‘Proof of Life’ frequently comatose

Max Jacobson

Friday, Dec. 8, 2000 | 10:30 a.m.

Grade: **

Starring: Meg Ryan, Russell Crowe, David Morse and David Caruso.

Screenplay: Tony Gilroy.

Director: Taylor Hackford.

Rated: R for violence, language and some drug material.

Running time: 135 minutes.

Playing at: UA Showcase 8, UA Rainbow Promenade 10, Century Orleans, Century Desert 16, Century Cinedome 12 Henderson, Rancho Santa Fe 16, Las Vegas Drive-in, Century Sam's Town, Regal Cinemas Sunset Station, Regal Cinemas Colonnade 14, Regal Cinemas Texas Station 18, Regal Cinemas Village Square 18.

Sometimes excitement generated by gossip about movie stars and their goings-on in real life generate enough of a buzz for a film to do well, even if the plot is thin and the direction uninspiring.

That might be the case for "Proof of Life," a rather tepid hostage drama starring Russell Crowe as macho hostage negotiator Terry Thorne, and Meg Ryan as the rather impassive (given the circumstances) wife of hostage Peter Bowman (David Morse).

The script was inspired from an article by William Prochnau titled "Adventures in the Ransom Trade," which ran in Vanity Fair in May 1998. Apparently, kidnapping has become big business in the Third World, where multinational corporations send executives to oversee potentially lucrative projects. This film deals, and not subtly, with that phenomenon.

Ryan and Crowe had a well-publicized romance during the shooting, and soon after Ryan left her longtime husband Dennis Quaid. Despite obvious chemistry between the two stars, though, test audiences didn't respond well to a woman, whose husband has been abducted by guerillas, being held by a man who is purportedly trying to bring him back intact.

So the torrid love scenes originally shot were left on the cutting-room floor, leaving but one almost fraternal kiss between the two to act as a declaration of love.

It's probably a moot point, but knowing this, one wonders if the real-life romance would have been kindled in the first place, had the more passionate scenes never been shot at all.

But let's leave the speculation for Photoplay and instead describe the plot. Bowman (Morse) is an idealistic American engineer in a Latin American country the script refers to as Tecala. His company may be there for profit, but he is there to build a dam, which will save lives.

When he runs into a barricade on a mountain road, he is kidnapped by the People's Revolutionary Army. The army was once idealistic as well, we soon learn, but its idealism has given way to a 21st-century instinct for profit. There is money to be made in the hostage trade, and plenty of it.

Enter at this point Crowe, who we have already met in the film's long opening sequence, performing a James Bond-like rescue in Chechnya, of all places. Unfortunately for Bowman, the company has been bought out, and the bosses won't pay for Crowe's services, so soon after he arrives on the scene in Tecala, he is back on a plane for London.

What brings him back are feelings for Mrs. Bowman (Ryan.) He enlists help from a fellow soldier-of-fortune/hostage expert named Dino (David Caruso), and then, the two men go about plotting a strategy for taking Bowman away from the rebels and reuniting him with his wife.

Think of the plot as a boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl story, with elements gleaned from such films as Oliver Stone's "Salvador," Franklin Schaffner's "Papillon" and, unintentionally, Woody Allen's "Bananas," because the many long, tedious scenes depicting life in the guerilla's camp are often exaggerated to the point of being almost comical.

Director Taylor Hackford should have chopped at least 15 minutes from the center of the film. Much of that action, if you want to call it that, is ponderous.

But the movie comes to life anytime Crowe is on screen. This actor has a powerful screen presence, the sort of fellow every man wants to befriend and every woman wants to love. Here, he is allowed to act in his native Australian accent (in fact, he is really from New Zealand but he cut his acting teeth in the Australian film industry), and he projects a naturalness both refreshing and compelling.

Ryan, however, seems stale in this part and gives less than we expect from this usually fine actress. Some people would say that she comes the closest to being America's sweetheart, but it's probably time for her to play lustier, more middle-aged roles. No one is 26 forever.

Morse and Caruso are both first rate, though, and the pulsating score, from Moogmeister Danny Elfman, might remind people of the music Tangerine Dream wrote for "Sorcerer" back in the '80s.

The movie was shot largely in Ecuador and the mountain scenery, it must be said, is nothing short of spectacular.