I'm extremely fond of this 1998 film with Samuel L. Jackson, Kevin Spacey and Siobhan Fallon Hogan, one of my favorite character actresses. The title probably refers to Danny Roman (Samuel L. Jackson), the wrongfully accused police negotiator who winds up taking hostages, but I spent years with the impression that it referred to Chris Sabian (Kevin Spacey), which likely has something to do in part with how the movie got framed in promos back in the day.
Hogan plays one of the hostages, a woman named Maggie who has some great lines, like telling Danny Roman that there's a very nice bathroom in a little Italian place across the street when offered the opportunity to use the bathroom and also protesting pleas to let her go based on her gender and then insisting she should be let go because she had NOTHING to do with the corruption in question.
She's also a morally complex character, which I always like, in that she both has sympathy for Danny Roman and helps him out, yet doesn't fall on her sword for him when questioned by the police after he leaves the premises. She tells them where he went.
I was really pretty when I was younger and I basically no longer put out photos of me, which is partly about taking a stand against treating women like the only thing about them that matters is how they look and partly not wanting to hear the world tell me I'm no longer drop dead gorgeous. I couldn't be a character actress. My hang-ups about my looks would prevent that. But I'm glad Hogan chose to become one. It does my soul good to see her in films.
She has been in a number of big films, like Men in Black, and doesn't just play the bauble on some man's arm. She was also in a wonderful film called New in Town, which you should see if you are a woman trying to figure out this "how to have a real career" thingy. She generally seems to play these roles that are pro-woman without veering into toxic feminist territory and I just really love her work.
Other than just watching the film because it contains Hogan and Jackson, who are both great, I like this movie because it is about negotiating and it does that far better than I guess I ever expected a movie to do.
Negotiating is a kind of social skill and plenty of movies portray social skills as valuable and even as a means to get what you want out of life, but many of them do so in a way that suggests the only way to use social skills to get what you want is to use them in a manipulative, unethical fashion. It's usually portrayed as useful if you do the used car salesman, shmoozer type thing where you fast talk people or con people.
I think probably Legally Blonde is the only other film that does anything like this where Elle Woods is a kick-ass character who gets shit done and her big strengths are social in nature. But this film is one where lives are on the line, people get shot, etc. and negotiating skills are valuable in the face of this life-and-death stuff involving cops and SWAT teams and hostages, etc.
So most films act like useful social skills are about charm and being likable and getting favors that way and/or about lying to people or emotionally manipulating them. This is a film about analyzing people's motives and proving to other people that someone's behavior doesn't logically support what they claim they are doing.
I like the scene where Danny Roman is fucking with a guy named Farley who doesn't have the skill to try to talk Roman down. I also like how that contrasts with when Chris Sabian shows up and the conversation dramatically changes because Roman and Sabian are BOTH smooth talkers who know what they are doing.
I like how actions speak louder than words in the movie and NO ONE will believe Danny Roman's verbal claims about "I didn't do it" but then he tells them they will try to kill Niebaum to cover shit up and when they assassinate Niebaum, Roman is able to show it was an assassination, not an "oopsie, friendly fire!"
I like the end of the movie when they come outside and there are all these cops standing around listening to what went down and the truth has finally come out.
If you are interested in improving your social skills and getting more out of life in an ethical fashion, I encourage you to read some books and/or articles about negotiating and watch this movie and Legally Blonde. The two negotiating books that were required texts for my college class in Negotiation and Conflict Management were Getting to Yes and The Mind and Heart of the Negotiator, which are both research-based.
The first one is a quick read. The second one is meatier.
Online, you can read up on things like BATNA (Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement) and ZOPA (Zone of Possible Agreement).
The single most valuable thing I learned in my college class on negotiation is that when the ZOPA is very narrow, it's hard to reach an agreement and in most cases both parties will conclude the other party is JUST BEING AN ASSHOLE. Knowing that has made so many things in life vastly easier to navigate.
Hogan plays one of the hostages, a woman named Maggie who has some great lines, like telling Danny Roman that there's a very nice bathroom in a little Italian place across the street when offered the opportunity to use the bathroom and also protesting pleas to let her go based on her gender and then insisting she should be let go because she had NOTHING to do with the corruption in question.
She's also a morally complex character, which I always like, in that she both has sympathy for Danny Roman and helps him out, yet doesn't fall on her sword for him when questioned by the police after he leaves the premises. She tells them where he went.
I was really pretty when I was younger and I basically no longer put out photos of me, which is partly about taking a stand against treating women like the only thing about them that matters is how they look and partly not wanting to hear the world tell me I'm no longer drop dead gorgeous. I couldn't be a character actress. My hang-ups about my looks would prevent that. But I'm glad Hogan chose to become one. It does my soul good to see her in films.
She has been in a number of big films, like Men in Black, and doesn't just play the bauble on some man's arm. She was also in a wonderful film called New in Town, which you should see if you are a woman trying to figure out this "how to have a real career" thingy. She generally seems to play these roles that are pro-woman without veering into toxic feminist territory and I just really love her work.
Other than just watching the film because it contains Hogan and Jackson, who are both great, I like this movie because it is about negotiating and it does that far better than I guess I ever expected a movie to do.
Negotiating is a kind of social skill and plenty of movies portray social skills as valuable and even as a means to get what you want out of life, but many of them do so in a way that suggests the only way to use social skills to get what you want is to use them in a manipulative, unethical fashion. It's usually portrayed as useful if you do the used car salesman, shmoozer type thing where you fast talk people or con people.
I think probably Legally Blonde is the only other film that does anything like this where Elle Woods is a kick-ass character who gets shit done and her big strengths are social in nature. But this film is one where lives are on the line, people get shot, etc. and negotiating skills are valuable in the face of this life-and-death stuff involving cops and SWAT teams and hostages, etc.
So most films act like useful social skills are about charm and being likable and getting favors that way and/or about lying to people or emotionally manipulating them. This is a film about analyzing people's motives and proving to other people that someone's behavior doesn't logically support what they claim they are doing.
I like the scene where Danny Roman is fucking with a guy named Farley who doesn't have the skill to try to talk Roman down. I also like how that contrasts with when Chris Sabian shows up and the conversation dramatically changes because Roman and Sabian are BOTH smooth talkers who know what they are doing.
I like how actions speak louder than words in the movie and NO ONE will believe Danny Roman's verbal claims about "I didn't do it" but then he tells them they will try to kill Niebaum to cover shit up and when they assassinate Niebaum, Roman is able to show it was an assassination, not an "oopsie, friendly fire!"
I like the end of the movie when they come outside and there are all these cops standing around listening to what went down and the truth has finally come out.
If you are interested in improving your social skills and getting more out of life in an ethical fashion, I encourage you to read some books and/or articles about negotiating and watch this movie and Legally Blonde. The two negotiating books that were required texts for my college class in Negotiation and Conflict Management were Getting to Yes and The Mind and Heart of the Negotiator, which are both research-based.
The first one is a quick read. The second one is meatier.
Online, you can read up on things like BATNA (Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement) and ZOPA (Zone of Possible Agreement).
The single most valuable thing I learned in my college class on negotiation is that when the ZOPA is very narrow, it's hard to reach an agreement and in most cases both parties will conclude the other party is JUST BEING AN ASSHOLE. Knowing that has made so many things in life vastly easier to navigate.