When a thriller is good, it catches you up, rivets your
attention, quickens your pulse, and doesn't let go. Such is the case with
1998’s The Negotiator, starring Samuel L Jackson and Kevin Spacey,
directed by F. Gary Gray. This is a story about cops, setups, double crosses,
hostage taking, risk taking, and, as in any good thriller, honor.
As the title suggests, the protagonist is a professional hostage
negotiator. Lieutenant Danny Roman of the Chicago PD (Jackson) is not only good
at his job, he is fearless, as we see in the opening scene in which he parlays
with an emotional man threatening to kill his daughter, risking his own life in
the process. Then, Roman’s luck changes. His
partner - who had been investigating (secretly, because fellow cops were
involved) the embezzlement of large sums from the police pension fund - is
murdered, and Roman is circumstantially implicated in both crimes; in fact, he’s
the prime suspect!
Overnight, Danny Roman goes from hero to heel; and worse, no
one seems to listen when he claims that he’s innocent. He doesn’t know who the
dirty cops are , so how can he trust his fellow officers to find the actual
perpetrators? He realizes he has to do this himself, and soon. But how?
The frame-up claim has been a classic storyline for
mysteries and thrillers forever. Seeking out the truth and uncovering the real
bad guys is what most protagonists in these tales have to do. What makes The
Negotiator particularly interesting
is how Roman approaches this challenge:
He walks into police headquarters and takes his own hostages, including
the head of the Internal Affairs division and the deputy police chief. He
figures these guys are the key to unlocking the puzzle. Roman knows exactly how
such situations are supposed to be handled – he wrote the book on hostage
negotiation. Now who’s going to negotiate with THIS hostage taker?
Enter Lieutenant Chris Sabean (Spacey) another professional
negotiator. Now we’ve got two stars negotiating with one another in a life and
death situation. Sabean is out of another district, and Roman hopes he will be untainted by local
police politics. On the one hand, Roman is playing for time, hoping to get his
captives to tell him what they know; on the other hand, he hopes the negotiations with Sabean will
turn him into an ally. On the third hand, he realizes that his enemies will
stop at nothing to silence him. While this is going on, the drama of a cop taking
cops hostage at police HQ goes viral: this
story is all over the news, a huge crowd gathers on the street, a gazillion
cops are on hand, spotlights play across the building, the FBI wants to take
over, it’s a PR disaster, and pressure mounts inside and outside the building. 
The contrast between Jackson’s overheated Danny Roman and
Spacey’s taut, cool-as-a-cucumber Chris Sabean is wonderful to watch. Both are
playing a game, and both are aces at it. We don’t know how it will turn out, or
who’s in control. But we know we’re watching two great actors doing sparkling work.
And just below these marquee performances, the rest of the ensemble keeps up
nicely. Of particular note are JT Walsh
as Niebaum, the Internal Affairs
Division chief held hostage, with his cold, blue eyes revealing nothing, yet
showing calculating wheels spinning in his head; Paul Giamotti as Rudy, a weaselly,
ex-con and another hostage; and John Spencer
(a year before his memorable stint as Leo McGarry in The West Wing) as
Chief Travis, trying to hold his department together amidst the chaos.
Director F Gary Gray keeps the tension building and the
action moving throughout. The interior scenes, where most of the drama plays
out, carry just the right amount of claustrophobia, with an intriguing hint of
possible paranoia, to make us squirm a little. In fact, Gray is so sure handed
at the helm of this picture ( he also
directed The Italian Job (2003) and Be Cool (2005)) one wonders
why he hasn’t been given more opportunities. (He does have a new movie in
production starring Bruce Willis and
Jamie Foxx, so we’ve got something to look forward to.)
If your taste runs to smart, action-thriller dramas you can’t
do much better than this well written, well acted little gem. Check it out.
DVD available from
Netflix; also available for streaming from Amazon Instant Video.
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