Synopsis

After a disastrous hostage negotiation leaves him emotionally shattered, former Los Angeles negotiator Jeff Talley retreats to a quiet town and becomes its police chief. When three young criminals seize a wealthy family, Talley is drawn into another standoff. The situation becomes even more dangerous when an outside criminal organization abducts his own family, forcing him to choose between two hostage crises.

Factoids & Trivia

• The film is based on Robert Crais' 2001 novel of the same name. The adaptation removes the book's more elaborate Mafia subplot and presents Walter Smith's criminal connections more mysteriously.

• Rumer Willis plays Jeff Talley's daughter, Amanda. Although Bruce Willis is her real-life father, he required her to audition for the role like any other performer.

• Bruce Willis wears a realistic wig for the opening portion of the film. His beard in those scenes was his own.

• A deleted scene explains the troubled relationship between Talley and Amanda: she had witnessed her father attempting suicide during a period of depression.

• The title sequence uses a digitally recreated version of the film's setting, with the action appearing frozen as the camera moves through the scene. Its stark black-and-white imagery with selective red coloring was influenced by the graphic style of Sin City.

• The film was shot around Southern California, including Malibu, Topanga, Azusa, and East Los Angeles, with additional work at Raleigh Studios in Hollywood.

• The opening and closing credits use the same virtual-camera concept, transitioning between frozen digital imagery and the live-action film.

• A copy of The Negotiator can be seen among the DVDs in Walter Smith's office, an intentional visual reference to another prominent hostage-negotiation thriller.