Crisis Negotiators: A So-So Remake of The Negotiator

The one piece of advice I would give anyone wanting to watch this Hong Kong remake of the 1998 Hollywood movie The Negotiator (which is currently on Disney+) is not to watch the original first: other than some added car chases, almost every aspect of this new film pales in comparison.

On its own, Crisis Negotiators is a perfectly serviceable crime thriller, but admirers of F. Gary Gray’s Chicago-set police procedural will notice the inferior acting right away. While the remake features many of the same plot twists and dialogue, it still manages to feel unconvincing.

Rather than updating it for a present-day audience, writer-director Herman Yau Lai-to sets his remake in the 1990s. While that decision is bewildering, it does keep the film in line with the increasingly dominant notion in Hong Kong films that bad cops only existed in the colonial era.

Playing the lead role of a seasoned hostage negotiator is Lau Ching-wan, who, despite being one of Hong Kong cinema’s finest actors, struggles to match the wisecracking charm of his US counterpart, Samuel L. Jackson.

Caption: Lau Ching-wan as Cheuk Man-wai in Crisis Negotiators

After he finds his long-time work partner dead in a car, respected police inspector Cheuk Man-wai (Lau) becomes the prime suspect in his death amid a concerted effort by his corrupt colleagues to set him up as the fall guy and to cover up a major embezzlement plot within the force.

In a last-ditch effort to prove his innocence, Cheuk storms the police’s internal investigation office, takes several hostages at gunpoint, and demands to speak to Tse Ka-chun (Francis Ng), a former police negotiator who now works as a social worker.

What unfolds from here is exactly as you remember it from the original, as Yau sticks closely to the narrative beats and his ensemble cast go through the motions like this is a full-scale play-acting exercise.

Caption: Francis Ng as Tse Ka-chun in Crisis Negotiators

Yau has made only a few changes in his version, but one of them is a mistake – the second lead has been turned from a cryptic and cynical rival negotiator (as portrayed by Kevin Spacey) into a paper-thin, consummate good guy played by Ng, who looks uninterested throughout. Why is he even allowed to take charge of a police mission?

Fans of executive producer Andy Lau Tak-wah will rejoice in his turn as the star hostage-taker in a newly written, culturally specific opening scene, but Yau swiftly moves on to the kind of generic thrills that he can churn out in his sleep.

Ghostlight: A Daring and Audacious Balancing Act

Directed by Kelly O’Sullivan and Alex Thompson, Ghostlight is a film that masterfully maintains a needling ambiguity about the source of evil in this haunting tale of a father searching for his long-missing son.

Looking for a group of long-missing children on a patch of moorland, podcaster Claire (Sophia La Porta) thinks she has defined her search area. But when she lays down her map in front of the police chief who once led the case, he reaches for a box and arrays five more Ordnance Surveys around it. His rejoinder – “That’s the moor” – is the equivalent of “You’re gonna need a bigger boat” in this redoubtable folk horror debut evidently inspired by the Brady-Hindley murders.

Caption: Sophia La Porta as Claire in Ghostlight

Claire is beholden to this search because of a guilty secret: in 1996, she was indirectly responsible for the disappearance of one of the kids, called Danny, by persuading him to act as a decoy while she pilfered sweets from a newsagent. Now she is riding shotgun, or bodycam in fact, to Danny’s harrowed father Bill (David Edward-Robertson), who is still desperately combing the peat bogs for his son’s remains.

His obsession is further stoked when they find a single abandoned shoe in a blackened gully. But Claire questions his sanity when she realises Bill is pinpointing locations with the help of pendulum dowser Alex (Mark Peachey) and his psychic daughter Eleanor (Elizabeth Dormer-Phillips).

Starting with a sharp single-take scene on a Leeds street corner for the initial abduction, the first half of Ghostlight is fantastic. As Claire and Bill mount successive forays into this disorientating and almost pustulant-looking terrain, the directors have an oppressive spiritual fug close in.

Crucially, they maintain a needling ambiguity about the source of evil out in the wilderness: is it the nameless incarcerated killer, glimpsed once in sinister Slender Man long shot as he is roped into a fresh search, or something from the supernatural beyond?

Caption: David Edward-Robertson as Bill in Ghostlight

Sadly, the directors blow this superb setup in the final act by flipping between and conflating these two poles, thereby losing grip on the film’s ultimate destination. Jumpscares applied early on with a regularity that suggests the latent violence in the moor’s vicinity become nakedly manipulative.

Most of the central performances are also a bit vanilla, with the exception of the impressive Edward-Robertson, his face locked in a stress rictus that lets slip twisted grief. If the directors had stayed similarly grounded, they might have had one of the best British horror films in years on their hands; as it is, they haven’t, but have a pretty promising future instead.

The Moor: A Formidable Folk Horror Debut

Director Chris Cronin masterfully maintains a needling ambiguity about the source of evil in this haunting tale of a father searching for his long-missing son.

Looking for a group of long-missing children on a patch of moorland, podcaster Claire (Sophia La Porta) thinks she has defined her search area. But when she lays down her map in front of the police chief who once led the case, he reaches for a box and arrays five more Ordnance Surveys around it. His rejoinder – “That’s the moor” – is the equivalent of “You’re gonna need a bigger boat” in this redoubtable folk horror debut evidently inspired by the Brady-Hindley murders.

Caption: Sophia La Porta as Claire in The Moor

Claire is beholden to this search because of a guilty secret: in 1996, she was indirectly responsible for the disappearance of one of the kids, called Danny, by persuading him to act as a decoy while she pilfered sweets from a newsagent. Now she is riding shotgun, or bodycam in fact, to Danny’s harrowed father Bill (David Edward-Robertson), who is still desperately combing the peat bogs for his son’s remains.

His obsession is further stoked when they find a single abandoned shoe in a blackened gully. But Claire questions his sanity when she realises Bill is pinpointing locations with the help of pendulum dowser Alex (Mark Peachey) and his psychic daughter Eleanor (Elizabeth Dormer-Phillips).

Starting with a sharp single-take scene on a Leeds street corner for the initial abduction, the first half of The Moor is fantastic. As Claire and Bill mount successive forays into this disorientating and almost pustulant-looking terrain, the director has an oppressive spiritual fug close in.

Crucially, he maintains a needling ambiguity about the source of evil out in the wilderness: is it the nameless incarcerated killer, glimpsed once in sinister Slender Man long shot as he is roped into a fresh search, or something from the supernatural beyond?

Caption: David Edward-Robertson as Bill in The Moor

Sadly, the director blows this superb setup in the final act by flipping between and conflating these two poles, thereby losing grip on the film’s ultimate destination. Jumpscares applied early on with a regularity that suggests the latent violence in the moor’s vicinity become nakedly manipulative.

Most of the central performances are also a bit vanilla, with the exception of the impressive Edward-Robertson, his face locked in a stress rictus that lets slip twisted grief. If the director had stayed similarly grounded, he might have had one of the best British horror films in years on his hands; as it is, he hasn’t, but has a pretty promising future instead.