Proof of Life (2000)

Intermittently enjoyable but extremely uneven thriller. 

Russell Crowe stars as Terry, a former SAS man tasked with rescuing Meg Ryan’s husband from the guerrilla rebels of the Liberation Army of Tecala. 

It’s morally all over the place, with one American’s life apparently worth so much more than the lives of all the locals from the fictional South American country. 

It’s also clumsily written, with a couple of plot threads not satisfactorily resolved. For example, why does Terry’s sister Janis (Pamela Reed) drop out of the narrative about halfway through? And what happened to the story about the oil pipeline funded by a US conglomerate? Also, the story has you hoping that Crowe and Ryan will get together as a couple, somewhat limiting your wish to see Ryan’s husband safely delivered home – the entire purpose of the mission.

Crowe and Ryan are both charismatic and watchable, and they lift the sub-standard material, but it’s still poor. And while no one would wish to deny the right of Meg Ryan’s character to wear nice make-up and clean white vests all of the time, you do wonder why she never once looks tired, nervous or unkempt despite the living hell she has to endure.

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