Ransom
It’s always interesting to take note of in this world those who are the type to always want to have full CONTROL of everything and of every situation in their lives, even if it means bending and / or breaking the rules once in a while. It’s even more interesting when you witness a situation where two men who have the same mindset as this but are from different backgrounds lock horns in a conflict of epic proportions, a conflict where the very real elements of psychology, both what you say AND how you say it come into play just as strongly as any acts of violence or bloodshed. Factor in the idea that the conflict arises over the health and well being of a loved one of one of the two men (that being his son) and the stakes manage to get raised tenfold, and that’s exactly what happens here in this amazing yet underrated 1996 action thriller directed by Ron Howard, a director whose career has been kinda curious to say the least, as he’s really just a guy who’s got the balls to fearlessly dabble in any number of different genres, and has somehow attained the ability to make seemingly even the most mundane dramas into watchable, bubblegum, popcorn style flicks (which at times can be both a blessing and a curse despite the fact that he has an Oscar win on his resume). Here he scores the best effort of his career, his Grand Masterpiece that takes its superb premise and milks it to its full potential. As far as the two men whose very wills clash throughout for the majority of the film, first we have Tom Mullen played by Mel Gibson (reaffirming here just what a great ACTOR he really is), a former Air Force pilot turned founder and CEO of a smaller sized airline company who has just been put through the wringer by both the FBI and the media over alleged bribes to a now incarcerated mob boss so that he would head off a strike by the machinist’s union that potentially could have put a smaller airline like his out of business for good, and now with the public rep of being a “dirty businessman” weighing on his head, receives the most unpleasant shock of his life when his young son (Brawley Nolte, Nick Nolte’s son) is suddenly kidnapped and held for ransom leading Gibson to at first suspect the mob cronies before dreadfully realizing that it’s something even worse: an unexpected third party whom he’s never met before whose partial motivation for the kidnapping was coming to despise Gibson for previously using his money to buy his way out of trouble and not going to jail after watching him on TV and presuming that this man would be willing to just about buy his way out of anything including preserving his son’s life. On the other end of the spectrum is the head kidnapper himself, in reality an ex Marine turned NYPD Police Detective played by Gary Sinise, a guy who sadly got stuck in a rut after this film just playing one villain role after another to lesser effect, but scored here not just with his best ever bad guy performance, but maybe his career best, most intense performance EVER, playing his Jimmy Shaker as a guy who is just slightly more upscale than his fellow accomplices, a group of small time hoods holed up in a dingy apartment with the kid tied up in the bedroom, blindfolded, and forced to listen to blasting heavy metal music day and night, while Sinise (who obviously “discovered” and recruited them while busting their asses on his day job) manages them as if he were their commanding officer and keeps them together as a unit even when they threaten to mutiny, and when he’s dealing directly with Gibson, his cold contempt bordering on outright arrogance just bubbles to the surface almost immediately, outright mocking his prey over his perceived mistakes from the past while taking great pleasure in telling this multi millionaire whom he thinks of as being morally corrupt anyway that he and he alone is the guy in charge. However, when the initial money drop goes bad and a member of the gang is killed, Gibson sits there on the phone and listens to Sinise’s electronically altered voice chew him out with relish before setting up the next drop when he literally has a revelation about how to handle the matter. He heads towards a local TV station with the $2 million dollars in cash, goes live on the air, and in either an act of psychotic defiance or unstable aggression, announces to the kidnapper that not only will he never see a dollar of this money, but that the ransom money can now be considered a BOUNTY on the son of a bitch’s head, provided of course that his son is returned unharmed then at which time the bounty will be withdrawn. This results in the tables being completely turned on Sinise, as his own troops freak out on him and it takes everything in his own power to keep himself from becoming unglued and losing his own self control over this situation which he himself has created. Obviously, the psychological battle of wits between Gibson and Sinise is well worth more than the price of admission, and both actors are at the top of their game in bringing it off here, with Sinise’s final plays in the contest still managing to keep Gibson on his toes, along with the overall contempt for the upper class wealthy and elite lifestyle that he openly projects even when he and Gibson come face to face. And just as well Howard directs it all with a sure hand on the wheel, knowing full well that it’s pretty much a two man show while still allowing others to contribute as he keeps the pacing brisk and the story development airtight. In other roles, Rene Russo (an actress who sadly didn’t see her career peak until well past middle age) plays Gibson’s despondent wife as well as she can, even while disagreeing with her husband’s strategy for the obvious reason that it’s absolutely the most dangerous gamble imaginable; Delroy Lindo plays the FBI agent in charge (and practically living in Gibson’s house) as a bullheaded moron following the Feds’ standard kidnap handling playbook to the letter (which Sinise no doubt had already studied) who uses every ounce of manipulation on his part to dissuade Gibson from his course of action; Lili Taylor takes on the role of Sinise’s accomplice / girlfriend as someone who unravels at the seams throughout the movie (especially when the bounty is placed) to the point of going into a near suicidal state herself; Liev Schreiber and Donnie Wahlberg as the two criminal brothers helping Sinise both do solid jobs here, even generating ample amounts of sympathy when things go bad for them, mostly because of Wahlberg’s almost touching compassion for the kid and Schreiber’s growing desperation to just find a way out of the whole caper, money or no money; and Evan Handler as the hacker whiz who specializes in scrambling any phone or email signal the kidnappers use to communicate with Gibson has a couple of funny, smartass moments. The interesting thing about the whole showdown here is that while Gibson labels his antagonists as “human garbage”, he somehow manages to correctly ascertain that these are complete cowards that he is dealing with as well, leading him to take the certifiably insane risk of literally DARING the kidnappers to kill his only son while also letting them know that the manhunt to catch and kill them will be one of historic proportions, and whether or not Gibson is (legally) talking out of his ass or not, the ploy works, as none of the kidnappers (even Sinise) can seem to agree on who actually gets to kill the kid, plus knowing that the bounty is on their heads manages to unnerve them completely and break their spirit in the process, thus making the film at its core be about an intended helpless victim who decides to use all the resources at his disposal to fight back with such a ferocity that is unimaginable and also so completely unorthodox that it throws the kidnappers totally off their game, and shows that Gibson himself is much, much more than in the words of Sinise, “a payer.” If only more people in this world had the courage to stand up to their oppressors and fight back (sometimes with little more than mere words) and let them know that they are NOT afraid and will NOT be intimidated by them EVER, then we would all clearly see that the troublemakers who reside in our midst are the ones with the real fear who are incredibly scared of their own shadows, just as this film teaches us to never back down from those who would hurt and take advantage of both us and those we love and cherish…
10/10