Review of
Proof of Life
Reviewed by Bill Gienapp
Director: Taylor Hackford
Starring: Russell Crowe,Meg Ryan,David Morse,David Caruso
In Proof of Life, Russell Crowe plays a hunky Australian movie star who teams with an American sweetheart starlet (portrayed by Meg Ryan) for a big-budget Hollywood action thriller. Ryan's character falls hard for the burning intensity and rugged good looks of her macho co-star, so she quickly ships her hapless husband, played by Dennis Quaid, down the river so they can live happily ever
oh wait, that's not the movie, that's real life. My bad. In truth, Proof of Life features David Morse as Peter Bowman, a prominent American engineer who's randomly snatched by local revolutionaries in the fictional Latin American country of Tecala. Enter Terry Thorne (Crowe), an elite hostage negotiator from the London-based K & R (Kidnap & Ransom), who begins the exhaustive game of cat-and-mouse that will decide Peter's fate. Also on hand is Peter's wife, Alice (Ryan), who finds herself yearning both for her husband's safe return and for Thorne's bulging biceps. Will the two stars ultimately tumble into the sack? Will art imitate life? Hey, I had to pay to see so do you.
Proof of Life is one of those old-fashioned sweeping adventure-epics that plugs you into a politically-charged atmosphere while working on an impressive canvas of exotic locals. As directed by Taylor Hackford (The Devil's Advocate a film my brother and I just find inherently hilarious for some reason), the movie wants to be both a rousing spectacle and an intelligent meditation on the burgeoning field of hostage negotiation on the world stage, but, well, frankly it proves to be neither. I will give Hackford mad props for the fantastic finale, in which Thorne and his team of mercenaries attempt a daring rescue operation, which is reminiscent of the best work of Michael Mann in its gritty realism (plus it's the only time in which Crowe is allowed to fully morph into Gladiator ass-kicking mode). The other two-thirds of Proof of Life simply aren't wound tight enough, however Thorne is in such control during the negotiation sequences that there's no edge to them, no cinematic jolt. Instead you find your mind wandering towards the theater that's showing Vertical Limit.
And I really hate to say it, but I have to point out that even though Crowe and Ryan were apparently knocking boots on a regular basis off the set, their sexual tension on-screen is pretty tepid. Far more interesting is the intense psychological journey endured by Morse, who undergoes a De Niro-esque transformation as he disappears into an unruly thatch of caveman hair. He, at any rate, comes off a lot better than David Caruso, who pops up as Thorne's hard-boiled sidekick, desperately clinging to the last shreds of his NYPD Blue fame. And while I continue to be enormously impressed by the fact that Meg Ryan looks equally good with both short and long hair (yeah, think about it), Proof of Life ultimately belongs to Russell Crowe. True, he doesn't prove to be quite as badass as Maximus was in Gladiator, but hey he still got the girl, right?
