Lebenszeichen - Proof of Life

Proof of Life might well satisfy those more knowledgeable in real-life military matters. When Terry (Crowe) explains to Alice (Ryan) how he started out in the Australian Army, but left for the British Army because there wasn't enough action...he was stating a very plausible possibility. The British Army does indeed accept recruits from Commonwealth nations. Terry also says he is veteran of the elite British Special Air Service, and again, it is true that a huge proportion of ex-SAS members end up in private security efforts of various kinds. When the big raid is carried off, the costumers took enough care to dress Terry in British DPM fatigues, while the American Dino (Caruso) wears American BDU fatigues. Again, this is plausible as these are the sorts of fatigues both men took with them when they left military service. I've seen a lot of reviewers here criticize the end raid sequence.

I found the actions scenes very good and a welcome change from most movies. Terry and Dino actually plan for covering fire from higher ground, fields of fire, etc. So many military raids in movies (The Dogs of War is a good example) just have the characters march out in the open and fire from the hip, with no seeming plan of movement other than to run around, destroy stuff, and look dramatic. Terry and his team never stuck around any longer, nor killed any more of the guerrillas, then necessary to rescue the hostages and escape.

I can see where these details failed to find appreciation with the general viewing public, but I only hope others doing such movies continue to try to be authentic and realistic.

Peter and Alice Bowman are working on a dam in South America in the employment of a large oil company. When Peter is kidnapped the company bring in expert negotiator Terry Thorne. However when the oil company runs out of money due to no insurance, they take Terry off the case and he leaves for another job. However a pang of conscience brings him back to help Alice and he replaces the corrupt locals. As he tries to help get her husband back he also falls for Alice.

As a fan of David Caruso, I was annoyed that I missed this film at the cinema (I blinked and I missed it!) and by the time the video came out it had slipped my mind. Shown of tv last night was the perfect time for me to see it and, despite negative reviews, I actually quite enjoyed it. I think the problem is that the critics struggled to get past the handful of problems (more later) to find that the film was an effective, if talky, drama with a thriller edge. The premise is good and it allows tense scenes where Terry tough talks as well as scenes with Peter with his captors. It's not perfect in this regard as it is a bit talky but for me it was engaging - I got the impression from other comments that people had expected raging gun battles all the way through the film.

However what does damage the film is Alice Bowman. I can see the potential behind Terry and Alice's romance - it could have been another layer of drama. In reality it doesn't work a bit and only serves to take away from the main thrust of the film - their relationship never convinces and nothing of interest is actually done with it. Likewise the character of Alice doesn't really work either - I never believed she was emotionally going through the wringers to the degree the script suggested she would be. A big part of the blame for this must lie with Meg Ryan herself. She is miscast in the first place, but on top of that she is too pristine throughout the film - hair and makeup perfect no matter what and a stupid little hippie-girl personality that stops her being a real person. It is a bad performance and the film would have benefited from a shorter running time which lost the romance subplot and scaled back on Ryan's time.

However she is carried by a real star turn from Crowe. It may not be that clever a role but he does `tough' really well and he helps improve the tension of several scenes. Morse is a good actor and he does well here. The only downside of his performance is that he seemed fit and well outside of his makeup; I was looking for him to look thinner and mentally battered as the film progressed but he didn't - it's not his fault, I guess the film had no time to do this. Caruso gives the same tough performance he does in every thing he ever does so if you like that then you'll like him here - I do!

Overall this is an enjoyable film if you can get past it's major problems surrounding Alice and Terry's relationship. Script-wise this aspect was weak on paper, but a comparatively rubbish turn from the miscast Meg Ryan just makes it all the weaker. Thank god that the basic premise is tense and the male leads' tough talking is good fun.

This looked like something made in the 80s, what with the Rambo/Uncommon Valor Finale, the psuedo-James Bondish globe trotting of Crowe in the lead and of course, Meg Ryan. I didn't mind this much, but there are a few things wrong with it...

One-it takes TOO long to get to the Rambo finale, which by the way is handled pretty well. You expect going in, to see Crowe taking at least half the flick to go in and get the poor guy being held hostage in the Andes. Not so. He spends instead an awful lotta time yakking into a two way radio with the baddies or pacing around some office or room or whatever. They needed to tighten THAT up.

Two-Meg Ryan while I like her, didn't seem to bring very much to this. I donno, she reminded me of her character from 'You've Got Mail'-it was almost as if she left Set#1 and went right onto Set#2 without skipping a beat. Not enough 'gravitas' to the casting or role.

Pamela Reed was kinda irritating but at least seemed like she gave a hang about her brother being held. They never Did bother to explain to us how she scraped up the lions share of that $600K by the way(which they never hadda use)either....

Crowe I like, in a Robert Mitchum kinda way this guy's the real deal. He was so good in the Rescue scenes that ya wish they'd turned this more into a 'Predator/Uncommon Valor' type flick and gone with that. I was reminded of 'Predator' in fact in the helicopter over the jungle shots....

For the most part, I consider this to be a mature, intelligent presentation-but there needs to be some more thinking to what exactly kinda film it is they want to make. The opening scenes in Chechenya are so effective, you wind up being disappointed and surprised in fact that it's Not That kinda flick; more negotiating and hostage scenes than anything else.

(I also, for what it's worth, will tip my hat to both the 'Missionary Guy' and David Morse, they were good. Morse usually is, in things like the Rock and whatever. And David Caruso seemed to be enjoying himself too-he was alright. Quite a comedown from NYPD Blue though, eh? He has disappeared pretty much...)

Overall-it's not bad, more a good VCR than anything else....

** outta ****

I was impressed by Proof of Life and would only make one comment. In most movies, the plot is tightened up to be fast-paced, convincing, make you identify with and care about the characters, and even contain a little moral or have something to say about the human condition.

When a film like Proof of Life is based on a true story, there are limits to this. The worst example I can think of being A Civil Action, which I'm sure is true to the story but the ending was not satisfying and deflated the entire film.

So it's definitely worth seeing, but it's a little slow, and like real life the there is no consistent "tone" to the plot twists. (The film does not fit neatly into one genre throughout.)

Who should see this film:

-- Action buffs who won't mind that only some stuff blows up and the film is a little arty

-- Drama fans who are curious about the topic, but who are not expecting a romance and won't mind a little violence

-- People who'd like some gritty realism concerning Latin American civil uprisings

I give "Proof of Life" a 7 out of 10.

What happens in real life will inevitably have an effect on the reel one. Tom Cruise learnt that with his strange antics in real life - his screen one suffered with a less than expected stellar box office for M:I:3 despite positive critical reviews. Way back in 2000, Russell Crowe and Meg Ryan learnt that too, with their rumoured romance while shooting this movie, one of the many reasons resulting in this becoming a box office bomb.

I felt that it was not a bad movie actually, given the story which I found interesting in the first place, for its extremely distant relation to what I'm doing, and being an action adventure movie, it works with its fair share of big action sequences.

Russell Crowe plays Terry Thorne, a consultant in the Security and Crisis Response Unit of Luthan Risk International. His job is to negotiate the safe return of Kidnap and Ransom (K&R) victims around the world, and of course, this brings him frequently to where the action is, during the payment of ransoms and the extraction of hostages. He yearns for a management role, but as always, if you're an excellent field operative, you're played to your strengths out there.

Which brings him to his latest client, Meg Ryan's Alice Bowman, whose husband Peter Bowman (David Morse), an employee with the biggest international oil firmed, gets kidnapped by chance during a raid in Ecuador. There are numerous scenes in the movie to perk your interest in this much behind-the-scenes industry of K&R, the terrorist(?) groups' motivation, and how the entire business is conducted, with the engagement of peers as well as the involvement of shady government personnel.

There are many fine touches that might go unnoticed, like how network of contacts and peers are milked, cooperation extended, the wheelings and dealings of large multinational corporations, and politics in general. But the focus moves quickly towards a micro one, that between Thorne and Alice Bowman, as he accomplishes to build her trust in him that he's the best in the business and knows what he's doing.

Perhaps this is one of the rare movies that allowed Crowe to be an Australian (and keep the accent) in a Hollywood production. His Thorne is oozes enough machismo to carry the action through and is credible enough to be believed as a veteran in the business. Meg Ryan this time round has a more serious character to play, albeit at times a weepie one, steering well clear of the pretty ditzy blonde comedic roles she has become accustomed to. They had probably shot some love scenes for this movie, but I suppose the bad press resulted in those scenes ending up on the cutting room floor. The romance between the character was also almost squashed out, save for the out of place suggestion of a strong physical attraction which rears its ugly head in the second half of the movie, slowing the pace down a little without much mature development. I thought that should it had been removed entirely, it'll probably end up a stronger movie, with Thorne more in character as a mission driven individual.

The first David, David Caruso, is finding a new lease of life back in television with CSI, since branching off to movies after NYPD Blue didn't augur too well for him. I thought his performance here was nothing much to shout about though. However David Morse, who usually plays supporting roles, put up an adequately engaging Peter Bowman as an executive caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, and examines the fear and desperation of a man kidnapped and constantly at the wrong end of a gun barrel.

The theme song by Danny Elfman is addictive (time to hunt it down), and the end credits was played over a helicopter view of the entire Ecuadorian landscape, just beautiful to look at. Clocking at just over 2 hours, it provided some good entertainment for a lazy Sunday afternoon.

Code 3 DVD contains the behind the scenes making-of documentary (13" 40'), the theatrical trailer, and the feature length audio commentary by director Taylor Hackford.