Ransom (1996)

Starring: Mel Gibson, Rene Russo, Gary Sinise, Delroy Lindo, Liev Schreiber, Donnie Wahlberg, Dan Hedaya, and Lili Taylor
Grade: A

Do not fuck with Mel Gibson.

Summary

In New York, chairman of Endeavor Airlines and multi-millionaire Tom Mullen (Gibson) hosts a party and premieres his new commercial to promote his airline for everyone in attendance. As they watch the rather wholesome commercial, he smiles at his son Sean (Brawley Nolte). Once we see his wife Kate (Russo) join him in mingling, we go elsewhere to see some guy rigging a random room to be perfect for hostage purposes. As Tom continues to speak with his guests, one of the caterers in Maris (Taylor) exchanges eye contact with Sean. At the same time, the hostage room is being made soundproof, among other things. Back at Tom’s house party, some unknown man suggests Jackie Brown (Hedaya) will file a civil suit against him from his prison cell. Startled, Tom sends Sean away for the moment to approach this guy. The man tells Tom that Jackie has evidence Tom paid him to head off the strike, saying Tom initiated the bribe. After introducing himself as Sammy Adler from the Daily News, Tom has two guys escort him out. Over in the hostage room, we see two televisions being set up. Next, we transition back to Tom’s, where Sean is watching outtakes from Tom’s commercial, and he interrupts to talk to Sean for a bit. Elsewhere, we see Det. Jimmy Shaker (Sinise) and two other cops arrest some guy. The night ends with Tom consoling Kate, as she’s bothered with these people coming after her husband and their family.

The next day, the Mullen family attends the Junior Science Fair since Kate is the chairlady. Since Kate is one of the judges, Sean isn’t entered into the competition because it would be unfair to the other competitors. As the fair goes on, Tom and Sean fly some mini-drone thing around that Sean built. Once Tom leaves Sean for a moment, he’s kidnapped by Cubby Barnes (Wahlberg) without a noise being made. Soon after, Tom and Kate notice Sean is gone and start frantically looking, with Tom noticing things are serious once he sees the drone crash and fall on its own. When Tom runs across the street, the white van containing Sean is seen right behind him and it drives off. Back at home, Tom and Kate wonder who they haven’t called but right after, they get a phone call alerting them of an email. Opening his email, Tom finds a video message of a disguised voice showing them they have Sean, and they want $2 million in cash in a very specific briefcase. They also demand that the police, FBI, nor the media get involved or Sean will die. Additionally, no tracking devices can be in either the money or the briefcase, or he will kill him. Then, he gives them 48 hours to get the money. At the hostage house, we see the disguised voice is Miles (Evan Handler). In the room they’re keeping Sean, Maris is feeding Sean cough syrup or something, and he spits it on her on accident, so she leaves the room pissed. Tom stops Kate from calling the authorities, saying he’ll just pay them. He doesn’t think the FBI will help because they’ve spent the last three months trying to bury Tom, but he agrees to it after she begs.

The disguised FBI agents come to his house shortly after, and they’re led by FBI Special Agent Lonnie Hawkins (Lindo). Following some basic questions, Tom tells Hawkins he called the FBI instead of the cops because they think this may have something to do with the indictments. He lets Hawkins know Jackie Brown was “caught on tape taking a payoff during contract negotiations with another airline, Infinite Air”. When he was caught, he offered giving up information on Tom, claiming he gave Jackie $250,000 for a “sweetheart deal with the union”. He thinks that since nothing was found on him, Jackie may have sent some “unsavory associates” his way. At the kidnappers’ place, Cubby sees the wounds on Sean’s legs and starts to pity him, telling him to “hang in there”. Over at Tom’s, Hawkins tells Kate he’s worked on 33 kidnapping cases but if you take away the drug and gang-related one’s, there has been about ten in the last five years, which is still a lot. Out of the ten, he got back seven.

Hey, not bad!

The phone rings and everyone springs into action, with Hawkins trying to remind Tom on how to handle the conversation right before he picks up the phone. Unfortunately, it’s just his secretary. At the kidnappers’ place, we see Cubby feeding Sean (who’s got duct tape over his eyes) and telling him jokes, pissing off Maris. They get in the living room with Miles and Cubby’s brother Clark (Schreiber), and Maris gets mad at Cubby for building a friendship with the kid. Clark, who got his brother involved in this, calms down Maris but agrees with her, implying they’re going to kill Sean regardless of the money. Cubby gets mad because he didn’t agree to this, and Maris gives both of them shit. Even though she’s not the leader of this group, her man is, and she makes it known. On the balcony of Tom’s place, Tom admits to Hawkins he paid off Jackie because he had too many mouths to feed and he didn’t have time for a strike, even though Hawkins warns him this isn’t a protected conversation. After letting him in on this, he asks if Jackie is responsible. Hawkins takes Tom to the prison to have a visit with Jackie to ask him. It turns out Jackie had nothing to do with it. As you would imagine though, he wasn’t too happy to see Tom and attacked him anyway during their conversation until he was pulled away by guards. Cubby goes to a convenience store where a criminal is being questioned by Det. Shaker. As Cubby picks up some kid things like cereal and random videos, Shaker eyeballs him once he helps put the criminal in the squad car. That night, Shaker gets to the kidnappers’ house and pulls a gun on a sleeping Cubby, but it’s not to arrest him. It’s to scold him for looking suspicious and buying kiddie cereal at a cop-infested place when a known kid is missing.

Shaker is actually the leader of the kidnappers!

Shaker goes to bed with Maris who just woke up from a bad dream about her horrible father, a man Shaker had arrested a while ago. She starts freaking out and admitting she’s worried about this whole thing, but Shaker calms her nerves. Sometime the next day, Tom and Kate get a phone call from the disguised voice of Shaker, telling Tom to come to a certain street for a phone call, but he has to have the money on him. During this phone call, he also tests Tom if he got the authorities involved, but Tom plays it off well. Even so, Shaker gets off the phone quick enough to where he couldn’t be tracked. Hawkins prepares a double for the money drop, but Tom insists he’ll do it instead, despite Hawkins telling him the dangers of what could happen since they don’t know who they’re dealing with. On the ride there, Shaker calls Tom’s car phone and gives him instructions that are incredibly specific, and he refuses to repeat: he is to go to some recreation center with the suitcases of money and dive into the swimming pool with all of his clothes on to retrieve a locker key next to the drain in the deep end. Once he has the key, he has to find the locker. He has seven minutes. The FBI traces it, but the exact location is scrambled, so they try and follow some clues to see if they can decipher it.

As you can imagine, they get nowhere with this because the movie would end.

Tom goes through the first part of his directions and when he gets to the locker, he answers the ringing phone inside of it. It’s Shaker with a new set of directions. He tells him to switch clothes to what he has in the locker, take the canvas bags placed there to the boiler room, and put the money into the new bags. Then, he is to leave the building and find a Monte Carlo by using a key taped to the phone he’s using. On the way out, he’s supposed to leave the phone with the suitcases and drive to this tunnel, and Shaker promises they will be watching the whole time. By the time he gets to the tunnel, Shaker drives behind Tom from a small distance and calls him on the walkie talkie placed in the car. As they talk for a bit, Shaker admits he picked Tom because he “buys his way out of trouble”, saying he read about him and the union guy, saying Tom should’ve gone to jail for it. He knows he paid Jackie before, so he knows Tom will pay again. Elsewhere, Cubby gets on his ATV as Clark gives him his gun, but Cubby tells him he’s not giving Shaker the money until he cuts Sean loose.

Back on the road, Tom gets pissed off with Shaker because he gets off topic talking about the plot of The Time Machine and how it relates to their situation, so he pulls over in frustration. He hears the feed starting to cut though, so he’s forced to get back on the road. Shaker continues with his directions telling him to go to some stone quarry and saying once Tom gives him the money, he’ll give Tom an address that will lead to Sean. Tom pulls up to the quarry and is approached by Cubby who demands the money. Tom demands the address, but Cubby acts confused and grabs the bags from him. Tom chases after but Cubby lays him out with a punch. Just then, the FBI helicopter reveals their position and starts their chase of Cubby and his ATV, with Tom chasing him on foot. Clark and Shaker watch this whole thing unfold from separate distances. As the FBI guys start to come down from the helicopter, Cubby starts to fire at them. This gives them the greenlight to fire back, and they shoot him. Tom approaches him and tries to ask where Sean is but to no avail, as he dies before he could say anything. Now, they pissed off the kidnappers and killed one of theirs. Tom and Kate can only assume the worst will happen, if it hasn’t already.

What does Tom do now?

My Thoughts:

Mel Gibson was involved in so many great productions, especially in his prime. The Ron Howard-directed Ransom is one of them. It makes sense why it was one of the highest grossing films of 1996.

This may be a weird statement, but I love a good hostage movie. It’s always exciting watching the battle of wits between the good guy and bad guy as each try to prevail in a seemingly unwinnable situation. Here, we get Gibson’s Tom, a good family man and husband dealing with the aftermath of his own shady business dealings, and Gary Sinise’s Jimmy Shaker, a corrupt detective who has an intelligent plan and is willing to do anything to get his money. As the story progresses, the situation becomes a lot more tense, moving past a traditional kidnapping plot. What starts out as a one-sided affair becomes a game of outmaneuvering, outsmarting, and daring the other to make the next move once Tom starts to get a little too bold. Originally, Shaker holds all the cards, and Tom is forced to abide by his rules. He’s got Sean, and he’s got the Mullen family by the balls. However, following Cubby’s death, where Tom notices how he reacted when he asked for the address Shaker promised, he wonders about the worst possibility. What if Sean is already dead? What if they plan on killing him, no matter what happens? This is the “x-factor” Agent Hawkins talks about in the kidnapping cases he’s previously failed at, but he’s not even considering it in this case. No parent would ever want to think about this negative outcome, and Hawkins works hard to steer him into a more positive outlook with messages of hope and faith. Obviously, Tom wants his son to be alive, but when you consider the possibility, there’s a chance this evil man walks away with the money and kills his son.

Based off of Cubby’s reaction, he has it on pretty good authority that his son’s endgame is already made out. Also, despite no one giving Tom his props in this film, he’s actually right. All the bad guys make it very clear to each other they’re going to kill Sean once they get the money. Sean’s only chance of survival is if Tom throws a curveball to throw off twenty-steps-ahead Shaker.

Boy, does he do just that.

In one of the ballsiest moves you’ve ever seen put to film, the lionhearted Tom puts up a $2 million bounty on whoever the person is that has Sean (“God be with you because nobody else will be”), matching the $2 million he’s being extorted for. He also says it’ll be dropped if his son is returned to him. The look on Shaker’s face once he watches the announcement on television is priceless, as is Hawkins who considers it an “act of sabotage” on his own work to help the Mullen family. When you think about, the move is incredibly clever because it will either force Shaker to follow through on his promise of giving Sean back, or he will be killed by someone else for doing it. It forces Shaker to think even further outside the box than Tom to succeed. This type of thinking is unprecedented for a kidnapping film.

It’s pretty genius stuff!

Is it putting the entire operation at risk, including his son? Yes, but it makes for an excellent movie moment! It’s handled so well too, especially the aftermath of his announcement. Tom looks around at the crew of the news show he’s on and then, there’s a view behind him to show the lights shining down on where he’s standing. It gives us this feeling that now that the whole world is on notice, everyone is watching, and everyone is a possible suspect. He’s going out on a limb, and he could be wrong, but Tom has an amazing judge of character, as he demonstrates numerous times throughout this film. Even when he yells at the agents that the dying Cubby is trying to tell him where Sean is, I couldn’t help but think he’s right.

Oddly enough, the scene that made me the most anxious was when Tom gets the false alarm call from his secretary. They all think it’s the bad guy, so Hawkins tells him everything he needs to say or ask from the guy to give them some kind of clue. The problem is he does so as the phone is ringing. After the fifth ring, I would’ve been like, “Dude, can you shut the fuck up?”. He couldn’t have picked any other time to prep him?! How can you tell him to calm down and then put him in a situation like that? If it actually was Shaker calling, his first question would be why it took so long for Tom to answer the phone, and he would’ve automatically assumed he got the authorities involved (the exact opposite of what he requested), putting the whole operation at risk!

Many times, Tom is asked why he doesn’t just pay the man. The thing is he definitely would have had he felt like the deal would’ve been honored. He even reveals this in the third act, saying he would’ve paid “ten times” the amount asked if he knew this pile of “human garbage” would go through with his end of the deal. He just couldn’t. The only way to beat the man is to challenge him, call his bluff, and hope your intuition is right. You have to have balls of steel as a father and husband to go through this situation in the manner he does, but Gibson does so believably and wholeheartedly. If you were his wife, you’d probably want to strangle Tom for going about things his way, but Gibson has this type of aura around him as the highly intelligent and courageous father, challenging and pushing the unknown entity that is Shaker to the point where he’s forced to change his entire plan. Tom isn’t always right either, as we see. The distress he puts Kate and Hawkins through when he starts to really push it makes you think at any given moment, he’s pushed too far and something bad is right around the corner.

The “My son is dead. Go to hell!” phone call, resulting in Tom hanging up shocks everyone, including Shaker and the audience watching. Without question, this pulsating, emotional scene is the second most memorable one in the film.

When we see Kate tell Hawkins she trusts Tom’s outlandish plan and there may be a possibility he’s right, it’s hard to question it. We know Kate and Tom have a devoted loyalty to each other and that the only reason they get through this thing emotionally is because of their loving marriage, but it also helps how damn convincing Tom is due to a masterful Gibson. We can see why Kate believes in him so much. His “never back down” attitude gave me chills and when he fails and his emotions pour out in a panic, I realized how fully entrenched I was into this story. At this point, you’re hoping and pleading for Tom and Kate to find a way out of this. Together, they really encapsulate the panic and hysteria two loving parents would have in a situation like this. When the ending happens in all its glory, I wouldn’t be surprised if you find yourself sitting on the edge of your seat, cheering Tom on.

I loved how important family is to him. Too many times in film, when we see a rich family at the center of the plot, there’s either a disconnect between a father and his child, or there’s a marital problem. It’s a very overused trope with rich families in movies, but in Ransom, this is an extremely loving home. This is why we believe in Tom and Kate and how badly they want Sean back. It’s not the classic situation where Tom has to not only save Sean but win his approval back because he takes work too seriously or whatever. Then, at the end, he promises he’ll never take his son for granted and vice versa. No, this is a loving family that cherishes each other, and the cracks only start to happen because of the ransom and the hidden truths that come out because of it (like the truth about the Jackie Brown situation). It did add some tension between Tom and Kate, adding already to their full plate of problems, and it was a good way to get Kate more involved into the plot. However, I can’t say that little details like Tom’s payoff thing needed as much attention as it got. It made sense of everything that was happening, but by the time Hawkins reveals this information to Kate to try and sway her to stop Tom from going too far, we as the audience are so far past it, it doesn’t change our opinion of anyone.

*The heavy metal music being blasted in Sean’s room at the kidnappers’ place was the most 90s thing ever. I felt like it was one of those horrific music videos that got too much airplay on MTV back in the day.*

Acting-wise, Gibson, Rene Russo, and even Delroy Lindo in his supporting role, fired on all cylinders as they try and navigate their way through Shaker’s map of destructivity. Gary Sinise has a penchant for playing good villains too, and it doesn’t stop here. He’s one bad son of a bitch. He tells Maris she’s worried about Sean because of her own “humanity” and “decency” she’s trying to cover up, and he’s able to calm her nerves by essentially implying he doesn’t contain such qualities. Though we don’t know too much of his connection with Maris, or how he’s able to recruit his small gang of miscreants, he pulls off the leadership role very well. He reassures Maris how scared the others are of him and honestly, I bought it completely. Shaker had no problems calming the constant arguing between his underlings, even striking Clark in the throat at one point to show his dominance. Even then, the constant arguing, and backstabbing becomes a major pro of this film because though we don’t know too much about each of their characters, it gets very entertaining to watch because we know the panic is starting to set in. Tom is much more unpredictable than they thought, and they’re scrambling. He is getting to them and as an audience, we’re all for it!

Ransom would’ve benefitted from some trimming of the fat in terms of the other details of the plot (A point I agree with Roger Ebert on), but I still think it’s one hell of a movie. It’s a thrill ride and prime Mel Gibson is all over it.