Liberty Stands Still Reviews

Strikingly similar to the 20-years-in-the-making theatrical film, PHONE BOOTH (2002), this film's concept just jell. Liberty Wallace (Linda Fiorentino) isn't at all uncomfortable about her links to the weapons business: Not only was her family involved in gun manufacture for several generations, but she married America's premier arms merchant, Victor Wallace (Oliver Platt). While former war hero Victor is busy trafficking in international armaments, Liberty takes business breaks to conduct an adulterous affair with an actor. The balance of their marriage of convenience shifts when a sniper, Joe (Wesley Snipes), trains his rifle on Liberty as she walks along a busy Manhattan street. Joe orders Liberty to cuff her ankle to a hot dog vendor's cart and barks commands into her cell phone from his vantage point somewhere in a nearby building. Joe's meticulously orchestrated assault includes his claim that he's planted one bomb in the vendor's cart and attached another to Liberty's lover, who's now in his theater dressing room. Liberty realizes she can't buy her way out of the situation and is forced to consider Joe's demand for an anti-gun forum. The reason for Joe's siege: His young daughter was fatally shot by a school classmate. Despite his past as a CIA agent, Joe is no longer supports the unequivocal right to bear arms. He at first seems he is using Liberty as bait to attract media attention, but after he guns down a reporter who happens to be the son of a hawkish US senator, Liberty wonders whether Joe's next target will be Victor! This think piece camouflaged as an action movie pummels viewers with its anti-gun rhetoric. The characters are so unlikable and the plot twists so unbelievable that this diatribe inadvertently undermines its own argument.