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Proof Of Life [DVD] [2001]
 
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Proof Of Life [DVD] [2001]

DVD ~ Meg Ryan
3.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
RRP: £13.99
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Customers buy this item with Beautiful Mind, A [DVD] [2002] DVD ~ Russell Crowe

Proof Of Life [DVD] [2001] + Beautiful Mind, A [DVD] [2002]
Price For Both: £10.06

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What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

Proof Of Life [DVD] [2001]
94% buy the item featured on this page:
Proof Of Life [DVD] [2001] 3.2 out of 5 stars (5)
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Product details

  • Actors: Meg Ryan, Russell Crowe, David Morse, Pamela Reed, David Caruso
  • Directors: Taylor Hackford
  • Writers: Thomas Hargrove, Tony Gilroy, William Prochnau
  • Producers: Taylor Hackford, Charles Mulvehill, Feliks Pastusiak, Steven Reuther
  • Format: PAL, Widescreen
  • Language English, French, Italian, Russian, Spanish
  • Subtitles: English, Arabic, Bulgarian, Romanian
  • Region: Region 2 (This DVD may not be viewable outside Europe. Read more about DVD formats.)
  • Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
  • Number of discs: 1
  • Classification: 15
  • Studio: Warner Home Video
  • DVD Release Date: 27 Aug 2001
  • Run Time: 134 minutes
  • Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
  • ASIN: B00005LW4R
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 3,253 in DVD (See Bestsellers in DVD)

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Reviews

Amazon.co.uk Review
Inspired by a Vanity Fair article, Proof of Life is that rarest of Hollywood commodities: the exploration of an original idea. Kidnapping may have graced our screens in the likes of Ransom, but the revelatory material here exposes a billion dollar industry. Engineer Peter Bowman (David Morse) is the kidnapee. Anti-government guerrillas in the fictional locale of Tecala in South America are his captors. More central to the plot is negotiator Terry Thorne (Russell Crowe's first role after Gladiator). His wavering professional ethics allow him to overlook the fact that Bowman's company has reneged on the insurance payment, but don't prevent him from developing feelings for Bowman's wife Alice (Meg Ryan). Cutting between the threads, the film benefits from Crowe and Ryan's obvious chemistry as well as an atmosphere of tense reality provided by the lush locations. Perfectionist director Taylor Hackford insisted on filming in Ecuador despite the studio's better judgement. The crew suffered a consistently hostile environment, but the jungle helps in maintaining a believable threat against Bowman's life. What's ultimately discovered by each of the principals is that they all had more to prove to themselves than they'd ever realised.

On The DVD: From an animated menu there's the obligatory trailer and page of cast and crew names. The surprise in the latter is that it's static--No further information! A 14-minute HBO documentary hosted by David Caruso makes up for that. Mini-interviews with all the cast are intercut with behind-the-scenes footage. You see Morse losing weight as they shot, learn that there are 30,000 kidnappings a year and that the crew suffered a drifting wind of tear gas one day. The best feature is Taylor Hackford's commentary, which is breathlessly crammed with information. He talks about the detailed research undertaken on the script, which highlighted Columbia as the world's kidnap centre and London as the K&R (Kidnap and Rescue) reciprocal centre. The most fascinating fact is the reason for a deleted sex scene between Ryan and Crowe. While editing it, Hackford was about the last to discover they'd become an item off-screen. Ryan's lasting objections mean it's not included on this disc. A terrific 2:35:1 ratio dazzles the eye with the Ecuador landscapes, and the 5.1 surround does wonders for Danny Elfman's edgy score.--Paul Tonks

DVD Description
DVD Special Features:

Feature-Length Audio Commentary by Director Taylor Hackford
Behind-the-Scene Documentary The Making of Proof of Life
Interactive Menus
Scene Access
Trailer
Languages: English Dolby Digital 5.1
Subtitles: English, Arabic, Romanian, Bulgarian, English for the hearing impaired.

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Customer Reviews

5 Reviews
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 (1)
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Average Customer Review
3.2 out of 5 stars (5 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Superb, entertaining and exhilerating !, 2 Jul 2001
By kusiar@btinternet.com (Nantwich, England) - See all my reviews
Proof of life is a fantastic film. From start to finish it kept me on the edge of my seat. Proof of life is not high in action but what you do get is a well made film with an extremely good story and very good actors. However the action sequences you do witness are superb. Meg Ryan and Russell Crowe are superb together. If you enjoyed the negotiator you'll love this ! Ten out of Ten !
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5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars An interesting film, acted and directed sincerely., 21 April 2002
This film, based on truth, shows the harrowing ordeal of kidnapping. All the actors played their parts well, and the psychological realm of the film was portrayed with sincerity. The special features, how the film was made, the director's commentary, etc., was very good.
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5 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars likely to be better remembered for what happened behind the, 28 Feb 2002
Meg Ryan and engineer David Morse are the married couple struggling through society functions in South America; when Morse is kidnapped by guerrillas, Ryan calls in Russell Crowe's kidnap risk negotiator, a man obsessed with obtaining "proofs of life" (the evidence which proves the subject isn't a dead duck), to bring her hubby back. This was the production on which Ryan left her long-time husband Dennis Quaid to spend more time in the company of Crowe, meaning that she dumped a man who in his last movie (Frequency) spent most of his time sitting around talking on a CB radio for a man whose latest movie has him sitting around doing much the same thing; at any rate, Proof Of Life is one of those movies likely to be better remembered for what happened behind the scenes than for anything actually preserved up on screen.

After the high-points of The Insider and Gladiator, this is Crowe's introduction to the kind of silly Hollywood melodrama every leading man has to go through at least once in their career, his star power roped in to give a ropy script a bit of an edge, but there's an awful scene in the first fifteen minutes - between his character, a divorced ex-SAS man, and the poor little rugby-playing orphan boy who calls him "sir" - which lets him, and the audience, know exactly what to expect. (It should be noted that everyone involved with this scene looks suitably embarrassed.) Of the other two, Morse does terrific work, trudging over the hilltops with a castaway's beard and a steely look of resolve in his eyes which never lets up, but Ryan, taking yet another thankless role in a recent career of thankless roles in thankless movies, gets the short-straw character of an ex-hippy forced to stand around smoking in bad fashion choices or running around after a man whose job is running around after a man who builds dams while his wife stays at home. Too many of the supports - Reed's sister-in-law, David Caruso's wisecracking partner, almost all of the ethnic characters - play for broad comedy which lets any tension go; you may like to compare Proof Of Life with Richard Price's script for Ron Howard's underrated 1996 thriller Ransom, a more psychological take on the kidnap movie which had far fewer "outs" for its characters - and its audience. The only interesting point the plot has to make - a tentative parallel drawn between jungle terrorists and multinational corporations - is lost about halfway in as a promising drama about people cut off from the world gives way to let's-kill-all-the-kidnappers gung-ho with a collapsible love triangle stapled on (Crowe rediscovers his Andy McNab genes just as Ryan's working out what she really feels for her husband.)

The love triangle can't work because Morse is more likeable than the Crowe-Ryan relationship would allow, and the action-thriller element features the worst plot contrivance of any major studio release this year: Ryan's housemaid's daughter does the kidnappers' laundry. (That should teach them for sending out.) The final irony is that Warner Bros. and Castle Rock each spent several million dollars on a film which demonstrates remarkably few proofs of life itself.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Action packed,high-octane edge of your seat thriller
This is a excellent film , and worth every penny you spend , despite what the snitchy critics say.It is superbly informitive , and well acted. Read more
Published on 5 Sep 2001

1.0 out of 5 stars Hugely disappointing and formulaic "thriller"
The much-vaunted chemistry between Meg Ryan and Russell Crowe is notable by its total absence in this leaden film. Read more
Published on 31 Jul 2001 by riversideconsulting@btinternet.com

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