Synopsis:

Danny Roman (Samuel L. Jackson) is a police hostage negotiator of the extreme type. He works where normal negotiators fear to tread. After a particularly hairy hostage situation, his partner regarding an investigation into suspected embezzlement of the police retirement fund approaches Roman. When his partner is killed, Danny is unjustly framed for the murder and framed for the embezzlement of the retirement funds. When faced with prison and the loss of his life career and reputation, Danny resorts to tactics of the hostage taker. Only now, none of the regular tactics will work as Danny effectively wrote the book on hostage negotiation. The other problem is, there is a rat or several rats on the squad. Whoever set him up knows what he knows and could still be in a position to harm him. In taking hostages Danny has the whole Chicago Police force mobilized to take action. Deadly if necessary. Recognizing the position he has found himself in, Danny requests Hostage Negotiator Chris Sabian (Kevin Spacey). His intent is to get the ear of someone not affiliated with his unit and besides, Sabian is the best negotiator on the street. Negotiator Vs. Negotiator. A brilliant game of wits that has exceedingly deadly consequences. Will Sabian believe Danny and help him right the wrong or is Sabian just another link in the chain of deceit and death that has led to this point? Only time will tell in the cat and mouse game that is…The Negotiator!

Audio/Video:

The 5.1 audio for The Negotiator is pretty darn good. There are a plethora of audio effects that move throughout the whole of you Home Theater. In particular during the helicopter segment, the whirring of the blades are so realistically produced not only do you feel it in your chest, you also keep your head tucked a little closer to your chest so as not to have it lobbed off by the blades! The sub is put to incredible use in the film. In terms of types of soundtracks, Negotiator is definitely aggressive in nature. There's barely a minute when there are no effects moving either from back to front/left to right or rumbling through your sub! Another audio treat is the effect given to the sirens as the cruisers make their way to the main police barracks, in the distance the sirens have such depth that it almost sounds as though it's coming from outside! The center is clean and the dialogue is unfettered by the tremendous amount of audio effect. Great audio.

The Video is simply beautiful. It's an artifact free widescreen presentation that bore no transfer errors that I could detect. The blacks were extremely deep and the colors well saturated. Additionally, the fleshtones were accurate. If there were any transfer errors in the way of chroma noise, pixellation I couldn't find them. The picture itself is quite impressive and clean.

Extras:

The extras on the disc consist of a documentary entitled The 11th hour: Stories from real negotiators. It's quite long and quite boring. There's something about the dramatization that makes this work. When listening to the actual negotiators, I really had to fight to stay awake. Five theatrical trailers are listed as being on the disc however, I could only find one. Production Notes close out the section and are their usual static selves.

Overall:

Come on, Samuel L. Jackson, Kevin Spacey, and J.T.Walsh in the same movie and it's NOT going to be awesome? No brainer. Excellent movie, excellent transfer easily highly recommended! Highly Recommended