When an American engineer, Peter Bowman (David Morse) is kidnapped in Latin America while working on a dam that is supposed to put a good face on an oil project, his wife, Alice (Meg Ryan) is left to her own devices as the company collapses. And there is no kidnap insurance, so top kidnap negotiator Terry Thorne (Russell Crowe) can't help her. Not officially, that is. The terrorists are drug manufacturing bandits, financing their operations with ransom dollars. Thorne knows how to play their game and win - but this time, he is acting on his own, albeit with a little help from a fellow mercenary, Dino (David Caruso). Meanwhile, Thorne starts to fall in love with Alice, complicating his mission with emotional baggage.
Thorne is a first rate professional soldier who left the Australian army in search of real action at the British SAS. If I hadn't heard Crowe in so many interviews I would have thought the amount of times he says "mate" was a put-on. Ryan, as Alice, struck me as playing the same role she always plays, that of a woman who spends a lot of time in her PJs and a cigarette in her hand as she looks sad and vulnerable. Unfortunately I didn't find myself caring about her character at all.
Proof of Life still manages to tell an interesting story without relying totally on action. It's a movie filled with action, drama, suspense, and Russell. What more could you ask for?!?