A romantic hostage drama (yes, you read that right) set in the fictitious
South American country of Tecala (the movie was shot in Ecuador, standing in
for Columbia). Alice (Meg Ryan) and Peter Bowman (David Morse) are in Tecala
so Peter can supervise the construction of a dam backed by an American oil
company. Their marriage is on shaky ground; David is thrilled to be on a
project he believes (a bit naively) will benefit impoverished, rural Tecalans,
while Alice is stuck in a funk over the miscarriage she had in Africa during
Peter's last job. Then Peter is kidnapped by a volatile guerrilla group with
ties to the country's thriving drug trade. His employers call in professional
kidnap-and-ransom negotiator Terry Thorne (Russell Crowe), but after his first
meeting with the family — involving Alice and Peter's pushy sister, Janis
(Pamela Reed) — they realize that, oops, they've let their K&R insurance
lapse and can't pay. Though Thorne hops the next plane to London, he has a
crisis of conscience and returns to help get back Peter, who's been marched to
a remote guerrilla encampment in the mountains. As the negotiations drag on,
Terry and Alice develop a complex, not-quite-romantic relationship. Though the
romance between Alice and Terry feels as though it was grafted carelessly onto
the kidnapping narrative, Crowe almost makes it work. His emotionally charged performance stands in contrast to Ryan's annoying, movie-star turn. Batting
her eyes, tossing her perky, frosted curls and wearing a series of hippie-chic
outfits, Ryan has the outward signs of a performance down (brimming eyes,
tense mouth) but seems oddly disconnected from Alice's turmoil. The film is
also helped by fine performance from Morse (whose physical degeneration is
painfully convincing), as well as David Caruso, as another hostage negotiator,
and German actor Gottfried John, as a kidnapped missionary. --Maitland McDonagh
