THE NEGOTIATOR (Warner Bros./New Regency) Starring: Samuel L. Jackson, Kevin Spacey, David Morse, Ron Rifkin, J. T. Walsh, John Spencer, Paul Giamatti, Siobhan Fallon. Screenplay: James DeMonaco and Kevin Fox. Producers: Arnon Milchan and David Hoberman. Director: F. Gary Gray. MPAA Rating: R (profanity, violence, adult themes) Running Time: 137 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
Sometimes it's obvious that a film isn't about the plot, it's about the names above the title. COCKTAIL was no more a coming-of-age story than it was a geopolitical thriller; it was about Tom Cruise smiling and mixing drinks. UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL was about as interested in journalistic ethics as the National Enquirer; it was really about Robert Redford and Michelle Pfeiffer sharing soft-focus love scenes. And could you differentiate between any two non-TERMINATOR Schwarzenegger action films with a gun to your head? For better or for worse -- more often the latter, contemporary Hollywood films often sell personalities rather than stories.
If you watched commercials or previews for THE NEGOTIATOR closely enough, you'd realize that Warner Bros. isn't selling us a story about a veteran Chicago hostage negotiator named Danny Roman (Samuel L. Jackson) who takes hostages in a police building after he's framed for insurance fraud and the murder of his partner (Paul Guilfoyle). It's not about the cool negotiator named Chris Sabian (Kevin Spacey) whom Roman demands as his police liaison. No, THE NEGOTIATOR is about a showdown between Jackson and Spacey, two actors whose intensity and burning intelligence make them magnetically watchable. Even with theatrical trailers awash in spraying bullets and shattering glass, you expect that the real warfare will be psychological, a chess match as much between Jackson and Spacey as between the characters they play.
If THE NEGOTIATOR had delivered on that promise, it would have been one of those rare exceptions where a "personality plot" would have been the right choice. You just know it's headed in the wrong direction when it becomes clear how much time will be spent figuring out who's behind the police conspiracy to set up Roman. Is it internal affairs inspector Niebaum (the late J. T. Walsh)? Grandfatherly Commander Frost (Ron Rifkin)? Hard-nosed Commander Beck (David Morse)? Mission chief Travis (John Spencer)? Will the mysterious informant turn up? Will computer files tell all?
Who cares? For all the sound and fury surrounding both the conspiracy and the attempts to take Roman by force, THE NEGOTIATOR is built on the clash of two characters who win not by shooting faster, but by thinking faster, by turning words into their most effective weapons. Jackson and Spacey take the two similar roles and turn them into distinct individuals so deftly that the slices of family life provided as back-story seem embarrassingly clumsy by contrast. In Jackson's hands, Roman is less a super-cop on a quest for justice than he is an arrogant super-star who can't believe he's being treated like an ordinary citizen. The flicker of instability which makes it possible to believe he'd kill contrasts perfectly with the icy resolve of Spacey's Sabian. When those two characters lock wits and eyes, each struggling to size the other up and determine whether he's an ally or an adversary, THE NEGOTIATOR is compelling stuff.
Those moments just don't come nearly often enough. Spacey doesn't make his first appearance until nearly 45 minutes have passed, leaving plenty of time for the film to detour onto well-worn action-suspense avenues. Though Paul Giamatti (fast becoming the most recognizable unknown actor in movies) provides solid comic relief as a con artist among Roman's hostages, even the one-liners further emphasize that this drama really isn't anything special. It could have been and should have been more than another DIE HARD clone, more than an over-long mystery where you begin to feel you should leave as soon as you figure out the real bad guy. THE NEGOTIATOR should have played to the strength of its cast, with more scenes of Roman reducing his colleagues to blubbering bowls of putting, or Sabian taking control of a room with the force of his confidence. It's a disappointing reverse-tease: with two great stars to show off, it has the nerve to go and offer us a plot.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 intensive negotiations: 5.
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