In one scene Shaker watches as Tom writes a check for $4 million, and the look on Sinise's face is of a man caving in on himself. He hates Tom and envies him, and he hates himself for feeling that envy. Shaker is the sort of straight-arrow American hero the movies teach us to love. You can imagine him in military dress looking out from photos proudly displayed on top of parents' television sets, or in a newspaper shot accepting some commendation for bravery in the line of duty. Sinise plays him as a man who, in the predatory reality of post-Reagan America, has come to realize how little all that's worth in a world where everything has its price. Shaker seems always to be watching himself, calibrating his responses. Through much of "Ransom," Sinise looks like a guy trying to keep a poker face while a serpent coils itself around his innards.

What makes "Ransom" so unsettling is that, after acknowledging the resentments we harbor toward the people who have power over us, Howard, Price and Ignon then arrange the film so that we come to feel the horrible necessity of Tom Mullen's view of the world. His willingness to use the same kind of power he's employed to crush unions and anything else that encroaches on his turf is, here, what keeps his son alive. And in order to win, he stokes the hatred that spurred the kidnappers in the first place. When they call him in the spaciousness of his penthouse, he asks, "Is it dark where you're calling from, ya got the shades drawn? Kinda like a cellar, right? Like a cave? Well you better get used to that, you better get used to crawling in the dark for the rest of your days." Over the course of his career, Mel Gibson has both coasted on his charm and been an actor. He combines the two here, using his familiar affability to draw us to Tom and winning us over before he ventures into the movie's darker territory.

"Ransom" isn't all it might have been in the hands of, say, Brian De Palma or Philip Kaufman. It's humorless (always a drawback for a thriller), a mite cold and no fun. Howard doesn't have the sort of fevered temperament that would allow the film's violence to transcend its brutality (though his handling of Sean, glimpsed blindfolded and handcuffed to a bed in a soundproof room, is scrupulous throughout; he never lingers on the boy's fear). But he does fine work with his cast (particularly Lili Taylor, Liev Schreiber and Donnie Wahlberg as the kidnappers), and "Ransom" is a tight, intelligent and, on its own terms, uncompromised piece of direction.

"Ransom" is dark and risky in a way that's become almost unthinkable for mainstream movies in the '90s. It doesn't resolve its conflicts or allow the audience triumph or release. In the guise of a thriller, Howard made a serious examination of the ambiguity of power. "Ransom" must have been pitched to the studio heads in the same way it was sold to audiences; neither got quite the film they bargained for. That's the result of smart people knowing that their movie had to be different from the world it depicted, not just business as usual.
salon.com | April 26, 1999

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