The Negotiator
One of the things that was always fun in the ’90s was to see what escapist nonsense an Oscar-anointed actor would find their way into as Hollywood tried to capitalize on their star rising. F. Gary Gray’s “The Negotiator” might be one of the best examples of that, not just because the screenplay by James DeMonaco and Kevin Fox plays to the strengths of stars Samuel L. Jackson and Kevin Spacey, but because F. Gary Gray- who was coming off of “Set It Off”- has always been a strong craftsman who understands how to get to the heart of his story. If you can get past the fact that Spacey is now outed as an absolute creep of a person, he and Jackson still make a terrific pairing.
As was typically the case in the ’90s, the film begins by showing us our main character, Danny Roman (Jackson), in the middle of a job. He is a hostage negotiator with Chicago PD, and he is in a tough negotiation with husband holding his daughter hostage because his wife cheated on him. A scene like this has always been used to set our ideas of what the main character is like under pressure so that, when they are thrown into the main plot, we get an idea of how they will behave. And for the most part, Danny behaves as expected when he comes to learn that cops are stealing from the pension fund, his partner ends up dead, and he is set up for all of it. He takes the head of Internal Affairs (J.T. Walsh) hostage, as well as Frosty (Ron Rifkin)- one of his bosses, Walsh’s secretary (Siobhan Fallon Hogan) and a lowlife criminal (Paul Giamatti) in hopes of getting answers, which will pit him against some of his own. His request for Chris Sabian (Spacey), a hostage negotiator outside of his own precinct, is the first twist of several in this film.
Sabian does not come into the picture until deep into the film’s 139-minute running time, and I forgot how much his reveal says about his character. We see him in the middle of a negotiation, as well, but his is between his wife and daughter; it’s not going well, and neither does the one he walks into between Roman and his family of fellow cops. It has nothing to do with Sabian, but everything to do with the tension between Roman- who doesn’t know who he can trust- and the cops he’s worked with whom he’s having to try and convince he did nothing wrong. This is one of those thrillers in that decade where great actors populate every part of the story, and here that includes David Morse, John Spencer and Paul Guilfoyle in addition to the ones named earlier, and other ones you’ll recognize. I miss casts like this, and it was a great reminder watching this that these type of movies were the norm at the time.
If you watch carefully as to who some of the cops are that play big parts in the way the negotiations take place, you can figure out many of the sides. (Though not all, smartly.) What keeps us captivated during “The Negotiator” is how each escalation impacts the level of trust between all of the major players. Gray directs the set pieces well, but keeping us engaged is the story, and how different people fit within it. Why did Danny want Sabian? Will Chris earn the trust Danny puts in him? Will his wife (Regina Taylor) be able to help with Danny? Will Niebaum (Walsh’s character) talk straight with Danny? Every few minutes we get some of those answers, and we’re riveted up until the very end. Watching “The Negotiator” was a time capsule to one of my favorite eras of Hollywood escapism, and I loved revisiting a smart, well-crafted piece of genre filmmaking that has some meat on its bones, on top of a cast that just digs in.
