½
The story circulates around three people, Terry Thorne (an expert with kidnaping-situations), Peter Bowman (an engineer who is kidnaped by the guerilla while visiting South Africa) and Alice Bowman (Peter´s wife, she hires Thorne to save her kidnaped husband). And while Peter is sitting high up in the mountains waiting to be rescued, Terry and Alicia falls in love...
The problem with "Proof of Life" is that there are only some parts of it that are interesting, and those are up in the beautiful mountains when Peter is being moved from place to place by the terrorists, and in the last ten minutes, when Terry and his team are going to save him. But all the other stuff is slow and uninteresting. The love story is tasteless and silly and should have been skipped from the beginning.
The movie has three very talented actors in the leading roles, but one of them (Meg Ryan) is just being irritating and not very helpful at all. But David Morse (Peter) and Russel Crowe (Terry) are excellent. David Morse proves why he is being considered as one of the best supporting actors Hollywood has to offer, and Russel Crowe is totally believable as the negotiator. The man, simply, is a star.
But an actiondrama that doesn´t please neither the action-fans or those who enjoy dramas, doesn´t feel that appealing. An okay film to watch at home when it´s raining outside, but it was NOT fun to see it at the cinema, like I did.
* * ½