Kôshônin

It is only now, 19 years after the movie "Kôshônin" (aka "The Negotiator"), was released that I had a chance to watch it. And I have to say that when I picked up a copy of the movie and saw that it was director Takashi Miike behind the helm here, of course I had to watch the movie.

Writer Kôta Yamada managed to churn out something that was fairly adequate. I mean, I haven't read Takahisa Igarashi's novel, so I don't know how true the storyline of the movie is to the source material of the novel. But it made for a somewhat adequate movie, provided you enjoy these kinds of police thrillers. Personally, I think the movie was just a bit too uneventful and slow paced, so it wasn't a particularly thrilling movie experience for me to watch "Kôshônin".

The acting performances in the movie were adequate, although the actors and actresses did almost nothing more than just stand about and deliver their dialogue.

"Kôshônin" wasn't Takashi Miike's most outstanding directorial performance. It was a watchable movie, but not an outstanding or particularly memorable crime thriller. And while I sat through it, I was only mildly entertained. This is not a movie that I will be returning to watch a second time, as the storyline and script doesn't have the contents for more than a single viewing.

My rating of "Kôshônin" lands on a four out of ten stars.