"Hostage" was the first movie for some time that managed to drag me into a cinema. The critics were quite good about it and compared it with "Die Hard" (the first part).

Well, Hostage is a very good action movie that goes further in introducing comic-book-like elements into film. Already the intro is an eyecatcher: the outside scenary of a hostage place, police everywhere, backyards, helicopters hanging up in the air - but all is more like drawn and the only thing that moves is the camera, as if it was showing us a picture. I don't know if director Florent Emilio Siri stole this idea somewhere, but even if he did, it was a good theft.

The movie itself is not for a minute boring, it takes your breath away and keeps it until the last evil doer has turned into a corpse and a dubious dawn ends the film with a bloody red sky. At some points we see super heroes fighting in the firey hell of a buring house and it all is presented in such bombastic pictures and gestures that you just love to buy it for real.

Yes - really good and well-made, but what about the comparison with Die Hard? Bruce Willis is there - great! As usual he is best when he is desperate and has taken already several bullets. This time he is in a deep moral conflict and even is able to act wrong. What shall he do - it's all about his family.

But then - it is really quite a bit about family and therefore very serious. It is hardly anything to laugh in this film. But there are few pictures of dead kids that I was not too eager to see. The value of family is underlined in thick red with blood and dead bodies and in such a sourrounding it is not easy to crack jokes.

Don't get me wrong, I dislike it too when a good story gets messed up with the usual funny guy who spoils half of the movie with his unnecessary comments. This is not what I meant. Willis nevertheless is capable of mixing more attitudes into a personality than just the traumatized cop that has to get back to hard-boiled in order to save his wife and daughter.

So it is worth seeing - definitly, no question about that. I stick to the 8 out of 10 points and hope you'll all see and like it.