Film
Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in Chicago, plus articles, trailers and more
- Home
- Box Office
- Listings
- Trailers
- Features
Bookmark this page- Edition:
The Negotiator (1998)
Director: F Gary Gray
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
Originally developed as a star vehicle for Sylvester Stallone, this mutated into a hybrid action-drama featuring the choreographed pyrotechnics of director Gray and a battle of words between contrasting hostage negotiators Jackson and Spacey. It scores on both counts, though the dovetailing of the explosive action and the verbal fireworks is not always as snug as it might be. Falsely accused of murder and embezzlement, Danny Roman (Jackson) buys time by taking hostage Commander Frost (Rifkin), head of the Chicago police's Internal Affairs Division, together with his administrative staff and an unlucky bystander. Suspecting an inside job, Roman demands that he deal with Chris Sabian (Spacey), a stranger from another district and reputedly the second best hostage negotiator in the city. Roman knows exactly how to manipulate the situation to his advantage, but his instinctive, improvisational approach is matched by Sabian's shrewd use of psychology and manipulative mind games. The draw for Spacey and Jackson fans is the chance to see two consummate actors engage in a subtle war of words, but for too much of the film they're either at separate ends of a telephone, or simply divided from one another by the plot logistics and action scenes.Author: NF
Cast & crew
Director: F Gary Gray
Producer: David Hoberman, Arnon Milchan
Cast: Samuel L Jackson, Kevin Spacey, David Morse, Ron Rifkin, John Spencer, JT Walsh, Siobhan Fallon full cast
Genre(s): Thrillers
Duration: 139 mins
Features
Gray's anatomy
James Gray wants to push buttons—again.
The next big thing?
Gigantic Releasing tries to rethink indie distribution…without movie theaters.
Red Diva: Lyubov Orlova, First Lady of Soviet Cinema
So you think you can dance, comrade?
Puppet master
Coraline director Henry Selick takes stop-motion animation into 3-D.
Socratic method
Laurent Cantet's approach on the set matches the message of his film.
Wander woman
Kelly Reichardt's Wendy and Lucy puts a Bush-era spin on the road movie.
Oscars
Read our interviews with the nominees, our reviews of the nominated films and more.
What do you think?
Post your review now