Film Facts:

Cast:

Russell Crowe
Meg Ryan
David Morse
Pamela Reed
David Caruso

Producers - Taylor Hackford, Charles Mulvehill
Director - Taylor Hackford
Writer - Tony Gilroy

Warner Bros., c2000 - Released in the US, December 4, 2000

Location:

Poland, London, England, Ecuador

Poland:

With the production based in Poznan, a city located in the Paris-Berlin-Moscow rail line, the scenes that are to take place in Chechnya were shot in a secure military area about 30 minutes by car, northeast of town. The Polish Army gave their full cooperation, including furnishing Russian tanks and military personnel to play Russian soldiers. In addition, Poland has had a long and special relationship with Chechnya, and therefore, Hackford was able to find Chechens to play the rebels.

The filming of this key scene took nine days, and upon completion, the cast and crew continued their journey to Ecuador.

Russell on filming in Poland: "It's cold enough to freeze the nuts off a brown dog on a rusty chain at 50 yards before he had time to eat his tucker."

Ecuador

With the production based in Quito, the capital of Ecuador, at 2850 meters (9,348 feet) above sea level, all exterior locations of the fictitious country 'Tecala', was within a one-hour drive. Climbing up to 14,000 feet, ' Camp Insanity' was near Papallacta Pass. Traveling in the opposite direction was Las Palmas, an area in the cloud forests 6,000 feet above sea level that was dubbed 'Hollywood del Sur' (' Hollywood of the South') by the crew. This is where they created 'Ca ñon Verde', the guerilla camp where Peter is held. In addition, scenes were shot around San Francisco Plaza, the center of historic Quito where the oldest church (1534) in Ecuador is location. The final shot in the movie is of Cotpaxi, the world's tallest active volcano.

"When Russell Crowe crawls through a dense cloud forest, there's rain and mud all over him… this is real… it's not called a rain forest for nothing." —Taylor Hackford.

London

"We were able to use one of the most beautiful and modern buildings in all of Europe – Lloyd's of London – which is a spectacular, ultra modern, ultra commercial building. It reeks of capitalism"—Taylor Hackford.

In addition, the river scene was filmed on the River Thames with the famous Tower Bridge in the background. Interior sets were built at Pinewood studios.

Awards: See nominations at the IMDb

Plot Summary:

People take hostages all over the world, wait for contact, make a demand and then negotiate it. For the family, it's emotional. For the kidnappers, it's just business.

While constructing a dam in Tecala, a country located in the Andes, American chief engineer Peter Bowman (DAVID MORSE) is captured by anti-government forces during a raid on the capital city. When the rebels learn his identity, they demand $3 million for his safe return. Peter's Houston-based employer, however, is on the verge of bankruptcy and has cancelled the kidnapping insurance policy and they cannot provide the money for his ransom.

Abandoned by the company, Peter's wife, Alice ( MEG RYAN), must deal with it on her own. She retains the services of professional hostage negotiator Terry Thorne (RUSSELL CROWE), an Australian-born SAS veteran who over the past nine years has handled numerous high profile kidnappings, using every means at his disposal.

After an encouraging start, the negotiations deteriorate into a lengthy haggling session. During these discussions, Peter is moved from one remote guerilla camp high in the Andes down to another camp in the Amazonian jungle, suffering the most hellish physical and mental hardships. By rediscovering his love for Alice, and focusing on that positive image, he sustains his will to survive.

Meanwhile, the emotional stress of the kidnapping has taken its toll on Alice, magnifying the uneasiness that existed in their marriage before the abduction. Further complicating matters is Alice's guilty realization of a growing fondness for Terry, her protector and her husband's potential savior. Terry intuitively reciprocates and becomes frustrated and conflicted by his decidedly unprofessional feeling for her.

When they reach a breakdown in the negotiations for her Peter's freedom, Terry devises a daring yet desperate plan with the help of fellow negotiator Dino (DAVID CARUSO) and a trio of highly trained mercenaries, to mount a bold rescue operation. [Taken from the press kit.]

Trivia:

Favorite Lines

"You know how an English general's daughter gets back at daddy? She marries an Australian." "I'm for real mate."

Did you know…?

Castle Rock hired the oldest and most established of the kidnap-and-ransom companies, the Control Risks Group of London, to protect the movie company. Ironically, it also is the prototype for the kidnap-and-ransom company fictionalized in Proof of Life.

In January, with filming a month away, Hackford called his actors to London, where the movie would be produced and onstage filming done, for rehearsals. On a Friday night before Monday's first run-through, the news clattered in abruptly: a coup d' état had just occurred in Quito. President Mahuad had been thrown out.

The actors fretted, whispered, and looked at their escape clauses. What has this guy gotten us into? Volcanoes, kidnappers, now a South American revolt? The studio said move it to Mexico. The insurance people wobbled—not the kidnap-and-ransom types, but the suits who insure against force majeure (acts of God, civil strife, strikes, revolutions).

The coup was a sight to behold—a Peter Sellers set piece.

Four thousand unarmed Indians marched down out of the mountains and occupied the house of Congress, which was closed and empty for the weekend. They demanded the president's resignation. He resigned. The army told the Indians to go home. They went. The vice president took over within twenty-four hours and told his countrymen to "stop the buffoonery" and get on with business.

Thell Reed struts down the hallway stomach first. I can say that because he is fifty-five now and has nothing more to prove. I hope. Reed is the fastest gun alive, proved when he was fifteen in a quick-draw contest that hasn't been matched since.

Reed taught Russell Crowe how to quick-draw and shoot five years ago for The Quick and the Dead.

Reed found Crowe a natural as a shooter. Despite his rough-and-ready reputation, the actor had never fired anything other than slug guns and .22s in Australia. "No bad habits to unlearn," Reed says. "Now he shoots better than most SAS men.

Just to prove a point, Crowe came to Ecuador, a place that frowns on guns, there being enough violence on all sides of them—and said he wanted to pack while he was here. Security. Kidnappers. Girls… The Ecuadorian paratrooper colonel assigned to the movie tried to talk him out of it. No need. Dangerous.

Crowe would have none of that—he, Reed and Crowe's bodyguard (Adam Hamon, a former SAS man and a New Zealander with ancestors from the same New Zealand Maori tribe as the actor) wanted gun permits. The colonel warned him that they had to pass a rigid test at the firing range. The top score was five. The colonel got a four. The three outsiders got fives.

—Excerpts from William Prochnau's, "Proof of Life: a Writer's Notebook".

Memoriam

A tragic accident took place in the first weeks of filming in Ecuador. A second unit was filming a minor scene with David Morse' stand-in Will Gaffney and five Ecuadorian extras when suddenly the truck they were in, careened off the road and down a three hundred and fifty foot ravine. Gaffney, a twenty-nine year old English teacher who had been on holiday in Quito, died on a stretcher as he was being carried back up to the road. The extras survived.

Favorite Scenes:

Comments by Russell:

…"It's a pretty similar situation to other scripts that I read and end up doing in that something within the story is new or fresh. There is a lot of information in this story that we haven't seen before, the fact that 'K&R' is such a huge business and how it directly affects Americans."

Regarding his character "Terry Thorne," Crowe states, "He's got a very good bedside manner. He's very calm and reassuring to the client, but there is a distance. He has his business sincerity level but at the same time what happens in our story cuts through his ordinarily objective persona where he is affected more emotionally by the people involved." [Taken from the press kit.]

Comments about Russell:

 Hackford on Russell's casting:

The casting of Russell Crowe in the key role of 'Terry Thorne' proved to be a stroke of luck for the production. Hackford points out, "Russell had done L.A. Confidential, which I was impressed with. However, I'd heard that Russell had two films in the can, The Insider and Gladiator that no one had seen. I called both directors who are my colleagues and asked them a major favor: to go into their editing rooms and see Russell's unreleased work. I first saw Ridley Scott's Gladiator. I fully expected Ridley to paint a huge canvas but I was particularly impressed by how Russell Crowe dominated that canvas. His physicality was palpable, but there was also a real intelligence shining through all that physicality," remembers Hackford.

"Then I went across town into Michael Mann's editing room and saw an actor who'd gained forty-five pounds playing an entirely non-physical, intellectual character involved in a crisis of conscience. I thought, 'this guy is an incredible actor and he's definitely going to be a star!' I found myself facing Martin Shafer, President of Castle Rock Pictures and Alan Horn, then Chairman and C.E.O. of Castle Rock Entertainment, now President and Chief Operating Office of Warner Brothers, stating 'Russell Crowe is the right guy for us,' "recounts Hackford. [Taken from the press kit.]

"… by the time we get going, Russell Crowe will be getting fifteen million." Hackford to William Prochnau, writer of the original Vanity Fair article, 'Adventures in the Ransom Trade' which along with Tom Hargrove's, 'Long March to Freedom' was the inspiration for the film.

Taylor Hackford's War

Of all the superegos who careened testily and creatively off each other on the set of Proof of Life, none were more complex than the director, Taylor Hackford… No one could rise so suddenly to brutalizing verbal assaults or retreat so abruptly to emotional, almost self-flagellating but genuine apologies.

Some who work for him tell you freely that they hate him and just as certainly that they will return to his side for his next movie.

Hackford readily concedes that he often loses himself in his own deep focus. He once went so deep inside himself and his creation of a minor scene with an extra that he left his star, Russell Crowe, cooling his heels in his trailer for half a day.

Relations between Hackford and Crowe, not known as an easy actor to handle, wobbled between raw edged and comical. The next day Crowe showed up at the set late. At Las Palmas, a muddy trail led from the "back lot" to the set. Hackford, angry that Crowe was keeping everybody waiting, burning maybe $20,000 an hour in wages, got word his star was finally coming. He waited for him in the bushes, then leapt out in front of him. "I've been waiting for you!" he exclaimed.

Crowe, never at a loss for words or action, immediately leapt in front of Hackford and said grinning: "You've been waiting for me?"

Two months later after a Saturday night of partying in London, Crowe arrived late for a Sunday morning shoot. "Sorry, mate," he said to his glaring director. "Sermon ran long."

On the set, both Crowe's professionalism and his Aussie rebelliousness came quickly to the fore. La Palmas was crucial to the movie—a series of shoot-'em-up scenes leading to the rescue of the kidnap victim. Crowe was decked out each day in jungle khakis, his face painted in green-and-black camouflage streaks. He did his own stunts, which meant a lot of sloshing in the mud and combat rolls down hillsides with an M-4 rifle.

In one, he did a thirty-foot roll, coming up weapon ready at the hut in which David Morse was being held captive. In his first practice, the roll went perfectly, then ended behind the hut in a terrible clatter and a roar of "Mutha-fucka!" that echoed through the jungle hills. Crowe had rolled over three unseen logs. Everyone rushed toward him. Was he hurt? An old injury, he said, shaking it off. But it wasn't that old—a shoulder injuring making Gladiator and, unknown to anyone, the same injury that later would require surgery and force him out of his next movie. He went back and did the same scene six more times.

Meanwhile, on the set Crowe and Morse worked together like creative brothers. In the scene after the thirty-foot roll down the hillside, Crowe rushes into the little hut where Morse is being held after months in captivity—a naturally terrifying event to a hostage. Morse improvised on the script without warning Crowe, diving for a corner and throwing a plate of rice at the intruder. The plate caught Crowe dead center. The Australian came out of the hut, picking rice out of his hair, his face and his uniform. "Brilliant," he said, grinning from ear to ear.

—Excerpts from William Prochnau's, "Proof of Life: a Writer's Notebook".

Reviews:

Always superb at serious play, Crowe deadpans his way through his boardroom presentation while we see him in Chechnya, hanging from a helicopter by his fingertips. In general, Crowe is never more there on-screen than when a script gives him some wiggle room, allowing him to suggest a distance between what he says with his eyes and with his mouth. It's his constant potential for righteous fury, mischief and unexpected sensitivity that makes him so magnetic. "Proof of Life" plops him down in a ruthless, rootless milieu that tests his wits and mettle.

Crowe's character has to be as direct in his connections to his client as he is wary of his employers and slippery with his antagonists. It's an oscillating line for Crowe to toe -- and he does it without tripping once.

Crowe makes competence look sexy. At his best, with his combination of ironclad irony and bedrock honesty, Crowe is like an improbable blend of Humphrey Bogart and Gary Cooper: the cynic as nature's nobleman.— Michael Sragow

"A good old fashioned action adventure is hard to beat for thrills of an evening in the cinema, and Proof of Life offers a rich mix of star power, exotic and moody locations, a politically flavoured action plot with an emotion-pedal of a romantic sub-plot and high budget production values. Russell Crowe finally achieves one of his stated goals (when he went to Hollywood for work) of playing a central character in a Hollywood movie – as an Australian, in his own voice. His Terry Thorne is a sad figure in many ways, and this is what gives the film some dynamic: a divorced father with a rarely-seen 13 year old son, he is a first rate professional soldier who left the Australian army in search of real action at the British SAS. You might say it’s a trite device, but Russell Crowe makes it work because he creates the character whole, and believes in it." — Andrew L. Urban (Urban Cinefile.)

"A ripper of a good yarn, Proof of Life offers plenty of action on the ground, in the air and in the heart. Bringing his own distinctive Australian sense of humour to his role, Russell Crowe plays a modern-day hero – one whose heroics are emotional as well as physical. Charismatic Crowe is cool, laid back and we really believe it when he says in the script: 'I'm for real'. It's almost the cue for a cheer. This is really an old fashioned kind of adventure with a touch of romance. You could almost imagine Bogie and Bacall or Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman in the roles… While it may be a little long, Proof of Life has enough punch, personality and star-power to make it a thrilling and compelling tale." — Louise Keller (Urban Cinefile.)

See the IMDb for more links to reviews

Web Related Links:

Official Site - USA