The Negotiator – Movie Review
Classic Thriller from the Director of Law Abiding Citizen
Oct 14, 2009
F. Gary Gray, the director behind Jamie Foxx’s latest movie, Law Abiding Citizen puts an audience in a quandary about where their allegiance lies. In Law Abiding Citizen, Gray explores sympathy with a vigilante seeking to bring justice to a corrupt legal regime and not for the first time. A decade ago, while Foxx was working for Ice Cube in The Player’s Club, Gray directed the classic thriller, The Negotiator, starring Samuel L. Jackson and Kevin Spacey.
The Negotiator Plot Synopsis
Lieutenant Danny Roman (Jackson) has been framed for fraud and murder and, as one does, takes hostages to prove his innocence. He asks for Chris Sabian (Spacey), a negotiator with a policy of not shooting the hostage-taker and so begins a power struggle where life hangs by a thread. Alongside Sabian’s attempt to negotiate Roman out safely is the scheming of a number of corrupt policemen to end Roman’s career violently.
Despite a slightly predictable and mainly unbelievable plot, The Negotiator’s main attributes are the strengths of repartee between the characters (again at times unbelievable) and the acting of the two stars. Spacey plays the part of the anti-violent Chris Sabian brilliantly, using his ability to change a character’s strength in a second into weakness and then revert to holding the initial power. Samuel L. is on top, angry, story-telling form from first to last as Lieutenant Danny Roman. The film is funny where it intends to be and keeps an audience breathless right to the end.
Law Abiding Vigilante
The great dilemma for the audience in both The Negotiator and Law Abiding Citizen is the question, “Who is the hero?” On the one hand, there is the corrupt government official. On the other the victim of a crime. Only the gun is in the victim’s hands. Viola Davies, who co-stars in Law Abiding Citizen, speaking in an interview on IMDb, says, “I think that a lot of people will feel for Clyde, and that’s a good thing.” An audience’s sympathy with an armed man is a powerful tool in a thriller such as this. Davies adds, “a lot of people will be buoyed by the fact that they feel the same way as Clyde, would see themselves in him, of wanting to take the justice system in their own hands and say, “I would know what to do if it were in my hands.””
The progression that Gray has made between The Negotiator and Law Abiding Citizen is that now the vigilante is willing to go to any lengths to secure justice, even to the point of carrying out murder.
