Director: Taylor Hackford
Starring: Meg Ryan, Russell Crowe, David Morse, Pamela Reed, David Caruso, Anthony Heald, Stanley Anderson

- Reviewed by Kerri

I was so looking forward to this film. The surrounding Hollywood buzz regarding Meg Ryan's runaway with Russell Crowe bought me hook, line, and sinker. Meg Ryan in distress in the tropics. Russell Crowe swoops in to save the day. Fear, hope, longing, confusion, despair. I eagerly grabbed a seat in the theatre, waiting for all that on-screen tension, silently thinking, bring it on!!

Unfortunately whatever romance Ryan and Crowe had on the side barely made it onto the screen. The emotion fell as flat as Ryan's breasts. Crowe is sexy as ever, but for no reason—he just stands around in his suit, squinting his eyes, and peppering the dialog with a few "mates"... yet be still my heart anyways. Ryan does her twitching the face thing all through the film and you never believe she's feeling any kind of emotion at all. Her steely blue eyes seem fixated in a disbelief stare. Oh, they tried some feeble attempts at some sort of longing; they just didn't create enough.

Ryan plays Alice Bowman, former hippie, activist, and now wife of Peter Bowman (David Morse) who is in the fictional South American country of Tecala building a dam. There's some confusion over just whom the dam is for—to save the indigenous people or to pave way for a pipeline for an evil American oil company. Peter is on his way to work one morning when drug lord rebels against the pipeline (which would run its course right through their cocaine plants... drug lords tend to not like that too much) take him hostage and hike him up to the mountains. Russell Crowe plays Terry Thorne, a British "k and r" (kidnap and ransom) expert who is sent to negotiate Peter's release. Unfortunately for the Bowmans, the evil American oil company hasn't paid their insurance and therefore can't pay Terry. Back to Britain he goes, leaving Alice all alone to deal with the crisis. Naturally her eyes haunt him, and he returns of his own accord to try to get Peter back.

There was a scene in the beginning when Alice and Peter get in a huge fight; I thought this was to set up the conflict that she'll have later with Terry. However, nothing really happens between them. At one point Terry's friend Dino (David Caruso) asks him, "Are you in love with her" and he gives him a non-committal answer. That's it. That's all. They do have one powerful on-screen kiss; yet that is never really resolved. The subplot could have been so much better had they played up this more; what if they had fallen in love while Alice's husband was suffering in the hands of rebels? What happens then when he's saved? This is what I wanted so much, but the movie was really nothing more than two and a half hours of hostage negotiation.

There is a good dramatic rescue scene at the end, and Dino has some funny moments. I do have to say I was impressed with the storyline of Peter; I assumed they would kidnap him at the beginning and we would not see him until the end; however, they interweaved his story with Alice's the whole way through. In fact, I was more interested in his half of the film.

I do give this movie some slices for the action, and for the parts with Peter, and for David Morse's excellent portrayal. If it's action you're after, keep in mind it doesn't start until the end of the film. If it's romance you're after, go rent something else starring Meg Ryan.

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