Proof Of Life: In Print Page Four

Proof of Life
By Kirk Honeycutt
The Hollywood Reporter (December 1, 2000)

"Proof of Life" is a first-rate thriller that also manages to be an intimate drama, a journalistic investigation and a political farce. Tony Gilroy’s muscular screenplay explores the hitherto unknown world of professional kidnappers and K&R — that means “Kidnap & Ransom” — men who try to get victims safely back. The film not only serves as an exhilarating model for the post-Cold War espionage thriller but also offers further proof, following his success in “Gladiator,” that Russell Crowe has indeed become a movie star.

Crowe, playing a K&R man, takes charge of the film from the opening frame. He creates a mesmerizing portrait of a pro operating in one of the world’s most exotic and perplexing new industries. The pairing of Crowe with Meg Ryan, with whom he has been linked romantically, can’t help but spark audience interest in this film. Word-of-mouth should steadily fuel the film over the holidays. Warner Bros. has a potential boxoffice home run on its hands.

The film was inspired by journalist William Prochnau’s 1998 Vanity Fair article “Adventures in the Ransom Trade,” in which he revealed the growing international business of kidnapping. With the end of the Cold War, rebel groups throughout the world can no longer turn to the communist world to finance their causes. So these forces increasingly fund their operations by kidnapping executives from multinational corporations and demanding large ransoms.

In response, corporations now take out K&R insurance for their execs. K&R security firms then employ former intelligence or military officers to negotiate with kidnappers. Gilroy’s screenplay also draws on the book “Long March to Freedom: Tom Hargrove’s Own Story of His Kidnapping by Colombian Narco-Guerrillas,” which details one family’s kidnapping ordeal.

Filming in such far-flung locales as Ecuador — the movie’s principal location — London and Poland (subbing for Chechnya), producer-director Taylor Hackford builds increasing tension in the character relationships and parallel story lines about one such kidnapping. These elements climax in a rescue operation that Hackford superbly stages on rugged South American terrain.

While constructing a dam in the mythical Andean country of Tecala, American engineer Peter Bowman (David Morse) is nabbed by anti-government forces during a raid on the capital city. When the rebels realize his identity, they demand a ransom of $3 million from his employers.

Hostage negotiator Terry Thorne (Crowe) is called in by the insurance company. But when it’s discovered the insurance policy has lapsed, Peter’s bankrupt company abandons him, leaving his wife, Alice (Ryan), and sister, Janis (Pamela Reed), to fend for themselves.

Feeling guilty about his firm walking away from the crisis, Terry returns to Tecala and offers his services to Alice. He also takes on a partner in fellow K&R man Dino (David Caruso). Negotiations begin but soon deteriorate into haggling over the value of a human life.

Meanwhile, Peter gets transferred from one guerrilla camp to another in the jungle by his often doped-up and trigger-happy captors, a journey that wears him down mentally and physically.

At the time of the kidnapping, Alice and Peter were experiencing a strain in their relationship. Arrogant about his work and more than a little naive about the unstable political situation in Tecala, Peter was distressed with Alice for not adapting well to South America after similar experiences in Southeast Asia and Africa.

But as days and then months of the ordeal go by, the couple rediscover their love for each other. For Alice, though, these rekindled feelings are complicated by the growing attraction to her husband’s would-be savior.

Hackford and his fine cast superbly play out these tricky, conflicting emotions against the backdrop of a thriller. For all three characters, the 124 days of Peter’s captivity mark a major emotional and psychological transition. Each must confront feelings about their relationships that challenge the very nature of how they are living their lives.

The location work adds immeasurably to the film. The awesome beauty and harsh poverty of South America give real meat to the story’s bones. This is a land of extremes that often forces people to desperate measures.

And the painfully funny antics of the narco-terrorists illustrate how rebel movements in that region have largely deteriorated into a theater of the absurd. Consequently, “Proof” offers a compelling picture of the realities of globalization in one small corner of the planet.

Slawomir Idziak’s breathtaking lensing and John Smith and Sheldon Kahn’s tight editing give the film plenty of forward momentum, while Danny Elfman’s music nicely cues the suspense.

Running time: 133 minutes
Rating: R

Proof of Life: Where cynicism rules, integrity can be heroic
By Stephen Holden
Copyright New York Times

Taylor Hackford’s cold, savvy political thriller, “Proof of Life,” proves at least one thing. If Hollywood were to remake “Casablanca” (and let’s fervently hope it has no such plans) Russell Crowe should be on the short list of candidates to play Rick. Although the new movie borrows elements (including a dramatic airport finale) from that World War II classic, it is more like a distant (and hollow) echo than a contemporary remake of the original.

Set in present-day South America in the fictional country of Tecala (Latin America’s second-ranking producer of cocaine after Colombia, we are told), “Proof of Life” cannily appropriates aspects of “Casablanca” for dramatic ballast. But the allusions ultimately backfire, because they only underscore a gaping lack of emotional connection among the characters in a romantic triangle that feels conspicuously unromantic.

What ultimately sinks this stylish but heartless film is a flat lead performance by the eternally snippy Meg Ryan. Playing a corporate wife attracted to the hostage negotiator (Crowe) who is bargaining for her husband’s life after he is kidnapped and held for ransom, Ryan expresses no inner conflict, nor much of anything else beyond a mounting tension. Even when her wide blue eyes well up with tears, the pain she conveys is more the frustration of a little girl who has misplaced her doll than any deep, empathetic suffering.

Everything that’s wrong with Ryan’s performance is distilled in her trademark gesture of fingering her lower lip and going into an alluring pout. It may look cute, but it’s dramatically false.

When we first meet Ryan’s character, Alice Bowman, she and her husband, Peter (David Morse), an American engineer supervising the building of a dam in Tecala, are bickering. The couple have traipsed all over the world, from Thailand to Africa (where Alice had a miscarriage) to South America, where they live in what was once a drug lord’s splendid hacienda, bought at a fire sale price. Although Peter calls Alice a hippie, she is obviously fed up with all their traveling and ready to return to the United States to build a bland bourgeois nest.

In the movie’s early scenes, the queasy feeling that these two don’t even like each other is so palpable it leaves a residue of sourness that extends through the rest of the film. Although Alice becomes extremely distressed after a rebel group kidnaps Peter and holds him hostage in a mountain retreat, her anguish doesn’t really track after the nastiness we witnessed at the beginning.

Enter Terry Thorne (Crowe), an Australian-born, London-based professional negotiator hired by corporations to bargain with kidnappers in high-profile cases. Terry, who has just wrapped up a ticklish assignment in Chechnya, flies to Tecala, where he shocks Alice with his hard-nosed advice about the dos and don’ts of bargaining. It’s all about money and only about money, he explains. Bringing the ransom price down is a nerve-racking waiting game that can be won only by exercising the cool deliberation of a high-stakes poker player.

Just as Terry is about to begin negotiating, he learns that the corporate insurance covering Peter’s ransom has lapsed, and he abruptly returns to London. Once there, however, he realizes that Peter doesn’t stand a chance without his help, and he returns just in time to snatch the negotiations from the hands of an unscrupulous gun-toting local “coordinator.”

This change of heart, or crisis of conscience, or whatever it is, is never satisfactorily explained. Might Terry have fallen for Alice when they first met? There are no indications to suggest he did. Having taken over the case, he scoffs at the kidnappers’ initial demand of $3 million and insists on holding out for a paltry $600,000.

But when another prisoner, a French Foreign Legion member, escapes from the rebels’ hideaway with a map revealing Peter’s whereabouts, Terry teams up with a fellow negotiator, Dino (David Caruso), and some mercenaries for a rescue operation, which they carry out with the exuberance of rampaging cowboys.

“Proof of Life,” which was inspired by William Prochnau’s Vanity Fair article “Adventures in the Ransom Trade” and the book “Long March to Freedom” by Thomas Hargrove, is much better dealing with the business of kidnapping than with the attendant emotions.

In its cynical (and convincing) worldview, money rules everything. The film is as contemptuous of the rapacious and deceitful Texan oil executives who have put Peter’s company out of business as it is of the rebel kidnappers, a band of Marxist revolutionaries so thoroughly corrupted by their drug and kidnapping operations that they now spend much of their time getting high. The movie’s scornful appraisal of American diplomats in Tecala sees them as slavishly beholden to the oil companies (which plan to run a pipeline into the area) and too impotent to offer Alice anything except official “sympathy.” Terry is the one beacon of integrity in this slithering mass of corruption and self-interest. And as he did in “Gladiator,” Crowe radiates a stubborn, heroic solidity. If his performance is a bit too self-contained (Terry’s feeling for Alice is expressed only once, in a spontaneous, but carefully tender kiss), his effortless charisma is still sufficient to give the film a center of gravity.

Were Crowe ever to play Rick in “Casablanca,” instead of Humphrey Bogart’s hard-boiled wounded romantic, he would probably give him the mournful shambling aura of a loyal St. Bernard with a distant glimmer of fire in his eyes. Although that movie should never be made, one thing is certain: Crowe’s performance would be something to watch.

Not much life in Proof
By Desson Howe
Copyright 2000, The Washington Post

"Proof of Life" isn’t a movie. It’s an overpriced scrapbook.

Cobbled together from factoids and anecdotes gleaned from a Vanity Fair article about international kidnapping and counter-kidnapping, director Taylor Hackford’s movie is an eye-catching, but empty, compendium of spectacular Andean mountains, haunting vistas and zero organization. There’s a story here, but it feels haphazardly glued together. And the movie gets no help from its staggeringly uninspired leads, Meg Ryan and Russell Crowe.

If the actors really had the steamy, extramarital romance the tabloids have banner-headlined lately, they must have saved the heat for each other, not the cameras. On screen, it looks as if both performers are bound and determined to prove there’s nothing between them.

When dam engineer Peter Bowman (David Morse) is captured in an unnamed South American country by a narco-terrorist guerrilla army, his captors demand $3 million in ransom. That leaves Bowman’s wife, Alice (Ryan), and his sister (Pamela Reed) scrambling for a solution.

Enter Thorne, Terry Thorne (Crowe), a blue-chip negotiator who comes with a high price tag. He’s done deals like this around the world, including a hair-raising incident in Chechnya, which we see in a sort of James Bond prelude at the beginning of the movie. Unfortunately, since Peter’s company suddenly concludes it can't pay for his services, Terry is forced to bow out.

But wait! Terry has realized something: The client is Meg Ryan!

This calls for special measures. After initially rejecting Alice, Terry returns to do the job, gratis. He’s ready to talk with the rebels and, if push comes to shove, paint his face, don fatigues, round up a few mercenary pals and get native. But first . . . it’s time for a little negotiation and some romantically suggestive moments with The Client.

Except this romantic premise — the whole point of watching this movie in the first place — never gets off the ground. They’re always hovering around each other, as she tells him dully scripted confessions about her marriage and the great traumatic event that occurred in Africa (don’t ask); the movie never quite shows us that something is growing between them.

When that inevitable kiss occurs, it's hard not to exclaim: Huuuhhh?

"Are you in love with this woman?" asks Dino (David Caruso), one of Terry's soldier-of-fortune buddies.

Got me. This could be the dullest extramarital dalliance in recent memory.

Want to know the best part of this movie? The end credits! As we learn the names of cast and crew, including Stand-By Rigger, Animal Wrangler and Weight Loss Consultant (I am not making this up), there are some fantastic aerial shots of the Andes, where “Proof of Life” was filmed. But alas, this travelogue section does little to redeem what preceded.

PROOF OF LIFE (R, 135 minutes) contains drug use, battle carnage, strong language and no sign of Dennis Quaid.

Proof of Life Held Captive by Unscripted Development
By Kenneth Turan
Copyright 2000, Los Angeles Times

HOLLYWOOD It may be unfair, but it's inevitable that Proof of Life” is going to be seen, at least in the short run, through the lens of the off-screen romance that developed on location between co-stars Meg Ryan and Russell Crowe. The affair that unleashed a flood of tabloid headlines is simply too fitting a viewpoint to resist in our scandal- and celebrity-crazed age.

Partly that’s because the film’s story line, which to some extent involves a forbidden love that develops between a crack K&R operative (that's kidnapping and ransom to you civilians) and someone else’s wife (in this case the wife of the man he’s trying to extract) has some parallels to what happened in life.

But it's also partly because this Taylor Hackford-directed, Tony Gilroy-written film, solidly and professionally made though it is, is nowhere near as engrossing as looking for signs of life between the two lead performers, trying to see if we can spy a genuine relationship developing in front of us. The movies may be fantasy, but a touch of the authentic never hurt anything.

Which is why, even though the film’s climactic action sequences are briskly done, the biggest gasp one preview audience gave was when Ryan and Crowe finally join for a brief but noticeably passionate kiss. Everyone felt, or imagined they did, that it was for real.

Based initially on a Vanity Fair article about men who specialize in getting back kidnapped business executives, Proof of Life” is an ambitious film that aims to examine the human equations behind the abductions. But for all its good intentions, it’s not as subtle as it might be, and it’s finally pitched too broadly to achieve the level of emotional truth it aims for.

To familiarize us with the world K&R men consider home, Proof of Life uses its opening credits sequences to eavesdrop on the exploits of Terry Thorne (Crowe), one of Luthan Risk International’s best operatives, as he negotiates for and then rescues a man abducted by the Chechen rebels. A proactive, essentially nerveless individual who if need be could probably use his teeth to latch onto a departing helicopter, Thorne is not a person to be trifled with.

Another of the world's trouble zones turns out to be the mythical South American country of Tecala, where the usual corrupt oligarchy runs things and fights for power with a rebel movement called the ELT. This used to be an idealistic Marxist organization but devolved into a thuggish group more devoted to drug trafficking and kidnapping for profit than ideology.

Though they live in Tecala, neither American engineer Peter Bowman (David Morse) nor his spunky wife Alice (Ryan) know much about this. He’s a naive humanitarian, trying to build a dam for an oil company that regards his project as do-gooder window-dressing, while she is too involved in a recent personal loss to have even learned to speak Spanish.

Then, more by happenstance than careful planning, Peter gets kidnapped by the ELT. Once they find out that he works for a multinational corporation, the rebels insist on a $3-million ransom, a figure that flabbergasts both Alice and Peter’s overbearing sister Janis (Pamela Reed), who flies down to be of assistance.

It takes no great stretch of imagination to figure out that Terry is going to get involved in the attempt to pry Peter loose from his captors, but, movies being movies, all kinds of obstacles to his taking the job arise and almost half of the film’s running time elapses before, with the help of fellow negotiator Dino (David Caruso) he’s firmly in charge.

Once that happens, Proof of Life cuts back and forth between Terry saying calming things to Alice like, "This is a game you play whether you like it or not” and Peter being carted around the countryside by a not-very-together ELT. Unfortunately, a lot of what Peter attempts in the name of heroic resistance seems irritatingly childish, and though he is supposed to be more of an audience surrogate than Terry, his churlishness, albeit understandable, makes that an awkward fit.

Instead, audiences may prefer to identify with and/or fantasize about Crowe. Well-matched by Ryan’s feistiness and in a role halfway between The Insider” and Gladiator,” Crowe uses his top-of-the-line masculine presence and the ability to pour considerable emotion into the simplest looks to create interest in his character and his situation. Terry doesn’t have to say, I’m for real,” but when he does, no one will be asking for a second opinion.

Proof of life lacks purpose
By Eric Harrison
Copyright 2000 Houston Chronicle

Early in "Proof of Life," the wife and husband played by Meg Ryan and David Morse get into an argument in their spacious kitchen after returning from a party. She’s a little tipsy and can’t help dwelling on the daughter they lost to miscarriage while stationed in Africa. Now the oil company he works for has moved them to South America, and he is frayed because it's about to be sold. The Morse character is an engineer at work on a dam he feels will benefit “the people.” His wife, described at one point as “a little hippie,” won’t let him forget that the Houston-based company cares nothing about dams or people. They love each other, but it's clear she’s ready for a change.

This is a small scene in a big-budget action thriller — just two people talking — but it carries a heavy load. It lays both the factual and emotional framework for what is to follow. When director Taylor Hackford botches it — badly — he pretty much does his movie in.

His style during this and other dialogue scenes seems stuck midway between restless cinema verite and the old studio approach of making the camerawork invisible. The result is distracting. His cuts feel mistimed. His camera placement calls attention to itself without apparent purpose.

That pretty much is the overriding feel of this film: purposelessness. After all the gunplay and histrionics and the final, pretty travelogue views of Latin America, you walk out wondering what was the point.

That early scene is an example of what’s wrong. Hackford, who previously made “An Officer and a Gentleman,” “Against All Odds” and “The Devil’s Advocate,” seems oddly incapable of determining what the crux of a scene should be. Or, if he does make the determination, he is unable to nail it.

This doesn’t seem to be the fault of the actors. Morse is excellent, as always, as is Russell Crowe as a “kidnap and ransom consultant” called in when the Morse character is taken prisoner by revolutionaries. Crowe is all steely resolve — the Gladiator in jeans and sport coat.

Ryan doesn’t really capture all of the facets of her character that she should, but she is a just-competent screen actress left hanging by poor direction and a less-than-competent script.

For a good part of the film, the story is told from three different points of view — Morse’s, as he is transported cross-country and then kept prisoner in a secluded jungle camp; Ryan’s as she works for his release; and Crowe’s, as he carries out duties in other parts of the world and hangs out with compatriots.

Eventually, it narrows down to two points of view as the Ryan and Crowe characters unite to get Morse freed. But the divided focus works against the story. We get too much of Morse, especially since we’re told more than once that his captors won’t kill him. (For the record, these assurances may turn out to be false, but since we’re told he’s in no real danger, we make little emotional investment in his well-being.)

The movie is full of scenes and slivers of scenes that are well-shot but barely register viscerally. Sometimes, for instance, Hackford cross-cuts between Morse and Ryan. The scenes are so short, and what we’re shown is of so little importance or even interest, that it isn’t clear what he’s trying to accomplish.

The very first scene of the movie is the best, and it has absolutely nothing to do with the story. It shows us Crowe in action in Chechnya, dealing with double-crossing Russians and dangerous Chechnyans to get a client released. Nothing that follows comes close to matching the scene’s swiftness, skullduggery or excitement.

The film has a violent bookend — a team led by Crowe and buddy David Caruso infiltrate the revolutionaries’ camp for a daring rescue — but it doesn’t compare. (True to form, the movie doesn’t build to this ending with a sense of inevitability; developments in this movie just sort of happen.)

There also are hints of a budding romance between the anxious, suffering wife and the strong, silent benefactor. As unsavory as such a thing would’ve been, it probably should have been developed further. At least that would’ve generated complexity and tension.

Here's action all right, but it's not between Meg and Russell
By Christopher Kelly
Copyright 2000, Fort Worth Star-Telegram

In “Proof of Life,” Meg Ryan plays Alice, a woman whose husband (David Morse) is kidnapped in a fictional Latin American country. Russell Crowe plays Terry, the hostage negotiator who arrives to help get him back. The lead actors spend the better part of the movie staring at each other like two awkward teen-agers sitting on opposite ends of the lunchroom. A romantic coupling seems inevitable. At one point, Crowe takes off his shirt to reveal his Beef-a-roni shoulders, and the camera lingers in awe. The entire film seems to be asking: Who wouldn’t sacrifice a flabby spouse to terrorists for a roll in the hay with this guy?

Well, Meg Ryan’s character, for one. Because after nearly two hours of watching these actors look forlorn, the movie finally gives us ... one whole kiss. Hollywood, of course, has never been very good at exploring moral compromise, but this is ridiculous. “Proof of Life” — like too many other recent movies — spends Acts 1 and 2 boxing its characters into potentially fascinating quandaries. It then spends Act 3 wending its way to the least-interesting conclusion imaginable. What kind of fools make a romantic thriller with Russell Crowe and Meg Ryan and then deny us any romance?

That said, “Proof of Life” isn’t half-bad. it's a taut and engaging “Casablanca” update, with lots of “cute but sophisticated” Meg Ryan hairstyles on display to divert you when things get down. In an era when the execrable “What Lies Beneath” passes as adult entertainment, “Proof” also earns points for being glamorous and popcorny without insulting our intelligence.

Of course, you need to be willing to ignore some serious plot holes and decidedly fuzzy motivations. Terry, for instance, is at first forced to drop Alice as a client; it turns out that her husband’s company didn’t have kidnapping insurance. So why does he then quit his job to help her? My guess is he couldn’t get enough of her hair. (For future reference: A subscription to In Style magazine would have done the trick and it's a lot cheaper.) The script has problems, as well, in finding things for Ryan to do; mostly, she gets to watch Crowe be a sensitive tough guy.

(Incidentally, anyone going to the movie for insight into why Ryan dumped real-life husband Dennis Quaid for Crowe while filming “Proof of Life” — well, they never get busy here, so it's hard to gauge the sparks. But again, who wouldn’t dump a flabby husband for a roll in the hay with this guy?)

Fortunately, the film has more than a few crackerjack moments. The initial hostage-taking sequence, for instance, is staged beautifully; the director, Taylor Hackford, captures the horror and panic one feels when chaos begins to spill forth from banality. The final escape, too, throttles forward with real unpredictability and force.

Hackford might have done well by taking a cue from his own 1997 film "The Devil’s Advocate," a warped comic vision of the corrupting powers of sex. As it stands, “Proof of Life” is tame and too tasteful; it teases us with the promise of something original (one imagines it as “Missing” by way of Harold Pinter’s “Betrayal”) and then takes us to the same old places. Passable entertainment, certainly, but also a thriller in desperate need of an edge.

British Kidnap Hero Who Refused Movie Millions
By Sharon Churcher
The Mail On Sunday (April 8, 2001)

He won't see a penny of the GBP 350 million budget of Russell Crowe's latest movie - he probably won't even see the film.

Why should that surprise people who know David Little only as a mild-mannered 62-year-old living in quiet comfort in the picturesque Wiltshire hamlet of Rood Ashton?

Because Proof Of Life, in which gun-toting Crowe is hired by Meg Ryan to free her husband from guerrillas, is the film version of a chapter in Mr. Little's remarkable career.

It began in 1994 when Texan businessman Tom Hargrove was seized by Colombia's notorious FARC bandits, who demanded GBP 4 million for his release.

His wife Susan was told by an FBI agent of a quietly-spoken Englishman who was a legend in the shadowy kidnap and ransom business - David Little. Agonising months of painstaking negotiations followed.

In Proof Of Life, the names are changed and the country is called Tecala. Crowe, who was paid GBP 4 million to play the ex-SAS negotiator uses force to get results, but Mr. Little didn't take part in a single shoot-out. At his Trowbridge office, the man who served 25 years as a West Country policeman, says quietly: 'We aren't keen on guns.' Indeed, the discreet veteran of 50 major incidents in 15 countries never threatens violence or issues ultimatums.

Of how his story became a Hollywood hit, he would only say: 'I was not consulted on the film or involved in any way. I haven't seen it and I don't have any plans to at the moment.' He neither expects, nor wants, payment. After leaving the police, Mr. Little worked for an international security firm and now has his own company.

He assured Mrs. Hargrove that he could bargain for her husband's freedom. 'This is a game,' he explained. 'For you, it's emotional. For the FARC, it's a business. It's purely about money.'

Charging GBP 10,000 a week, he and an employee - an ex-SAS man and Falklands veteran - flew to Colombia in January 1995 to begin bartering with the guerrillas by radio, demanding regular photos as 'proof of life'. That August, the final settlement - a reported GBP 345,000 - was dispatched. On August 22, Tom Hargrove stumbled into the family's villa, emaciated, exhausted but free.

And while the film ends with Crowe planning to be a mercenary in South America, in real life David Little returned to his farmhouse.

Proof of Life
Disc: Directors commentary By Taylor Hackford
Filmink (Australia, October 2001)

Don't you be calling Taylor Hackford a hack! During the 80's he was behind many of the decade's most memorable cinema moments -- The Idolmaker, An Officer and A Gentleman, La Bamba, and our personal fave Everybody's All American. Since then he's had a hand in When We Were Kings, the under-rated Dolores Claiborne and another Filmink fave, The Devil's Advocate. Here he lets loose on the situation that led to him cutting out the love scene between Meg Ryan and Russell Crowe in his latest, Proof of Life.

"Originally Tony [Gilroy, writer] and I had conceived that the attraction between Alice [Ryan] and Terry [Crowe] would eventually evolve into a physical relationship. A one night stand that both of them the next morning discover is probably a big mistake. But inevitably the situation, the pressure cooker they're in, the emotional draining on Alice all comes down to this moment when they come together. I had decided to do something rather dangerous . . . I was going to intercut the love scene with the escape. The moral ambiguity of this moment of the husband [David Morse] trying to escape, risking his life, and at the same time . . . because of circumstances beyond their control, Alice and Terry are involved in lovemaking. I thought that was incredibly bold. In fact it was one of the best love scenes I have ever shot . . . John Smith, one of my cutters, did a brilliant job . . . I decided to cut this whole sequence from the film for a particular reason I have never experienced before. During the filming of Proof of Life, it was reported in the press that Meg Ryan and Russell Crowe started a relationship. I was completely unaware of that. I was working with them everyday, they were very discrete, I didn't know about it. They were very professional. This was a huge story. I mean it was on the cover of People Magazine twice within one month . . . it inevitably had an effect on this film as I was making it, especially in the post-production process, when I was screening the film. We screened it, and I don't know in terms of whether an audience is gonna respond n a truthful way or not, when in fact they know all these things that are happening in reality our there. But the fact is that the audience rejected the love scene in favour of a version I had without the love scene and I decided to cut it. Now I'm still very ambivalent about deciding to do that. I had final cut in the film, if I had left it in the film you would've seen it. Unfortunately at this point [the dvd release] I wanted to include it in the outtakes and Meg objected, and it isn't going to be seen, which I regret . . . I find myself in the strange situation now of looking back and not being able to show you, an audience, what the original vision of this film was. That's a fact of life, that's the proof of life, as it were."