Hostages

Hostages is a 1992 American drama film directed by David Wheatley and written by Bernard MacLaverty. The film stars Kathy Bates, Colin Firth, Ciarán Hinds, Natasha Richardson, Jay O. Sanders, Josef Sommer and Harry Dean Stanton. The film premiered in the United Kingdom on ITV on September 23, 1992, and in the United States on HBO on February 20, 1993. Plot This film is a dramatization of the Beirut hostage crisis. After several real-life news clips highlight the situation in Beirut, including footage of bombings and attacks in the Lebanese capital along with the hijacking of TWA flight 847, the film opens with reporter John McCarthy finishing a story on Brian Keenan, an Irish lecturer who was kidnapped in Beirut days earlier. The following day, en route to Beirut Airport, McCarthy's car is surrounded and when identified as a British national, he is thrown back into the car which is commandeered by the kidnappers. He is brought to an apartment before being handed off to a group of men, who strip, blindfold and lock him in a closet. At home, his girlfriend, journalist Jill Morrell, seeks guidance from her local officials, who advise there will be no negotiations to secure his release, as officials feel conceding to the terrorists will only encourage more abductions. Two sisters of Brian Keenan are similarly seeking help from their local government in Belfast with similar response and inaction. McCarthy is later moved to another building, into the same room as Brian Keenan. The two develop a friendship as they, like the other hostages, were forced to endure unbearable conditions, including beatings at the hands of their captors, poor food, lack of sunlight, and dirty, bug-infested cells.