L'échange

I like this film. I must admit that a part of me was hoping for the typical chick flic ending, but if I'd actually gotten it I'm sure I wouldn't have liked the movie as much. The movie was more believable than I've come to expect from action films, with the possible exception of the bravado of the captive husband. I find it hard to believe that someone in that situation would be so constantly antagonistic to their captors. Sure, you might have a moment or two where you'd just had enough and had to push back, but I find it hard to believe that you'd be that way ALL the time.

But the negotiations were believable for the most part, and the growing attraction between the leads was done nicely.

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.

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.

Maureen O'Hara stars in a movie where her husband gets kidnapped those damn commies in South East Asia so she hires tough and dashing soldier of fortune Clark Gable to save the day

That's not the cast or the location of PROOF OF LIFE but it does have a very similar plot . Did someone mention this was a 1940s matinée blockbuster ? Just curious because while I was watching the movie I was struck by how old fashioned everything felt . Russell Crowe plays an Aussie who served in the SAS and saves a Frenchman from the Chechens in the opening sequence , but you could have had Gable playing an American paratrooper saving someone from the Red Army on the River Elbe in May 1945 . Different actor , different period of history , different enemy but still the same basic story with the action switching from Europe to say South East Asia in 1950

That's not to say PROOF OF LIFE is a bad film . It's not and I found it mainly entertaining though perhaps a little too long . It's just that it is so old fashioned that you can see where the predictable story threads are going to begin and end . You can't deny that both the cast and action scenes are good , it's just that you also can't stop thinking it would have been better if it'd been filmed in monochrome and directed by Michael Curtiz with no bad language or sexual references

While I would probably reccomend seeing the epic Gladiator (one of the best films of the year as I now see it) if you want a case of Russell Crowe as a perfectionist actor, if you want to see a movie with him in good form (and in the cinema now), this is good too. With him in the lead, plus 2 other really good performances, it almost (and almost) seems like there are no flaws.

The plot follows an expert K & R consultant (Crowe in great acting shape), who goes in assistance for a wife (Meg Ryan in one of her better roles) who's husband (David Morse who follows up and tops his Dancer in the Dark performance) has been kidnapped. Then the thrilling tension ensues, as they try and get him back. With the few flaws possibly being not enough tension and not the greatest delivery I expected, it definately hits the mark on It's acting and delivery (and what an ending). By the way, if you are looking for Crowe's famous Australian accent, then this is surely for you. B+