With a talented cast, an experienced director in Taylor Hackford, a creative writer in Tony Gilroy and featuring some stunning Ecuadorian locations, you'd be forgiven for thinking Proof of Life should have been a winner, both critically and commercially. Instead it failed, for one major reason. At two and a quarter hours, the film is at least 30 minutes too long.
The story content isn't strong enough to sustain such a long movie, which ends up being filled with padded out, pointless scenes that have little to do with the main story.
Russell Crowe watches his son play rugby. British character actor Alun Armstrong pops up as an old friend of both Crowe's and David Caruso's characters ... and then is never seen or heard from again. Pamela Reed and Meg Ryan play similar characters (sisters-in-law) but just seem to clutter up the screen and get in each other's way. Did the film need them both? So much of David Morse's hostage character is just repeated ad nauseam. We really didn't need about 15 minutes of screen time devoted to us being shown Peter being moved to different places amongst the mountains. The Alice and Terry "forbidden love story" sub-thread is so drawn out with their characters completely lacking any chemistry, that it just becomes a big yawn (which is kind of strange given the nature and publicity of Meg's and Russell's off-screen affair at the time),
Speaking of Alice, it's hard to believe Meg Ryan was supposedly paid $15 million for this unlikeable wife role, which I feel could just about have been played by any one. Alice, as mentioned before isn't even a really important character. She could have been interchanged with Janis, Peter's sister.
The storyline becomes so dragged out, I almost burst out laughing, before cheering David Caruso's Dino, when he demands of Terry, late in the film, that they finally spring into action. (Ironically Dino is one character I would have liked to have seen more of in the movie.)
I don't know if more judicious editing of Proof of Life would have made it a better film. But I'm sure a 90 - 105 minute product would have been a more enjoyable experience.
The story content isn't strong enough to sustain such a long movie, which ends up being filled with padded out, pointless scenes that have little to do with the main story.
Russell Crowe watches his son play rugby. British character actor Alun Armstrong pops up as an old friend of both Crowe's and David Caruso's characters ... and then is never seen or heard from again. Pamela Reed and Meg Ryan play similar characters (sisters-in-law) but just seem to clutter up the screen and get in each other's way. Did the film need them both? So much of David Morse's hostage character is just repeated ad nauseam. We really didn't need about 15 minutes of screen time devoted to us being shown Peter being moved to different places amongst the mountains. The Alice and Terry "forbidden love story" sub-thread is so drawn out with their characters completely lacking any chemistry, that it just becomes a big yawn (which is kind of strange given the nature and publicity of Meg's and Russell's off-screen affair at the time),
Speaking of Alice, it's hard to believe Meg Ryan was supposedly paid $15 million for this unlikeable wife role, which I feel could just about have been played by any one. Alice, as mentioned before isn't even a really important character. She could have been interchanged with Janis, Peter's sister.
The storyline becomes so dragged out, I almost burst out laughing, before cheering David Caruso's Dino, when he demands of Terry, late in the film, that they finally spring into action. (Ironically Dino is one character I would have liked to have seen more of in the movie.)
I don't know if more judicious editing of Proof of Life would have made it a better film. But I'm sure a 90 - 105 minute product would have been a more enjoyable experience.