When the daughter of veteran 911 call center operator Pamela, and her estranged husband Jeremy, a Senior Police Officer, is kidnapped and held hostage, they are left desperate, with no choice but to follow the kidnapper's rules: send messages through dispatch for all police and fire units to scatter to remote locations throughout the city where they are met with chaos. Not knowing who or why, they must race against the clock to make the choice of their lives: save the city — or save their daughter.
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Reviews
Lack of good storyline.
This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.
To all those who have watched it: I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do.
The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.
This film was so bad, I even felt sorry for the prop designers who had to make all those fake dollar bills in the back of the vans. There was one scene where the main woman was asked to describe her husband and she says "he has brown hair" cut to husband in the cop car...He's bold as a babies bottom and talking about babies bottoms his partner describes a girl having an "ass like a ten year old" now this might have been a joke but the way it was deliverer and how out of the blue it was, just make it creepy.It seems to me that the characters where totally miss cast or very poorly directed but not even Spielberg at the helm would have make the story any better. DO NOT WATCH!!!!
My rational mind tells me I should dislike this film rather strongly, yet accepting it as a moderate-budget direct-to-video potboiler, I found it watchable. The movie has a number of significant issues. First, and most distracting, not a single shot looked as if the camera were locked down. Few things are more annoying than excessive use of jiggly-cam shots. The Steadicam operator did a credible job of masking the camera movement with subtle pans, tilts and zooms, but the constant motion is distracting. Mischa Barton was absolutely stunning and statuesque ten years ago and had the looks to play the total babe leading lady roles often found in action films. Now she has the looks more often associated with romantic comedies – attractive, but not so stunningly beautiful to seem threatening to housewives in the audience. Several lines of dialogue comment on her ensemble and she is framed above the waist in every shot, even when a wider shot would seem better suited. Not being familiar with her or her prior work, my suspicion was that she was pregnant and the filmmakers wanted to mask it, which proved distracting as her character has supposedly been separated for a year. I've since learned that she is a designer, so the wardrobe may have been one of her designs. Several plot twists were fairly obvious. The only one that caught me by surprise involved Ving Rhames. The emergency call center procedures seemed realistic, except for failure to transfer calls to a busy line and the manner in which calls were assigned to operators, which seemed contrived. Some other police procedures seemed suspect. Everything seemed to happen in a vacuum. There were no bystanders, pedestrians, motorists or people trying to enter the bank, and no employees or guards at two locations. With one exception, there was no other traffic on the roads during car chases or other driving shots. Many aspects don't make sense. One would think the heist would require a team larger than Ali Baba's band of forty thieves, but they seem to have pulled it off with fewer than ten. People survive horrendous car accidents without wearing seat belts. A police officer fires at a location where a hostage is being held. Cellular tracking is uncannily precise. One officer wears an arm patch for DeKalb Technical College Public Safety Police. The plot has more holes than a wheel of Emmental cheese. But despite the flaws, the movie is fairly enjoyable. Luke Goss does a credible job with what he's given. Ving Rhames plays a familiar role with a satisfying undercurrent of malice. The car chases are fairly good. Other than the seemingly complete reliance on jiggly-cam shots (and the Steadicam operator(s) did a superior job), the production values were adequate. It's not a great film, but it's a pleasant distraction if one doesn't take it too seriously.
Another great idea wasted.Looks like a plan to sell a computer game, with masked robbers that can twist sideways & dodge shotgun blasts.Mischa Barton completely miscast, looking sour as if her cat hadn't kissed her goodbye from her trailer.More thought into the threat & less rubbish on the phone control would have improved this out of sight.Also unbelievable were Ving Rhames, Michael Pare and all the smart savvy phone operators that didn't notice what was going on right next to them.Too silly to sustain action/thriller watcher interest.
Definitely an enjoyable action movie. It was fast paced and action packed and also had a tense and twist filled story which kept me watching. However,the way the twist are set in the movie could have been better. Most of the twist can be seen from a mile away. Also the acting from Mischa Barton could have been a lot better. Her character should have shown more emotion and shock since she was pushed into the situation all of a sudden. For a low budget action movie,there was plenty of action scenes but some of it was ruined by the terrible cgi. It felt like the director wanted to make it look like a big budget action movie by making the explosions and set design bigger with cgi but it kinda backfired since the cgi makes it look cheaper. But even with all those flaws,the movie is perfectly enjoyable. A low expectation will guarantee a satisfied viewing for this movie.