Last night and for the first time in 21 years, I re-watched Taylor Hackford and Tony Gilroy‘s Proof of Life. My vague recollection was that it had missed the mark, having lost money and gotten mixed reviews. I was wrong.
A believable, propulsive, well-textured kidnap, ransom & rescue drama set in South America (and largely based on a Vanity Fair article by William Prochnau called “Adventures in the Ransom Trade“), Proof of Life is good stuff — sturdy, smartly written and genuinely thrilling from time to time.
I found it very charismatically performed by Russell Crowe (relatively trim and quite handsome back then) and David Caruso. Alas, Meg Ryan is the opposite of that — as the anguished but argumentative wife of a kidnap victim (David Morse), almost everything she says and does is twitchy and annoying — she never seems to get hold of herself and get past her suspicions and resentments. Much better is Pamela Reed, as Crowe’s sister who flies down to assist.
I think the reception to Proof of Life got lost in the fog of the Crowe-Ryan affair. Hackford said this in so many words, that the film lost money because in the public mind the affair had overwhelmed the make-believe. Crowe was quoted as calling Hackford “an idiot” for saying this, but Hackford was right.
All I know is that after watching Proof of Life without the Crowe-Ryan mucky-muck, it came off better than expected — a strong, complex, grown-up thriller that ends with a great battle sequence.