Ransom (1996)
Directed by Ron Howard
When a rich man's son is kidnapped, he cooperates with the police at first but then tries a unique tactic against the criminals.
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Directed by Ron Howard from a much-doctored screenplay by Richard Price and Alexander Ignon, the film settles into a comfortable clip after a sluggish start, but it never develops the urgency of such top-notch kidnap dramas as Hitchcock's "The Man Who Knew Too Much."
A persuasive thriller for most of its length, it stumbles in its attempt to become an upscale version of "Death Wish" and other vigilante dramas and ends up derailing with a soft thud.
Life in his movies (including "Backdraft," "The Paper" and "Apollo 13") is a seamless, simplistic American pantomime.
Like "Backdraft" and "Far and Away," the hero has a couple watershed, tough-guy cries, and Gibson has certainly demonstrated that he's up to showing manly, vein-popping emotion.
While flirting with the darkness in features such as "Backdraft" and "Parenthood" (don't kid yourself, some severe psychological events unfold in that wonderful picture), "Ransom" introduced a maturity to Howard's directorial career, burrowing into a bleak tale of loss and improvised revenge, working from a screenplay co-written by Richard Price ("Sea of Love," "The Color of Money").
Whatever its failings, Ransom, like Martin Scorsese's phenomenal Cape Fear, could have gotten by just through plugging talented, photogenic stars into a proven storyline of a mid-century Hollywood hit.
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Aside from an unnecessary but seemingly mandatory over-the-top finale (the dire influence of "Fatal Attraction" is once more felt), he deals thoughtfully here with adult emotions and ambiguities.
Like "Backdraft" and "Far and Away," the hero has a couple watershed, tough-guy cries, and Gibson has certainly demonstrated that he's up to showing manly, vein-popping emotion.
While flirting with the darkness in features such as "Backdraft" and "Parenthood" (don't kid yourself, some severe psychological events unfold in that wonderful picture), "Ransom" introduced a maturity to Howard's directorial career, burrowing into a bleak tale of loss and improvised revenge, working from a screenplay co-written by Richard Price ("Sea of Love," "The Color of Money").
Howard's great problem as a filmmaker is that he's too good at making movies that are slick and hollow and commercial, which is harmless when he's cranking out action-adventure pablum like Ransom or The Da Vinci Code , except that he can't turn it off, and when he gets to making a movie that, to all appearances, he believes in - Cinderella Man or Backdraft or the infamous A Beautiful Mind - his stabs at pathos and emotional resonance typically feel horribly insincere, regardless of their sincerity.
"Apollo 13" notwithstanding, Howard is known for softer fare, but he turns out to be reasonably effective at building criminal tension, hooking an audience and reeling it in.
With "Apollo 13" he took a story that everyone knew and made a suspenseful hit, so we shouldn't be too surprised that he has taken a basic kidnapping story and made it the best edge-of-the-seat thriller this season.
Life in his movies (including "Backdraft," "The Paper" and "Apollo 13") is a seamless, simplistic American pantomime.
While it is not quite as good as Howard's "Apollo 13" last year, it is certainly a good effort.
More involving and more nerve-wracking than its fairly predictable plotline necessitates, Ron Howard continues the role he started with Apollo 13 of turning out strong mainstream entertainments that mount incredible tension despite known endings.