L'Echange

Taylor Hackford is an old man, so this modern action film set in the Eastern looks very retro in his interpretation, surprisingly not to its disadvantage. The spark between Russel Crowe and Meg Ryan was very controversial at the time, so why not turn the page instead. Quality action, impressive sound, and the sequences from POW camps are realistically portrayed within the possibilities. It's far from a documentary style, there is still too much American cliché, but it's not downright bad either. It's just simple enough, aggressive enough, and action-packed enough for the audience. (07/05/2005)

Proof of Life can be perfectly described by a scene from Black Books in which Bernard Black sells a vacationing couple the same book: "You, you want suspense, thriller. This does you both. It's this temp. She's 29 and she can't get a boyfriend. Oh my god." "Sounds great." "No way!" "And she's got 12 hours to stop a nuclear war with China." "Well, one copy each!" It's impossible to ignore that this is a direct assault on the "him & her in their 30s" audience, so we get kidnappings, guerrillas, green berets, helicopters, some explosions, and a super-professional ex-soldier, but there's also a sad Meg Ryan, a sense of belonging, an exotic setting, and forbidden love to go with it. In so doing, Hackford is actually returning to the themes of his universally failed 80s romances, which always worked with fateful and unlikely love in a male-dominated setting (the military base in An Officer and a Gentleman, the private eye in Against All Odds, American football in Everybody's All-American). The problem here, then, lies in the botched interplay between the romantic and thriller storylines, thanks in large part to the pathetic building of the relationship between Morse and Ryan, which, while the film tries to portray the heroine as a strong, indefatigable personality, makes us rightly suspect that she kind of doesn't care about the whole kidnapping thing. And then the forbidden love between her and Russell Crowe comes from three scenes – she gives him one casual pat on the back, then drinks from the same glass as him, and then wham bam thank you ma’am and it's all clear. Fortunately, thanks to the fact that nobody cared all that much about the romantic storyline in the end, the film spends most of its running time on the actual kidnapping and rescue attempt, which is just plain fun, ending with an honest-to-goodness shootout of a rebel village, a helicopter taking off, and a farewell to that dangerous Ecuadorian landscape as the credits roll. (06/06/2020)

Hackford doesn't weigh too heavily on sentiment and the plot moves forward at a decent pace. The South American realities were spot on, as was the convincing David Morse as the captive. What this film has been faulted for in reviews is that the chemistry between Crowe and Meg Ryan was unconvincing. To be honest, it’s true and I don’t care. Crowe's charisma makes the whole story tight, it's his movie and Meg Ryan is almost redundant. (22/06/2003)

The problem with Proof of Life is not so much the triviality and transparency of the plot, and not even the love triangle readable as the largest letter in the oracle. The problem with Proof of Life is the script, written in an incredibly schematic and confused style, in which the pathos of the red library, the stupidity of action films and would-be psychological monologues are stacked on top of each other. No wonder, then, that even the actors, who perform great in the film, cannot create even slightly believable and plastic characters from the script. So, we have Crowe, Meg Ryan and Davida Morse. Nevertheless, the skill of the main characters is manifested at least by the fact that their stuttering characters are able to impress the viewer within the limits of their possibilities, and nothing about that will change the bad edit and average direction. As a result, Proof of Life is neither a psychological nor a love film - it is more of a drama, and the drama is not particularly dramatic. Hackford's only happiness is that the title role was played by Crowe, whose charisma triumphs over all the bad... (21/11/2004)

What did I think right after it was over, you ask? That I've seen many thrillers like this. Throughout the entire film, it pretends to be something that hasn't been seen before, but after reading the previews in the newspapers, I knew what style the film would follow. The film follows a precisely planned line both in terms of the screenplay and direction, and there is not even a momentary hint that it should deviate even slightly from this path. That is very unfortunate because kidnapping is fairly compelling and not a subject seen often in films. Russell Crowe delivers his standard. His character of Terry, the negotiator, is sympathetic from the beginning, but at times also a bit boring. Even Meg Ryan's sweet smile soon gets on my nerves. Sure, it looks good, but I'm willing to accept that in romantic comedies, but not in a thriller. Although to be honest, it's not exactly a thrilling masterpiece with its rather conventional treatment. That's a shame, and lately, I've been frustrated by a certain thing in movies, namely the wasted potential of the subject matter. That is exactly the group to which Proof of Life belongs. Moreover, I have a feeling that this trend of wasted potential will keep growing. (21/11/2004)