Being held hostage is a terrible situation. Freedom to do what we want is paramount to human existence. When this basic need is arrested, it creates anxiety. If the captors are violent and ready to kill, the hostages face a far more dangerous situation. And if the captors are willing to die, the situation becomes hopeless.
But on-screen dramas – imaginary and real life – help us explore these emotions and situations. It gives viewers a feel of what could happen in these situations and how unpredictable it is. Hostage crises are just the thrillers that prey on anxiety of the viewers and exploit the unpredictability of the situation.
Hostage Movies
Watch these riveting thrillers if you haven’t or revisit for a thrilling evening.
Die Hard
John McClane is a cop in New York, visiting Los Angeles to reconcile with his estranged wife. Five to ten minutes into the movie Nakatomi Towers comes uder attack and the Christmas Eve party is held hostage by Hans Guber. Hans Guber intends to breach the vault at Nakatomi Towers and steal bearer bonds worth $650 million.
The gripping movie starts to roll when John McClane decides to thwart their plans on his own. He establishes contact with the police and with their assistance starts working toward foiling the attackers’ plans.
Speed
Jack (Keanu Reeves) and Harry rescue people from an elevator that is rigged with explosives and apprehend the perpetrator who later dies in an explosion. But when a bus explodes in a populated city street, doubts emerge, confirmed later by a call to Jack.
The bomber has placed a bomb on a bus filled with people. The bomb is set to explode if the bus speed reduces below 50 miles per hour. Now, Jack must do what the bomber asks and also try to save the passengers on the bus.
Argo
The movie is based on a CIA operative’s book The Master of Disguise. The movie is about the rescue of six American Diplomats from Tehran, Iran in 1979. The movie follows Tony Mendez, a CIA Exfilteration expert who mounts an operation to create a cover for the US diplomats hiding in the Canadian Embassy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w918Eh3fij0
Tension mounts as Mendez tries to put all the pieces of the cover up in place, tiptoeing around the hostile Revolutionary Guards.
The Taking of Pelham 123
Ryder hijacks a subway train departing from the Pelham Bay Park station. The movie is based on the novel by Morton Freedgood and adaptation of the original film released in 1974.
Ryder and his partners want $10 million is cash or they will start shooting the passengers, one by one. Garber is in the role of chief negotiator and tries to reason with Ryder. At the same time an attack force in assembled at the point of drop-off. As Garber tries to delay, the hijackers begin killing passengers on the bus. What no one can figure out is the escape plan of the hijackers. A thrilling 2 hours with some tense moments.
Phone Booth
Easily one of the best hostage or Psychological Thrillers, Phone Booth gives you a riveting movie experience. A man is held hostage by a sniper in a phone booth on a busy junction. Stu Shepard is an arrogant New York publicist cheating on his wife kelly. The sniper dictates that Stu confess about his affair to his wife Pam or he would kill him.
Situation worsens as citizens try to get Stu out of the phone booth and make their calls. The sniper kills one such intruder and further worsens the situation. His ultimate demand is that Stu choose between Pam and Kelly and that he would kill the other.
The negotiator
What happens when one of the best negotiators becomes a kidnapper? How do you negotiate with a calm and calculated perpetrator who knows all the strategies and methods of the police force. Roman (Samuel L. Jackson) is implicated in a pension embezzlement case as the chief suspect. If he doesn’t act soon, he will be most likely be convicted for the embezzlement and murder of a fellow police officer.
Roman tries to reason, but when that fails he takes a few hostages in the police building and sets out to investigate the case and prove his innocence.
Taken
The Liam Neeson starrer series has a hostage situation in almost all the movies in the series. The first movie released in 2008 was gripping kidnapping and hostage drama where retired CIA operative Bryan Mills tries to save his daughter from becoming a victim of human trafficking.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPJVJBm9TPA
Captain Philips
In 2009 captain Richard Phillips of Maersk Alabama was taken hostage along with his ship in the Indian Ocean by a group of pirates lead by Abduwali Muse.The movie shows this incident based on the book A Captain’s Duty: Somali Pirates, Navy SEALs, and Dangerous Days at Sea by Richard Phillips with Stephan Talty.
Captain Phillips got six Academy Awards nominations including Best Picture for the movie. Muse manages to board the ship after multiple attempts and declines the captain’s offer of $30,000 in the ship’s safe. He holds both the crew and the ship hostage and wants millions from the Shipping’s insurance company.
The Desperate Hours
A group of three convicts manage to escape from a penitentiary. They have a plan. They are waiting to get their hands on a package that will help them make their escape a success. To get their hands on the package, they decide to hold a family hostage in the suburbs of Indianapolis.
The Hillard family is threatened into submission. A garbage collector who stumbles into the situation loses his life. The manhunt for the convicts eventually lead the police to the Hillard family house where they are now at a standoff with the convicts.
Panic Room
Your house is where you feel safest. But when it is run over and you have nowhere to go, what do you do? Do you face the attackers head-on or do you hide and pray? Meg Altman and Sarah have just moved into a brownstone. The previous owner of the property has built a room to hide, equipped with surveillance equipment, public announcement system, an independent phone line and other such safeguards.
But when a trio who knows all the trappings of the panic room and are motivated to get to the safe in the panic room storm the house, Meg and Sarah have nowhere to hide.
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