The Negotiator . Newcity Chicago . 08-03-98

The Negotiator

DIRECTED BY: F. Gary Gray

REVIEWED: 08-03-98

Directed by F. Gary Gray. The golden-hour Chicago displayed in so many lustrously lit action movies is nothing like the beat-down, color-parched, always-under-construction city I live in. Throughout "The Negotiator,"the largest movie yet by "Set It Off"'s Gray, I wanted to wander away from the actors manfully mano-a-manoing through miscellaneous actorly setpieces and just plop myself down along the river as lit by "Titanic"'s Russell Carpenter-in this fictive Chicago, all light is gleaming, glowing, clean, warmly enveloping. From an opening suicide-by-cop through all manner of plot foolishness and psychological chicanery, the key distractions here are the face-to-face acting exercises between Samuel L. Jackson and Kevin Spacey. Jackson plays a champeen hostage negotiator, framed by fellow cops, who takes hostages from Internal Affairs and plays the Chicago Police Department for fools. Spacey is a stranger to Jackson's character and the only other hostage negotiator he respects. The hallmark of a certain kind of contemporary action movie is grandiose implausibility, which this movie has coming out its ears. Don't think. Just watch the images accumulate, the eyes widen, the eyes roll, listen to the thunder of Graeme Revell's perfunctory score. With Ron Rifkin, David Morse, Paul Giamatti and the late J.T. Walsh. Panavision.

--Ray Pride

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