With such a varied movie and TV career, some of Kevin Spacey's performances have naturally been forgotten all the time. However one has been revived by Netflix UK: 1998's The Negotiator was added to the streamer on Tuesday, October 31 and only one day later jumped onto the streamer's top list.
The Negotiator stars Spacey and Samuel L. Jackson as Chris Sabian and Danny Roman, two Chicago hostage negotiators. After the latter is framed for embezzlement and murder, he takes some hostages to buy time to investigate who's actually to blame. He calls in to help him the former, the city's top hostage negotiator, and the only man he can trust.
The movie was directed by F. Gary Gray, who's also known for The Fate of The Furious, Straight Outta Compton, Friday and Law Abiding Citizen. Also featured in it are Paul Giamatti, David Morse, Ron Rifkin and J.T. Walsh in his final movie.
By all accounts, The Negotiator was fairly popular when it came out: it more than made back its $44 million budget, sits at 79% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes and won several awards at the American Black Film Festival.
However over 20 years on, the movie has been forgotten somewhat. It's neither Spacey's nor Jackson's best-known movies, even solely looking at 1990s thrillers, with the former having Se7en, The Usual Suspects and L.A. Confidential to his name and the latter counting Patriot Games, Pulp Fiction, Die Hard with a Vengeance and Jackie Brown as contemporaries that overshadow The Negotiator.
Director Gray has gone onto bigger things too, with The Fate of the Furious ranking as one of the most profitable movies ever made.
Despite this, The Negotiator is a great watch for people who like their tense thrillers. It's certainly a dialogue-heavy movie, as the two lead actors engage in a battle of the wits, but there's enough action to keep people entertained.
It's also a great antithesis to modern thriller and spy films, which are all about smart digital tech and hacking. Nope, this is an fun and gritty 1990s police thriller.
Netflix UK subscribers clearly agree, which is why the movie sits as the third most-streamed film on the platform at the time of writing. It's just behind Pain Hustlers as well as a movie some are calling the best horror film of 2023, but could go even higher now that people are stopping streaming horror movies after Halloween
