Otages en péril

This political thriller has a pretty good, up-to-date story (Serbian terrorists seeking revenge after one of their leaders is kidnapped by US soldiers to stand trial in Hague); but the execution is strangely lifeless and dull. Tom Berenger had top billing on my video cassette cover, but he didn't appear until about half of the movie had passed, and even then he got less screen time than Weller's son, played by teenage heartthrob Jeremy Lelliott. There is one rather catchy plot twist near the end (I didn't see it coming, maybe someone more observant would have) involving Weller and Hannah; but it didn't save this movie from being quite mediocre. By all means, the action stunts, the explosions and the machine-gun-firing is impressive, but the story and (most of) the acting is not. So unless you're a die hard fan of either of the actors involved, you probably won't be satisfied after watching this movie. Rating on a dice, I'll probably give it a 3 (out of 6).

"Diplomatic Siege" tells of those involved in the siege of the American embassy in Bucharest for the purpose of compelling the UN to release a Serbian officer being held for war crimes. The film is an ambitious project which self-destructs in the process of trying to do too much. An utter failure not recommended for anyone.

I don't know if this movie was created for the cinema or TV. I'm not wondering why it didn't find the way to our theaters. What I missed there was a fine cinema picture like in the usual movies and a good audio. Then the setting place in this diplomatic house seemed too poor and cartoonish. The ideas therefore were original but the terrorists were too harmless. There were not any special effects. I think there could have been done more if the budget was higher. There were anyway many twists and plots that kept your attention until the end. If they show it on cable watch it if you have nothing to do but I don't know if the rental is worth. It is perhaps too underrated with actual vote of 3.5 on IMDb. My wife and me give 5/10.

Saw this on tv last night, and it just about held my interest. Berenger and Weller are wasted though and seemed to be going through the motions, but Daryl Hannah's role was the most intriguing and she had some decent dialogue.

As siege films go it's not one of the best, too many questions and not enough answers as usual (why do so many so-called professional scriptwriters have a problem resolving questions that an amateur like me could of spotted?), but if you come across it on a dull night, there's plenty of action that should keep you awake.

6/10

This so-called international thriller was so dreadful that I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. The team of four writers who wrote this trash should be imprisoned for crimes against humanity. The eight producers who brought it to the market should be tried for conspiracy to cause brain death. It was that bad.

This film was horrible in all regards. The production standards were below TV quality. The photography was poor, the sound was muddy and the music was pure garbage. The premise was interesting; that the U.S. planted atomic bombs in all its embassies in the Soviet Union and Eastern block countries during the cold war to give them first strike capability. Now that the cold war was over the U.S. was disarming all the bombs, but the last one was in an embassy taken over by a group of terrorists. Our heroes (Daryl Hannah and Peter Weller) had to disable it before the terrorists got control of it.

The presentation of the story was abysmal. The dialogue was so bad that I was literally guffawing between eye rolls. Some scenes were so implausible that I had to wonder what the writers were smoking. For instance, our heroes are clanking through the ventilation system, trying desperately to find a way to get downstairs to the bomb to disable it. Terrorists are all around killing one hostage an hour. So, this would be a perfect time to start necking in the air duct, right? The writers thought so.

Daryl Hannah and Tom Berenger did their best to bring credibility to their ridiculous characters with some success. Peter Weller was awful. His character had a batch of very stupid lines, which he was able to elevate to absurdity.

I rated this film a 2/10. Do not see this film under any circumstances. Action junkies might be tempted because of the enormous body count. Resist.