During lazy overcast days and nights, my television is plastered with simple-minded thrills. The DVD player runs on overdrive to amuse my obedient brain with good cops, bad cops, and Michael Douglas. I absorb every morsel of schlocky action. And while I sit at the edge of my crumb-infested sofa, tensions rise and fall into my lap of gas-station goodies. This is the good life, I say.
The thriller genre is wide ranging, beginning over 100 years ago with Fred C. Newmeyer and Sam Taylor’s Safety Last! being released in 1923, and it carries on now to the umpteenth Mission: Impossible. Both are miraculously performed with many real jaw-dropping sequences of death-defying stunts. But I think Hollywood knocked it out of the park (and never returned) during the ’90s with F. Gary Gray’s The Negotiator and Michael Bay’s The Rock, which both encompass everything I admire about the genre.
As its title would suggest, The Negotiator is a classic cop flick, and Danny Roman (Samuel L. Jackson) is the smoothest-talking negotiator in the game. As a testament to his expertise, the film cold opens on a madman, who, in a fit of rage, has taken his own daughter hostage. Within eight minutes, the situation is diffused and hero Danny is celebrated with commendatory cheers and applause. They all go back to a typical-looking cop bar to celebrate. Unfortunately for Danny, however, he’s been struck with bitter luck. As the film’s tagline reads, “He frees hostages for a living. Now he’s taking hostages to survive.” This is all true—he has been sorely accused of bloody murder and must use his resources accordingly. Thanks to a lifetime of trade tricks, a cool-headed Danny locks himself and several colleagues in their office building to begin the plea of innocence—do not fear, he knows what he’s doing. Danny demands only for one negotiator to resolve the issue: Chris Sabian (Kevin Spacey). Their short conferences dictate the fate of the several lives trapped under Danny’s authority. With police corruption, wrongful accusations, hostages, and a ticking clock on the line, Danny must choose his words carefully.
The Rock is similarly composed of clichés: hostages, unlikely duos, deadlines. But where The Negotiator lacks in chemical weaponry, The Rock does not. After many years of Alcatraz’s remodelled tourism, decorated war hero General Hummel (Ed Harris) and his militia occupy the territory and all tourists inside, in demand of $100 million. If the FBI does not comply, Hummel plans on releasing chemical warfare against the entirety of San Fransisco. Thankfully, Goodspeed (Nicholas Cage) is an FBI scientist and Mason (Sean Connery) is a former Alcatraz convict and ex-British Intelligence. Needless to say, they are hired as an ensemble to save the day.
Bay’s Alcatraz is a maze of Universal Studios-like amusement rides, quickly removing the good guys away from the bad ones. But in a real world without such luxuries, the cheesiest of them are the most indulgent. ’90s thrillers continue to burn into my television without guilt and if the time ever does come to escape the plague it has developed on my vocabulary, a San Francisco cable car can explode me out into the atmosphere.
The Negotiator: 4/5
The Rock: 4/5