(1996) High-powered, action thriller from the muzzle of director Ron Howard's well-aimed drama, with James Horner's hard-driving score, bursts forward before it explodes, ricocheting into a profusion of plot twists.

During a science fair in Central Park, New York City, the nine-year-old son of multimillionaire Tom Mullen (Mel Gibson), CEO of Endeavor Airlines, is kidnapped; an e-mail informs Tom and his wife Katherine (Rene Russo) that they have 48 hours to deliver $2 million in ransom if they want to see Sean (Brawley Nolte) alive again. Though warned not to contact the FBI, police, or media, Tom and Kate call the FBI.

The kidnappers - Maris Connor (female and former caterer for the Mullens), brothers Cubby and Clark Barnes, and a fourth man - have Sean secured to a bed with eyes duct-taped; the mastermind, Jimmy Shaker (Gary Sinise), is an NYPD cop in a romantic relationship with Maris. Jimmy makes clear to the others he intends to kill the kid once the money's handed over, with which Cubby's extremely uncomfortable.

Tom tells FBI agent Lonnie Hawkins (Delroy Lindo), in charge of the case with experience at having handled ten similar situations over the past five years (seven successfully resolved), that he suspects Jackie Brown (Dan Heyada), incarcerated for involvement in a bribery scandal with the airline's machinists union, may be behind the abduction.

After Tom insists on personally delivering the money in two suitcases, according to the telephoned instructions, everything the FBI devises to follow Tom and the money - the wired car, the tracking devices in the bags, the wire Tom's wearing - is neutralized. "Why me?" asks Tom, communicating by car phone while following Jimmy's voice-distorted directions. "'Cause you buy your way out of trouble," replies Jimmy: "You're a payer." (Having read the news reports of the machinists scandal, Jimmy correctly figured that Mullen paid a bribe to save his airline from a strike.)

Jimmy then explains his view of the world in which everyone is divided into two camps, as in H.G. Wells's The Time Machine: the underground Morlocks who do all the dirty work to make life enjoyable for the grape-eating, toga-clad Elois living on the surface: "Every once in a while one of you gets snatched."

The FBI's SWAT mission "goes wrong" in a "botched drop." Not expecting to see his son alive again, distrustful of the federal agents, Tom also realizes now that the "business," as Hawkins called it, "is very personal." Following a second contact from the kidnappers, going out again on his own alone, Tom changes strategy and goes on TV, announcing his refusal to pay the money demanded, instead turning the ransom into a $2-million bounty.

This radical reversal throws Jimmy off balance, but also Kate - If Tom paid off the machinists to save the airline, why not the kidnappers to save Sean? - and Hawkins, who applies pressure on Kate to turn Tom away from his sabotage of the FBI's policy to pay the ransom.

A significant flaw in this story is the absence of Jimmy's motive, making the crime personal rather than a business transaction, in not wanting to return the boy once he has the money; his relationship with Maris (Lili Taylor) suggests a linkage, but the connection isn't expressed.

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Copyright © 2008 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
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