Ransom
Director: Ron Howard. Cast: Mel Gibson, Gary Sinise, René Russo, Brawley Nolte, Delroy Lindo, Lili
Taylor, Liev Schreiber, Donnie Wahlberg, Paul Guilfoyle. Screenplay: Richard Price and Alexander Ignon
(based on a story and screenplay by Cyril Hume and Richard Maibaum).
More involving and more nerve-wracking than its fairly predictable plotline necessitates, Ron Howard
continues the role he started with Apollo 13 of turning out strong mainstream entertainments that
mount incredible tension despite known endings. Our man Mel, out of his kilt and minus the blue
face-paint, is now playing a warrior of a different type: Tom Mullen, a corporate power player who is
used to getting everything when and how he wants it. His wife Kate (René Russo) is probably more
disenchanted with her husband's headstrong tendencies than she lets on, but if all isn't necessarily well
in the Mullen household, it's at least well-decorated and relatively calm until their young son Sean
(Brawley Nolte, son of Nick) is apprehended while under Tom's supervision at an outdoor science fair, or
raffle, or charity event, or something—come on, does this really matter?
Another of Howard's virtues, his keen sense for casting, comes through not only in his pairing of Gibson
and Russo, who are both more challenged and invigorating here than we are used to seeing them, but in the
den of thieves he's put together to play Sean's abductors. These not only include ex-New Kid Donnie
Wahlberg (not quite the acting equal of younger brother Mark, though he's perfectly adequate), but also
I Shot Andy Warhol's Lili Taylor, who had a very good year in 1996, and The Daytrippers'
Liev Schreiber, later seen as Cotton Weary in Scream 2. That these two
staples of indie movies can appear here without the slightest sense of slumming is a tribute to the
precision of Howard's direction, though the formula of Ransom's story intrudes more and more on
the interesting character work as the movie progresses. I also must voice some discontent with the
casting of Gary Sinise, who is so viperish in look and demeanor that no one should be surprised
to see him exposed as the arch-villain who leads the abduction and hostage operation.
Whatever its failings, Ransom, like Martin Scorsese's phenomenal Cape Fear, could have
gotten by just through plugging talented, photogenic stars into a proven storyline of a mid-century
Hollywood hit. Like Scorsese's Cape Fear (though nowhere near that film's virtuoso play with its
genre), Ransom adds immeasurably to the tension by characterizing the "good guys" as a tense and
precarious family unprepared to withstand so strong a blow. Ransom, perhaps, missteps too
far into chaos (or, looked at differently, aims too tidily for symmetry) by also making the villains a
fractious bunch who can't hang together. It is hardly a great film, or even significantly above
average, but its limitations feel honest and unthreatening to the overall sturdiness of the movie—whereas
most films that gross $136 million at the American box-office have lately been crass toss-offs whose
limitations are built-in and pre-given. Let's also hope that Gibson's effective work
here wins him more scripts that allow this deceptively dark and economical actor the chance to do more
bristling work like he does here: it's a relief to see him twitter and rage under someone else's direction,
among a cast who can hit back. Grade:B–