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Newsletter # 6
Why Hostage Disappoints
By
Laurie H. Hutzler
Misusing the Failed Reluctant Hero
Hostage, the current Bruce Willis thriller, opens with a scene in which expert Los Angeles PD hostage negotiator, Jeff Tally, makes a mistake in judgment which leads to three deaths. Tally (Willis) refuses to authorize the shooting of a hostage-taker at a moment when the police have a clear shot at him.
As Tally tries to talk the man down, the hostage-taker retreats deeper into the house and kills a woman, a child and himself. Tally retires to head a quiet small town police department. It is here the film picks up the story.
Opening a thriller with a flashback or scene previous to the current action, which exposes the protagonist’s guilt, is contrary to the emotional dynamic that powers a thriller. The misuse of the failed reluctant hero is a primary reason why this film doesn’t deliver the expected emotional punch. Let’s look at why.
Timing the Reveal
When something is revealed in a film is just as important as what is revealed. There is always some guilty secret, emotional wreckage or psychological damage in the thriller protagonist’s past. This character goes to great lengths to cover it up, deny it, avoid it or refuse to fully confront it.
The reveal that forces the protagonist to finally face his or her own guilt (or complicity) is one of the most important moments in the film. It is also one of the key reversals in a thriller. In these films, allies and enemies shift positions, the hunter becomes the hunted, truth is a moving target, guilt and innocence is ambiguous and nothing is what it seems—not even the protagonist.
Not Delivering on the Premise
One of the most interesting things about Hostage is the log line on the poster—Would you sacrifice another family to save your own? This question has the seeds of a powerful and compelling story. It asks us if we would do evil for noble, if selfish, ends.
This rich premise never pays off. At no time in Hostage do we ever doubt Tally’s concern or good intentions in trying to save the hostages trapped in the house. He never actively works against their interests for the sake of his own. When he asks Tommy Smith, the little boy played by Jimmy Bennett, to get the video disks at issue in the film, Tally repeats: “Do it only if you can do it safely.”
Tally never approaches, much less crosses, the line between guilt and innocence. He never becomes fully connected or complicit with the antagonists. His motives remain essentially pure. Tally is not truly tempted to do evil by putting the other family deliberately in jeopardy to save his own. There is no moral ambiguity here.
Who is the Protagonist?
The following paragraphs contain a spoiler—The most interesting character in the film is the criminal, Walter Smith, played by Kevin Pollack. Smith is a single father who handles his children with aplomb, consideration and a great sense of humor. He is also part of a lethal criminal conspiracy. Smith is the embodiment of the “good” person who is part and parcel of terrible evil.
After his family is safe, when it is clear Smith is probably going to jail for a very long time, he switches sides yet again and helps Tally get the drop on the bad guys. Why does the decisive reversal that propels the climax forward belong to a minor character? Why does Smith have an infinitely richer and more complex emotional journey than Tally?
Without Smith’s help Tally would be powerless to defeat the bad guys. Smith is a “good” person who does evil but yet is capable of self-sacrifice for another. That’s a much more interesting protagonist than Tally, who doesn’t experience a single such reversal or an emotional journey requiring an equivalent sacrifice.
What about Vertigo?
Alfred Hitchcock’s masterpiece, Vertigo, does begin with a scene of guilt and failure. Detective John 'Scottie' Ferguson (played by Jimmy Stewart) slips on a roof while chasing a criminal. While another officer tries to save him, Scottie has an attack of vertigo and, as a result, the police office falls to his death.
Vertigo is about the power of the past to invade and poison the present. Every scene, every sequence and every act reveals yet another layer of how the past is at work in the present drawing the protagonist in an endlessly downward spiral.
Scottie’s inability to let go of the past is, in fact, the way the antagonist lures and traps Scottie into repeating the fatal pattern. Scottie becomes like a man tangled in an anchor line that drags him from the fresh air of the present deep into the suffocating depths of guilty or morbid memory.
The opening scene in Vertigo is essential to setting up the emotional patterns in the film. Scottie’s relationship to the past is the key to everything that happens to him in the present. That is not the case in Hostage.
Making a Common Misstep
Hostage prompted me to note the increasingly common tactic of starting a film with some failure or guilty action on the part of the protagonist. I discussed other recent examples of this misstep in The Last Samurai and Hidalgo: Newsletter_2
I’m not sure if this ploy is the result of trying to shoehorn every protagonist into Joseph Campbell’s reluctant mythic hero mold (even thriller protagonists—which clearly don’t fit the paradigm.) In my view of film, only one of the Nine Character Types fits the Campbell mold. There are eight other possible emotional dynamics and dilemmas to consider.
Perhaps the over use of this kind of opening is meant to gain a quick measure of sympathy for the main character. Whatever the reason, this choice throws a thriller out of emotional balance and makes the set-up feel contrived and clichéd, terms which appear over and over in the mostly negative reviews of Hostage.
This disappointing outcome is a shame because there is a lot to like about the film. The color saturated graphics in the credits are reminiscent of Hitchcock. The film has striking visuals throughout and is stylishly directed with by French director, Florent Siri. Bruce Willis gives a powerful yet restrained performance. Yet none of this can salvage the false emotional dynamic which propels the film forward.
Audiences will forgive many things in a film—cheap production values, a no name cast, logic holes and even a mediocre plot line—but the one thing they will NOT forgive is an emotional pattern that doesn’t ring true.
Consulting Services
If you need help finding your story’s emotional focus let
Laurie Hutzler’s unique interactive problem-solving sessions
center the power of your story and clarify your character’s
inner truth. Whether working on a television program or feature film
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Contact: Laurie@EmotionalToolbox.com
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