Nonureva Really Surprised!

Rijndri Load of rubbish!!

Bluebell Alcock Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

Benas Mcloughlin Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

Leofwine_draca THE HOSTAGE is a low budget, gritty drama of 1967 put out by Crown International Pictures. It's worth watching to see some quiet but engaging performances from the principal cast members, although the plot is long-winded which makes this feel more of a mood piece than anything else. The story has an annoying kid accidentally stowing himself away in a removal truck being driven by a psychopath. He becomes a hostage while his parents act frantically and the police pursue. There's really not too much here of interest, if I'm honest, but Don Kelly is an effectively sweaty, on-the-edge psycho, and Harry Dean Stanton is as likable as ever he was.

utgard14 Davey Cleaves (Danny Martins) is a little scamp who climbs aboard a moving van, which then takes off with him in the back. The van is driven by two men (Don O'Kelly, Harry Dean Stanton) who killed another man the night before. When they stop the van to bury the body, Davey gets out and starts wandering around like a little weirdo instead of running. Finally, after the bad guys discover him, Davey runs and leads them on a chase. During all this his parents are freaking out thinking a homeless man nabbed Davey. Don O'Kelly, a familiar face on '60s television, chews scenery like candy but it's fun to watch. Sadly O'Kelly died of stomach cancer before this movie was released. Harry Dean Stanton is good in an early role, still perfecting his screen persona. Child actor Danny Martins is terrible but there's a lot of fun to be had with his complete lack of talent. His line delivery is awesome ("I kicked him...really hard...on purpose"). John Carradine plays a homeless man who is friendly with the kid and gets blamed for his disappearance. The cinematography was handled by garbageman Ted V. Mikels, who made a lot of Z-grade trash that bizarrely has a cult following. He does a competent job here, helped by the location shooting. Oh and the film is scored by Jaime Mendoza-Nava, who did a number of great '70s low-budget horror flicks, including one of my all-time favorites, The Legend of Boggy Creek. Not a bad little low budget thriller. Some unintentional humor but decent direction and an interesting story make it watchable. The subplots like the couple who own the turkey farm are a nice touch. A better actor for the kid and this might have been a great one. As it is, it's worth taking a look.

lemon_magic I never read the novel this movie was based on, but I'd be willing to bet that the author wasn't all that happy with the cinematic results.There's a germ of an interesting idea here, and it seems as if the director and cast are trying very hard to make it work as a movie, but the plot is just too thin and the sets, props, costumes, scenery and dialog are just too threadbare. And the soundtrack, especially the introductory song on the credits is laughably overwrought and weepy.A word about the child actor who has to carry the film...you can't criticize a little kid for an poor performance in a role like this. Either they have the charisma, talent and maturity to give the director what he wants or they don't, and it's not their fault if the performance fails...it's the fault of the director and the people who cast the child in the first place. Danny What's-his-name is OK in some scenes, stiff and affected in others, but he's not actively annoying the way some child actors can be, and he doesn't try too hard. But this movie needed a real prodigy in the central role to work, and Danny ain't it. And he never (apparently) got another chance, which probably was better for him anyway.Harry Dean Stanton and John Carradine are in this is fairly prominent roles, but they play weak characters with no inherently interesting qualities, and the movie wouldn't have been any better (or worse) if the producers had just cast non-entities in their places.I wouldn't bother with this one unless you really want to see every last drama ever made. It's not awful by any means...it just isn't very interesting.

Theo Robertson A few minutes after seeing the very satisfying thriller BREAKDOWN I switched channels and sat down to watch THE HOSTAGE . I wasn't expecting it to be as intriguing or as thrilling as the Kurt Russell movie but long before we'd reached the halfway point I was very disappointed This movie starts with a trio of thieves falling out in which one of them is killed . So right away we've got it spelled out that one of them is a raging psycho and just to help of the hard of thinking audience his colleague says things like " You killed him " to which he replies " yeah I killed him and I'll kill you too if you give me any problems " . Just in case there's any deaf people watching Mr Psycho scowls his dialogue with an OTT expression so people know he's not to be messed with A few minutes later Stan and Ollie , oooppps I mean the two criminals come up with a scam that involves stealing someones furniture , and believe me if there's one thing worse than murder it's stealing someone's furniture . Being not very clever people ( I wonder if the criminals wrote this screenplay ? ) they accidentally drive off with a child in the back of their removal truck . So now they've got a hostage , but he's not really a hostage it's a kid they've accidentally brought along with them . But remember since only two minutes have elapsed since it was spelled out for a blind , deaf and dumb audience that these criminals aren't very nice , we're once again treated to yet more dialogue such as " I'll kill you if you cross me " etc . Long before the credit titles rolled I stopped being sorry for the kid who got abducted and started to feel very sorry for myself as I watched this movie THE HOSTAGE is very inoffensive but there's nothing I could take seriously . Everything about the movie is camp or contrived and you can't help thinking this might have worked better as a comedy . I also believe it was remade in the late 1980s with Macauley Culkin and Joe Pesci or was that just coincidence ?