 Meg Ryan with Russell Crowe in 'Proof of Life' |
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Believe it or not, it's an action film that you can believe in all the way
By
JOHN STANLEY
of TheColumnists.com
I WOULD like to congratulate Taylor Hackford for doing something in an action movie that almost all other directors ignore when they are directing combat scenes involving pyrotechnics and the sound and fury that goes with man in battle with himself.
He's given us something called believability.
His action movie is called "Proof of Life" and what he's done is inject a sense of realism when soldiers are under fire. There are bullet hits where there should be bullet hits, slugs rip bodies apart in ways that they were designed to do, and nobody outraces a slug coming at him or her as Drew Barrymore does in "Charlie's Angels."
Speaking of which . . . Have you noticed in so many of our modern action movies how 15 machine-guns can be blazing away at the hero and yet there isn't a single bullet hit in his vicinity and he just keeps on doing whatever it is that will ultimately make him a live hero at the end of it all. I've even seen this in the recent Bond films, and ultimately have shrugged and thought, "Well, the highly-paid, high-visibility director obviously knew better but didn't give a damn because the producers want action action action, whatever the cost to realism."
Maybe some audiences like this slam-bang nonsense, but if bullets don't ricochet off a wall when someone fires at it, I sneer, even if it's in the dark.
Does that make me a hopeless curmudgeon? Am I getting too old to review movies, or is it that I'm a little more demanding than the 12-year-old I once was when I cheered masked heroes in cliffhangers? If movies mirror our world, at least they should maintain a sense of the physical universe. God forbid that Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore or Lucy Liu should be handicapped by something called gravity when they engage in karate battles with their adversaries--a reflection of how so many of our popcorn movies are constructed.
We have the ability to duplicate reality to the max with today's computer-generated imagery, and yet we fly off into flights of fantasy, even when we should be depicting earthbound realism. Maybe it's an escape we all need from the real world's reality, especially when we have election wars that seem to be off in some realm or netherland that has nothing to do with us as voting citizens. In some ways, real life has become the biggest fantasy of all. But I digress . . .
To get back to "Proof of Life." Action fans will probably be disappointed with a story that spends too much time setting up its climactic rescue, and yet they are certain to be pleased with the opening sequence, which is like one of those opening teasers in the James Bond movies. It has nothing to do with the main story but is a grand slice of action to get us warmed up for the main event. This pre-title business also introduces us to a new action hero, Terry Thorne. Make that action anti-hero.
As underplayed by Russell Crowe, who rarely shows a single hint of emotion in this film, Thorne is a topnotch employee of the Luthan Risk International, a company that arranges ransom and/or rescue for those who have been kidnapped. Thorne is one shrewd negotiator and a shrewd doublecrosser, too, when he has to be. And he's also a rugged man of rescue, if that's the only way to get the job done.
Action fans will groove on the climactic rescue, when Thorne, his spunky buddy Dino (David Caruso) and three other commando-vets carry out a well-planned raid on a village of revolutionaries in the mountains of South America.
It's the in-between section that's going to make action fans edgy in their seats, and since "Proof of Life" is being sold as an action movie on TV and in the trailers, there is certain to be some disappointment for those expecting more.
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Thorne, after cleaning up a kidnapping mess involving terrorists and Russian forces in a Czechoslovakian state, is assigned to negotiate the return of an engineer (David Morse) who has been kidnapped strictly for money by a band of renegades in the South American nation of Tecala (substitute Ecuador for the location shooting).
Screenwriter Tony Gilroy based his story on true events described by William Prochnau in a Vanity Fair article, and on a book by Thomas Hargrove called "The Long March to Freedom." He decided to show a lot of these real-life incidents as Thorne bands with Morse's traumatized wife (Meg Ryan) and hysterical sister (Pamela Reed) to raise the money needed to spring Morse from his mountain prison.
There is local corruption to overcome, as well as a lack of ransom money since Morse's company (which is building a pipeline through the jungle, the cause of the revolutionary movement) failed to insure him against kidnapping.
Since there is never a romance between Crowe and Ryan (but plenty of sexual tension), and the conflicts betweem them are minimal and easily overcome, the planning section of the film is the weakest. However, it is occasionally reinforced by depiction of Morse's ordeal as he is dragged through the mountains, from village to village, by his captors, some of whom are sadistic bastards. How Morse maintains his santiy and dignity during this degrading process is one of the more interesting subplots, and might have deserved more screen time. Morse also gives a strongly believable performance as a kidnappee who uses his wits to survive. Crowe, who showed more thespian stuff in "Gladiator," remains calm and cool no matter what's happening, and that he does well.
The
bottom line is that I still liked this movie, and would be willing
to go back and see another adventure featuring soldier-of-fortune
Terry Thorne. That's more than I can say for the pending "Charlie's
Angels" sequel.
© 2000 by John Stanley.
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comment on this column or contact John Stanley with an email
to: talkback@thecolumnists.com
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