Held Up (1999)

User Rating:

4.6/10   

Director:

Steve Rash

Writers:

Jeff Eastin (story) and
Erik Fleming (story) ...

Release Date:

12 May 2000 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy

Tagline:

To control a hostage situation... Act calm Think fast and have a Big mouth!

Plot:

While they're on vacation in the Southwest, Rae finds out her man Michael spent their house money on a classic car...

Plot Keywords:

Hostage | Hold Up | SWAT Team | Surveillance Camera | Baseball

US TV Schedule:

Fri. July 17	8:00 AM	HBO
Thur. July 23	4:00 PM	HBO

Cast

Jamie Foxx	...	Michael
Nia Long	...	Rae
Barry Corbin	...	Pembry
John Cullum	...	Jack
Jake Busey	...	Beaumont
Michael Shamus Wiles	...	Biker
Eduardo Yáñez	...	Rodrigo (as Eduardo Yañez)
Sarah Paulson	...	Mary
Diego Fuentes	...	Sal
Roselyn Sanchez	...	Trina
Julie Hagerty	...	Gloria
Sam Gifaldi	...	Rusty
Dalton James	...	Sonny
Sam Vlahos	...	Jose
Andrew Jackson	...	Billy (SWAT Team Leader)

Also Known As:

Inconvenienced (USA) (working title)

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for language, violence and sensuality.

Runtime:

89 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Iceland:12 | Singapore:PG | Argentina:13 | Australia:PG | Canada:PG | Chile:14 | Germany:12 | UK:PG | USA:PG-13

Filming Locations:

Fremont, Nebraska, USA

Company:

Minds Eye Entertainment

Goofs:

Continuity: When the sheriff asks for the book and it is removed from the cellophane the book is blue. In later scenes it is a light tan.

Quotes:

Rodrigo: [When Rodrigo takes Mike from the store the first time and learns that Mike and Sheriff Pembry already know each other, and the sheriff hates him, he whines to Mike] "Man your not worth anything as a hostage! I have to get in line just to shoot you!"

Movie Connections:

References "The Dukes of Hazzard" (1979)

The Citizen Kane of movies you'd buy at a car wash in Flagstaff, Arizona.

There are a couple of these movies you catch on cable that manage to sneak some real wit and sympathy into a no-man's-land of stylistic boredom that doesn't even earn the name B-movie ( where this kind of movie is concerned, it's always 1986. )

There are rules to watching a movie like this. You never call them by their real name, because you can't remember their real name, but are to be referred to instead by embarrassed asides to your girlfriend that go entirely ignored while she flips through a Zagat guide, such as "I saw this piece of s--t with Burt Reynolds and Sinbad that was actually kind of funny." Also, you never watch them from beginning to end, but catch them in the middle. Failure to obey this law could result in a meteoric drop in self-esteem and feeling of productivity. That feeling like "the day's being wasted."

The art of a car-wash movie consists of brushing against cliché then pulling back at the last moment. The trick isn't to get you to laugh, but to keep you smiling internally. It's all in the delivery. When Jamie Foxx first encounters a vaguely hostile Little League team and says "Children of the corn," it could very easily come off like a hokey black pop-culture reference to get the Magic Johnson Cineplex crowd roaring. But in this movie, he says it quietly, as if to himself, with a girlishly shocked tinge to his voice. The result is that you find yourself chuckling about the line a half-hour later or after the movie has ended, instead of while it's happening. Most of the jokes here work like that.

And Jamie Foxx is so charming in this film. He looks "street" enough but acts the ninnyhammer as well as Woody Allen, and there's a refreshing lack of explanation about why he's such a nerd. Who else can play the badass, the geek, the samaritan, the tormented artist, the preening genius, and every shade in between, and never coast on the support and shared background of a presumed black audience? There is no pandering in Foxx's performances, no trace of the veiled minstrel show that otherwise plagues most black performers who fall back on those tricks for easy laughs.

A prescription: If you don't believe me that there's a finesse to making even a good bland film, then watch Legally Blonde 2 back-to-back with this one and learn the error of your ways.