Midway through Proof of Life, Terry Thorne (Russell Crowe), an elite hostage negotiator, gets on the radio and begins the long, exhaustive game of cat and mouse that will decide the fate of Peter Bowman (David Morse), an American engineer in the hands of South American radicals. The voice on the other end demands an exorbitant sum of money. Thorne calmly refuses, offering a much lower amount, and the dialogue abrutply ends with the chilling threat that Bowman is as good as dead. As the surrounding family members freak out, Thorne brushes them off, saying "You'll get used to that. It's all part of the game."

The sequence is extraordinary in its casual, almost perfunctory approach to the barter of human life-it's a poker game of the ultimate stakes. Yet, at the same time, Thorne is so wholly in control of the situation that you never feel the jolt-that cinematic shot of adrenaline-that leaves you perched on the edge of your seat. Crowe's character is cool and unflappable, handsome and rugged, but a just a bit too muted and restrained for comfort. The same could be said of the movie he inhabits.

Proof of Life is one of those old-fashioned crackerjack thrillers that shifts across a number of exotic locales, yet it is also a film hot-wired directly into contemporary culture. With global economics continually expanding, the threat to prominent Americans in regions of political turmoil is more acute than ever-thus negotiators with the steel-edged nerves needed to manipulate the most delicate of situations have become a critical necessity (not surprisingly, an extensive article on the subject served as the basis for the screenplay). In a sequence of terrifying simplicity, Bowman, who was commissioned to build a dam on the outskirts of Tescala, is merely driving to work when he encounters a barricade and is randomly snatched by men in ski-masks, who hustle him off into the mountains. Thorne, representative of the London-based K & R (Kidnap and Ransom), is brought in to handle the case and offer assurances to Peter's wife, Alice (Meg Ryan).

Their exhaustive efforts ultimately parallel the psychological journey of Peter, who disappears behind a wild thatch of hair while wasting away into a gaunt shell of his former self.

One can hardly deny that director Taylor Hackford (The Devil's Advocate) is a skilled craftsman (although I've always wondered how a filmmaker can make it when he has the word "hack" in his name). Proof of Life is a handsome and intelligent picture that's both paced and shot beautifully. The breath-taking, ultra-gritty finale, in which Thorne and his team of mercenaries attempt a daring rescue operation, is reminiscent of the best work of Michael Mann. And yet the finale is also the only point in the movie in which Hackford the storyteller is truly allowed to cast his spell-too much of the film feels curbed, dramatically and emotionally, to allow the story to blossom into the white-knuckle suspense ride that it so staunchly demands to be. The game of hostage negotiation is clearly a high-wire act, yet everything is so laid out that we never get the sense that things are volatile, that they could explode at any second.

At the heart of this puzzling thriller are Russell Crowe and Meg Ryan, whose off-camera romantic shenanigans made the picture notorious months before it hit theaters. Those expecting to the two leads to scorch the screen, however, will be shocked and perhaps even bitterly disappointed to see just how little sexual tension develops between the two stars. Curiously, Proof of Life is not structured as a romance-the greatest shortcoming of the screenplay is its failure to develop Thorne's central conflict, in which a man who's always in control finds that what he has to do has become almost directly opposed to what he wants to do. The cast, otherwise, is almost uniformly excellent. Ryan's career has all but been damned by her natural fit with fluff like You've Got Mail, and while she is hardly in the same league as heavyweights like Kate Winslet and Julianne Moore, her acting does have a deceptive rawness to it. Crowe, meanwhile, is as skilled as any actor comes-his ability to balance dramatic range with sheer physicality is virtually unmatched and his screen presence here is utterly commanding. But in the end, the greatest accomplishment may belong to Morse, the veteran character actor and former St. Elsewhere stalwart, who takes a potentially thankless role and goes through a De Niroesque transformation to lend the character of Bowman atragic eloquence.

It is worth nothing that Hackford, while no artistic genius, is a grown-up director and Proof of Life is one of those all too rare adult films that isn't interested in being hip or catering to the MTV generation. That alone makes it a picture worthy of admiration and gives hope that there are still a few serious, no-frills commercial filmmakers out there. Proof of Life is a flawed vision, but the fact that it even has a vision still puts this sweeping adventure-epic ahead of the game.

PROOF OF LIFE

directed by

Taylor Hackford

starring

Meg Ryan

Russell Crowe

David Morse

Warner Bros.