Around the world, between 20,000 and 50,000 people are kidnapped each year. In Taylor Hackford's suspense-filled adventure film, American businessman Peter Bowman (David Morse) is traveling in a Latin American country when a group of criminals take him as their hostage and hold him for ransom. The megacorporation he works for sends in an expert hostage negotiator, Terry Thorne (Russell Crowe), to settle on a ransom with the kidnappers, an antigovernment faction. Thorne earns the reluctant trust of Bowman's wife, Alice (Meg Ryan), and begins trying to win Bowman's freedom, but conflict with Bowman's employers, missteps with the kidnappers, and Thorne's growing attraction to Alice threaten to derail his efforts. Crowe and Ryan are excellent as thrown-together allies under pressure, and Morse's descent from collected businessman to desperate hostage anchors the film. Watch for former NYPD BLUE sensation David Caruso as Crowe's partner. PROOF OF LIFE is based on an article entitled "Adventures in the Ransom Trade," written by William Prochnau, which was published in the May 1998 issue of Vanity Fair magazine.
Theatrical release: December 8, 2000.
Hackford shot the film on location in the U.K., Poland, and Ecuador--including a scene shot in Lloyd's of London and several challenging sequences in the Andes mountains.
Meg Ryan was Hackford's first choice of cast for the film. He was interested in Crowe, but at the time, THE INSIDER and GLADIATOR had not yet been released, and Hackford was undecided. He asked the director of each film, Michael Mann and Ridley Scott, respectively, if he could view raw footage of their unreleased films.
When he saw Crowe's versatility between the two roles, he cast him as Terry Thorne.
The film includes a credit for military and guerrilla training.
In doing research for his role as the kidnapped businessman, David Morse sought advice from Tom Hargrove, who had written a book about his own experience as a hostage.
The high altitude of the Ecuador shooting location (reaching as high as 14,000 feet) resulted in two dozen crew members getting sick.
Time voted PROOF OF LIFE one of the year's 10 best films.
DVD Features:
Region 1
Dual Layer
Audio:
Dolby Digital 5.1 - English, French
Subtitles - English, French
Executive Producer
Steven Reuther:
Executive Producer
Tony Gilroy:
Review 1:
"...Crowe is utterly convincing....[With] an excellent turn from David Morse..."
Source: Total Film
p.88 04/01/2001
Review 2:
"...PROOF OF LIFE is a first-rate thriller that also manages to be an intimate drama, a journalistic investigation and a political farce..."
Source: Hollywood Reporter
p.13-52 12/01/2000
Review 3:
"...Mr. Crowe radiates a stubborn, heroic solidity..."
Source: New York Times
p.E8 12/08/2000
Review 4:
"...A well-paced drama buoyed by exceptional performances....The stoic yet lonely quality Crowe lens his onscreen persona strikes a perfect balance..."
Source: Box Office
p.66 02/01/2001
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