Rogue Hostage

When I sat down to watch the 2021 action thriller "Rogue Hostage", it was because the movie have John Malkovich on the cast list. Yeah, I hadn't even heard about the movie prior to getting to sit down to watch it.

I am by no account a fan of Tyrese Gibson's acting skills, so having him in the lead role here was not the main attraction for me. When I saw that the movie also had Michael Jai White on the cast list, I must admit that I found it to be looking brighter for the movie.

But let me just say right away that "Rogue Hostage" was a tedious affair of a movie. It was bland and generic, offering absolutely nothing new to the action thriller genre. And everything that took place in the storyline is something that have been done and seen before in other movies, and more often than not, also done better than it was here.

The storyline was just plainly generic and predictable. So this is essentially a movie where you just lean back, disconnect your brain and watch the screen. And trust me, once the movie comes to an end, you will forget about the entire ordeal.

"Rogue Hostage" was a swing and a miss from writer Mickey Solis and director Jon Keeyes.

I am rating "Rogue Hostage" a generous three out of ten stars.

1 out of 5 stars.

Horrible and dumb. Dumb plot. Action is horrible. Acting is tedious. Script is filled with dumb characters and just flat out terrible.

This movie may quite literally be the worst movie I've ever sat down and willingly watched. It's sad to see John Malkovich in this. The plot is the same basic action movie plot with many unreasonable things happening and, on top of that, painfully cringe-worthy acting. If there was a way to rate this under 1 star, I would swiftly take that opportunity.

Tyrese Gibson was great in bby boy, 4 Brothers, waist deep, Legion, The Take, and all the F&F movies. This was not one of his better movies. The acting felt forced and sometimes very fake. No real emotional connection between any of the other actors. Which was sad because a few of them were well known. I swear I could have done a better job just winging it. I will not recommend this one to anyone and I myself will never see it again. Not even if I had extra time one my hands. 4 is me being extremely generous!

Kyle Snowden (Fast & Furious' Tyrese Gibson) is struggling with many life challenges. As war veteran, suffering from PTSD, who is also a single parent, he is now sucked into a family / hostage situation. Can he save the day? But don't kid yourself, this is not a 'die hard' rehash. Not even close.

Obviously this is a B-grade movie. CGI and special effects on this one are laughable, at this level they should have changed the story so that they don't need to overlay explosions and fires in such a bad way. The acting is also B-grade level (including J Malkovich that seem to be doing somebody a favor and acting even worse than his usual self) but the real cardinal sin here is that the movie is boring and the script is over-chewed not to say idiotic at times.

There is really no saving grace for this movie. There are some small sparks like a couple of scenes with the kid, Manny, but those get overrun by total disgracing of the marines, PTSD patients, the social workers, politicians, police and what have you. It falls in a great shame to "Run, Hide, Fight (2020)" which also don't have any big stars in it, but at least is portraying a possible story and relatable characters in a similar environment. If you have a chance, watch that one instead, it is much less of a time waster.

I would not fault anybody with rating this 1 star, but for an honest review I would rate this 34 / 100, it's watchable but not much more than that.