Surprisingly incoherent and boring

Memorable, crazy movie

A Masterpiece!

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

One word came out of this film. CORRUPTION. I wasn't actually gonna do a review, considering, I would only have one word. But the action and the scene, was just unreal. It tells a story of a cop Danny(Jackson), was being framed for a murder of another cop. Battles ensues between the cops and the Feds aka FBI get involved. Music score was quite good actually. Very suspenseful, no doubt. hahaah. Chris Sabier gets involved as Danny asked for him. Then during the film, the SWAT team and other police cops Chicago PDs, get involved by breaking what Chris had asked him to do. Then the lawyer or some other cop gets thrown into the ring, Frost. It has then been found that Frost was the one who did the framing. It just goes to show you who you can trust. "You can't trust anyone".

In the decade of exploding action films with plenty of clichéd characters and plot points, The Negotiator manages to avoid most of the predictable moments and keep you on the edge of your seat throughout the film. This was also the beginning of the endless Samuel L Jackson action flicks with an overwhelming amount of quotable lines. But as much as I liked Jackson, I loved the supporting cast. When you have people like David Morse, Paul Giamatti, and Kevin Spacey rounding out the cast, the film is in good hands.The film tells the story of a police negotiator who gets his world flipped on him when he is accused of murdering his best friend and corruption and is forced to take matters into his own hands. I like the idea of having what you try and stop everyday as a living, end up being the very thing you're doing to prove your innocence. It's an added bonus that the film takes place and is filmed mostly in Chicago, my hometown. There are the inevitable slow-motion shots and occasionally questionable one-liners, I think the film tends to stay away from the grain. The story definitely seemed fresh, and the back and forth between Spacey and Jackson was the best part of the movie.I will say I was pretty worried about how the film was going to end knowing the whole movie took place in one location. But I feel the movie tended to get a little bit obsessed with itself towards the climax. A few of the characters motives were questionable at best and it felt melodramatic at times. With that said, this is definitely one of those movies that if it comes on T.V., I probably wont want to turn it off as it has endlessly re-watchable scenes with classic Spacey and Jackson performances, not to mention just how funny Giamatti is here as he is the one and only source for comedic relief.+Spacey & Jackson dynamic +Chi-town +Giamatti is hilarious +Tends to stay away from the clichés -Melodramatic towards the end -Some character motives 7.6/10

(Un)spoiler #1 : hero is negotiator in a tense hostage situation. So it will be either cliché # 1a : it turns good, hero remains hero and will have serious problems afterward but still wins at the end cliché # 1b : it turns bad. ex-hero will need rest of the the movie to redeem himself, wins at the end, but perhaps dying in the processBingo! It's cliché 1a, at least first part(Un)spoiler #2 : hero is informed of some kind of conspiracy by his partner. So it will be either cliché # 2a: partner is going to die sooncliché # 2b: no cliché # 2b availableSurprise: It's cliché # 2a(Un)spoiler #3 : partner asks hero to rejoin him at some nowhere in the middle of the nightSo cliché 2a rejoins cliché 1a : hero will be framed for partner's killingNow hero becomes hostage taker, an other negotiator is called on and the movie can drag and drag and drag and drag and drag and drag and drag and drag and drag and drag, and include some stupid scene with the hero's annoying woman and drag and drag and drag and drag and drag and drag with more clichés on the way (faking an hostage killing for example and drag and drag and drag and dragand eventually come to a stereotyped happy end, including comeback on screen of that annoying womanBut when you look at recent movies, this one has at least some technical qualities. Competent actors, no CGI and no shaking cameras

I watched this movie tonight. I love it so much that I was not able to move out from my seat. This film is an excellent intelligent movie with fantastic actors of Samuel L. Jackson and Kevin Spacey. For sure Samuel L. Jackson played his best of ability to deliver this well written by James DeMonaco, and Kevin Fox. Jackson was a police hostage negotiator, and he set up for a crime that he didn't commit. He worked with amazing strategy to get into truth by taking his own hostages and find out about the truth by bluffing, and negotiating, and smart actions. I RECOMMEND this movie to those people who would like to get nailed down to their chairs for over one hour, and enjoy an intelligent movie. I give score 9 out of 10.