Ransom
with Mel Gibson, Rene Russo, Gary Sinise
Directed by Ron Howard
(Touchstone, 1996)
by Scott Hefflon
Mel Gibson stars as Tom Mullen, a millionaire airline owner filled with strength, pride, and charm. The movie opens with a dinner party subjected to Mullen’s new commercial for the airline he built from scratch. Gibson’s immaculate timing makes the commercial arrogant, yet homey, and charmingly personable – this is a man you’d trust to fly you anywhere. Meanwhile, back at the flophouse, preparations are being made – equipment is jury-rigged, a peep-hole is drilled, a bare mattress is equipped with constraints – there will soon be a “guest” in the house.
From the get-go, there is inner conflict within each house. Subplots are explored, relationships becoming evident through interaction and action. Mullen is the target of a buy-off scandal; his wife and co-workers are loyal, his detractors many. One of the bad guys is a softy, the others jaded, and Maris (Lili Taylor) fights her own fear, maternal instincts, and for respect among the low-lifes. They nab the millionaire’s son, they email the ransom “note” (a video file), Mullen calls the FBI, and a kidnapping expert (Delroy Lindo) coaches them, soothes them, and tries to get their kid back. As plans fail and tempers flare, bad-guy mastermind Detective Jimmy Shaker (Gary Sinise) and Mullen fight for control of their respective camps. Both are bullheaded quick-thinkers, and the cameramen go nuts with close up shots of furrowed brows, narrowing eyes, and the deer-caught-in-the-headlights looks of the stunned people around them. They’re shrewd and merciless, no doubt about it.
Gibson is thoroughly convincing, as expected, whether he’s playing the guy trying to make the right decision, the guy tormented at the prospect of losing his only son, or the guy who will track down his son’s kidnapper to the ends of the Earth with every resource at his disposal. Rene Russo is beautiful, even after she’s been beaten up, been crying for days, and on the verge of a nervous breakdown worrying about her son. As she melts sympathetically each time her husband reaches out to her, she exemplifies the strong woman standing by her man through thick and thin. Similarly, the dynamics between the dirty cop control freak and his dependent girlfriend (Lili Taylor is almost as feisty, haunted, and battered as she was in I Shot Andy Warhol) fluctuate wildly from betrayal to deep-rooted need, ending with gunfire.
While the ending seems almost tacked on at the last minute, the flip-flopping of who’s in control and the visible click in the mind’s of the two men as they plot their courses keeps the action tense. Many shots linger on a tender, desperate embrace, almost manually dragging a tear from the viewers’ ducts (nah baby, I just got smoke in my eye), but not to the point of melodrama. Sinise plays a good bad guy – cold, calculated, and crafty – but Gibson (naturally) steals the show as both agonizing victim and strong-willed maverick.
