Ransom

Rating:
Summary: one of the better remakes
Review: I usally dont care for remakes! This was a remake of a 1955 version with Donna Reed and Glen Ford. But this is much better the raw emotion of Mel Gibson and Renee Russo just made the movie just so completly come into place. I had tears in my eys through out the whole movie. The commentary with Ron Howard is great also. A must have for any collection!!!

Rating:
Summary: A waste of Ron Howard's talents!
Review: I'm not sure how long ago Howard and the screenwriters came up with this story, but it could have stayed on the shelves. Yes the acting is great, but COME ON! Rich couples' child gets kidnapped, perpetrators demand ransom money in return, suspense ensues, hero and villain play cat and mouse - OLDEST STORY IN THE BOOK! Anybody could have directed this movie! Word of advice, Howard: stick to comedy and real life drama which you have perfected so well over the years.

Rating:
Summary: Can Gary Sinise get any Better!!!
Review: In whatever Mr. Sinise seems to do he always comes out on top. In this movie it really shows by the man playing a cop who is actually holding an eleven year old kid for a two million dollar ransom. The two sequences in the movie that are very supurb are the ones where Sinise is telling Gibson how to pay him off in the car where he's talking about comparing THE TIME MACHINE to New York City. The other is the last sequence where he (Sinise) is about to get paid four million dollars by Gibson. In short Gary Sinise is and will be for a long time one of the most lively and emotional actors on screen and stage. (Please see him in ONE FLEW OVER THE CUKOO'S NEST on Broadway until the 29th of July. He plays R.P. McMurphey. He's better than Douglas and Nicholson)

Rating:
Summary: A different type of movie from Ron Howard.
Review: Intense but uneven story from director Ron Howard in which Mel Gibson and Rene Russo play a father and mother who play a deadly game of cat and mouse to save their son from violent kidnappers. Very violent and the story does suffer a bit in the course of the movie toward the climax.

Rating:
Summary: Average
Review: Mel Gibson could hardly resist doing this picture since it not only amounts to a vehicle for him, but is exactly the kind of slightly off-beat but heroic part that he likes (cf., Conspiracy Theory 1997). He does a good job although his tendency to overact is not under consistent directorial control. But Ron Howard directing Mel Gibson is a bit like Spike Lee directing Danny DeVito. (Huh?) Or how about Oprah Winfrey directing Whoopie Goldberg? Or, John Wayne directing Clint Eastwood?

Gary Sinise as Jimmy Shaker, a cop gone not just bad, but sleazy psycho bad, also does a good job although just why he is such a sickie and why nobody noticed before is not developed or even explained. Rene Russo does her best (alas) as the suffering wife and mother condemned to a dreary role of one dimension. I was thinking, how about some creative casting? Instead of Lili Taylor as the bad girl, how about having her play Gibson's trophy wife and make Russo the girl gone bad? Taylor is talented enough to pull it off with panache and Russo would be an arresting sight among the degenerates.

Ron Howard clearly worked hard to hi-tech the old ransom plot with cell phones and cell phone tracers, infrared goggles, voice-distorters, helicopters and electronic homing devices. He provides plenty of shoot 'em up and gives the tale a twist with Gibson challenging the kidnappers. He also affords us a lot of satisfying revenge stuff at the end.

I do have a couple of questions though. Was his portrait of the FBI inspired by the real life FBI's fine work at Ruby Ridge and Waco? I mean at no time in this movie did the FBI do anything positive. I'm not crazy about today's FBI anymore than anyone else, but was this a fair and realistic take on how they might handle such a case? Also what was police detective Jimmy Shaker's motivation for the kidnapping in the first place? After x number of years on the force he suddenly gets a yen for a lot of money and balmy climes? Finally why doesn't he just take his cleverly and murderously earned reward a couple of days down the road instead of showing up prematurely at the Mullen place and giving himself away?

Bottom line: this picks up after a slow beginning, and there's some clever business along the way, but don't examine it too closely.

Rating:
Summary: this movie is kind of weird
Review: mel gibson stars as a milti millionaire when him and his wife rene russo and his son sean (bradley Nolte)they thought they get it made but at the science fair sean gets kidnapped and held for ransom but his dad fights back when he turns the tables on the kidnappers and offers that ransom as a reward to anyone leading to the kidnappers thats why its kind of weird

Rating:
Summary: Flawed yet serviceable thriller with tight suspense.
Review: One of the factors that keeps "Ransom" from being a great movie, as opposed to a good one, is that we know too much in the beginning about who's behind the crime at the center of the story. In effect, this tactic also works in the movie's favor, providing it the opportunity to create a truly suspenseful game of psychological cat-and-mouse while showcasing powerhouse performances from Mel Gibson and Gary Sinise. Once the movie draws to a conclusion, the good points of this Catch-22 plot point outweigh the bad, but there are drawbacks.

Gibson is cast as wealthy airline owner Tom Mullen, living a picture-perfect life in New York City with his wife Kate (Rene Russo) and young son Sean (Brawley Nolte). All is as it should be until Sean is kidnapped from a science fair in Central Park, leaving Tom and Kate distraught and feeling helpless. Despite the kidnapper's warning that there be no police or law officials involved, Tom turns to the FBI, believing that this crime against him may have a connection to a payoff he made that landed gangster Jackie Brown in prison (the motivation behind the crime is never really cemented, but passed off as jealous rage for Tom's avoidance of prison for said payoff).

On the opposite end of the threatening phone calls and emails is detective Jimmy Baker (Gary Sinise), his girlfriend Maris (Lili Taylor), hacker whiz Miles (Evan Handler), and brothers Clark and Cubby Barnes (Liev Schreiber and Donnie Wahlberg). They make a demand of two millions dollars in return for the safe delivery of Tom's son, which Tom agrees to pay at the behest of Kate and the FBI officials assigned to the case.

To this day, I don't know why filmmakers even bother to include an FBI subplot in any crime thriller, given their obvious failures and mishaps in movies stretching back as far as time itself. Take, for instance, the scene in which Tom leaves to deliver the money in return for the address where his son is located. When he arrives for the exchange with Cubby, who has told his brother he will not deliver the money until Baker delivers Tom's son, the FBI helicopters fill the night sky and ruin what would have been a successful payoff. Only after this incident does it ever occur to them that there might be more than one person involved in the kidnapping.

I also think the movie would benefit from keeping the identity of Sinise's character a secret until a sufficient point much later in the film, perhaps when he alerts the police to the boy's whereabouts. The presence of his fellow kidnappers is more than enough to suffice the mystery of his identity; it just seems like the old unknown mastermind plot twist would serve the movie better than knowing upfront.

And that's an even bigger problem, considering that the identity of this character is intrical to the effectiveness of the movie's turn of events, in which Tom turns his promised delivery of the ransom money into a bounty for the kidnappers' identities, provided they are captured and positively identified as such, of course. Risking his son's life and the disapproval from his wife, he dives into a dangerous mind game in which he challenges his son's captors to come clean without their expected reward, and despite the fact that we can predict how this plot twist will eventually end up, there is still a great deal of tension resonating from this psychological battle of the minds.

In addition to the high level of suspense, this thriller is armed with a sure-fire cast that hits all the right notes in all the right places. Tom's devotion to his son, as well as his wanting for nothing more than his safe return, is beautifully acted by Gibson, who delivers lines like "Give me back my son!" with a sublime mixture of fear and anger. Russo also receives high marks as a mother driven mad by all that's going on around her, and her scenes involving fits of anger and fright are hard-hitting and realistically acted. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Sinise portrays Baker's gradual breakdown with savage brutality, becoming more than just an ordinary movie villain. As the quartet of kidnappers, Taylor, Handler, Schreiber and Wahlberg each have moments where they shine.

Overall, I liked "Ransom." I enjoyed its ability to keep me on edge while waiting for a plot twist I saw coming a mile away; I greatly enjoyed watching a wonderful cast exercising their most extreme talent; most of all, I relished the tension that centers on the mind game Tom engages in with those who wish to do his son harm. As much as I enjoyed it, I wonder how the movie would fare if Baker's identity as the mastermind were kept a secret, and whether or not the absence of the FBI from the story would make much of a difference; maybe we'll never know.

Rating:
Summary: Flawed yet serviceable thriller with tight suspense.
Review: One of the factors that keeps "Ransom" from being a great movie, as opposed to a good one, is that we know too much in the beginning about who's behind the crime at the center of the story. In effect, this tactic also works in the movie's favor, providing it the opportunity to create a truly suspenseful game of psychological cat-and-mouse while showcasing powerhouse performances from Mel Gibson and Gary Sinise. Once the movie draws to a conclusion, the good points of this Catch-22 plot point outweigh the bad, but there are drawbacks.

Gibson is cast as wealthy airline owner Tom Mullen, living a picture-perfect life in New York City with his wife Kate (Rene Russo) and young son Sean (Brawley Nolte). All is as it should be until Sean is kidnapped from a science fair in Central Park, leaving Tom and Kate distraught and feeling helpless. Despite the kidnapper's warning that there be no police or law officials involved, Tom turns to the FBI, believing that this crime against him may have a connection to a payoff he made that landed gangster Jackie Brown in prison (the motivation behind the crime is never really cemented, but passed off as jealous rage for Tom's avoidance of prison for said payoff).

On the opposite end of the threatening phone calls and emails is detective Jimmy Baker (Gary Sinise), his girlfriend Maris (Lili Taylor), hacker whiz Miles (Evan Handler), and brothers Clark and Cubby Barnes (Liev Schreiber and Donnie Wahlberg). They make a demand of two millions dollars in return for the safe delivery of Tom's son, which Tom agrees to pay at the behest of Kate and the FBI officials assigned to the case.

To this day, I don't know why filmmakers even bother to include an FBI subplot in any crime thriller, given their obvious failures and mishaps in movies stretching back as far as time itself. Take, for instance, the scene in which Tom leaves to deliver the money in return for the address where his son is located. When he arrives for the exchange with Cubby, who has told his brother he will not deliver the money until Baker delivers Tom's son, the FBI helicopters fill the night sky and ruin what would have been a successful payoff. Only after this incident does it ever occur to them that there might be more than one person involved in the kidnapping.

I also think the movie would benefit from keeping the identity of Sinise's character a secret until a sufficient point much later in the film, perhaps when he alerts the police to the boy's whereabouts. The presence of his fellow kidnappers is more than enough to suffice the mystery of his identity; it just seems like the old unknown mastermind plot twist would serve the movie better than knowing upfront.

And that's an even bigger problem, considering that the identity of this character is intrical to the effectiveness of the movie's turn of events, in which Tom turns his promised delivery of the ransom money into a bounty for the kidnappers' identities, provided they are captured and positively identified as such, of course. Risking his son's life and the disapproval from his wife, he dives into a dangerous mind game in which he challenges his son's captors to come clean without their expected reward, and despite the fact that we can predict how this plot twist will eventually end up, there is still a great deal of tension resonating from this psychological battle of the minds.

In addition to the high level of suspense, this thriller is armed with a sure-fire cast that hits all the right notes in all the right places. Tom's devotion to his son, as well as his wanting for nothing more than his safe return, is beautifully acted by Gibson, who delivers lines like "Give me back my son!" with a sublime mixture of fear and anger. Russo also receives high marks as a mother driven mad by all that's going on around her, and her scenes involving fits of anger and fright are hard-hitting and realistically acted. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Sinise portrays Baker's gradual breakdown with savage brutality, becoming more than just an ordinary movie villain. As the quartet of kidnappers, Taylor, Handler, Schreiber and Wahlberg each have moments where they shine.

Overall, I liked "Ransom." I enjoyed its ability to keep me on edge while waiting for a plot twist I saw coming a mile away; I greatly enjoyed watching a wonderful cast exercising their most extreme talent; most of all, I relished the tension that centers on the mind game Tom engages in with those who wish to do his son harm. As much as I enjoyed it, I wonder how the movie would fare if Baker's identity as the mastermind were kept a secret, and whether or not the absence of the FBI from the story would make much of a difference; maybe we'll never know.

Rating:
Summary: Decent thriller with a superb cast
Review: Ransom features two of my all-time favorite actors-Mel Gibson and Gary Sinise-facing each other off in a game of cat-and-mouse. Naturally, my expectations for the film should be high. While the film does have its thrilling sequences, there are also needless subplots and repellent violence and tone. There are also a lack of surprises, as everything plays in a manner that's not too hard to guess.

As should be expected, the acting in the film is superb, with Gibson delivering a powerful performance as the flawed man who only wishes to get his son back. Rene Russo as his wife also shows strength and passion. Equalling Gibson's performance is the terrific Gary Sinise, who plays his villainous character to perfection (or rather imperfection), a guy you just love to hate.

Though far from perfect and the occasionaly stilted direction from Ron Howard, the great cast and some suspenseful sequences make this film worth a look

Rating:
Summary: Good film with a bad ending
Review: Ransom had the potential to be a great movie, but gave it up for a " Hollywood " ending. Gibson and Sinise are great in this film. Their mind games are worth the price of admission alone. Plenty of suspense, great direction, and an overall heartfelt story add to the film. I don't want to ruin the ending, but I will tell you that it sacrifices a powerful ending for a silly, " Hollywood " happy ending.