Negotiator, The

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

A triumph of style over story, and of acting over characters.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

This little-hyped thriller emerges as a dark-horse winner by reminding us of how pleasurably exciting a popcorn movie can be when it's populated by actors who are in it for more than an exorbitant fee.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

The Negotiator, once it gets going (there's a rather lengthy prosaic setup), is a satisfyingly tense and booby-trapped thriller about the meeting of two relentless minds.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Stephen Thompson

One of the best by-the-numbers thrillers you'll see this year, thanks to a hot-shot cast.

LA Weekly Manohla Dargis

This tough, crackling thriller from director Gary Gray is one of those rare action movies with something on its mind other than moviestar sneers and incessant big bangs.

The New Yorker Bruce Diones

F. Gary Gray, the young director of the 1996 female heist film "Set It Off," runs with a good script (by James DeMonaco and Kevin Fox) and gives us the summer's first action film that's as rich in character as it is in suspense.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Once the initial setup has been accomplished and the film kicks into high gear, it grabs the viewer's attention and holds it for the rest of the running time.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) John Haslett Cuff

From the film's bravura opening scene to its cute but bloody conclusion, The Negotiator plays out as tautly as any crowd-pleasing action flick since Die Hard,which it emulates with shameless glee.

Newsweek David Ansen

It's amazing how a sense of humor can turn a formula film into a frolic.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

This taut crime thriller is a welcome antidote to brainless action extravaganzas in which the mayhem is the message, and rests on two shrewd, perfectly modulated performances.

Variety Emanuel Levy

The teaming of Samuel L. Jackson and Kevin Spacey, two of the most highly regarded actors around, in perfectly fitting roles that call for a battle of wits and wills, proves to be a shrewd piece of casting, and the best element of The Negotiator.

Film Threat Ron Wells

Jackson gives an amazing, nuanced performance as he teeters on the edge of paranoia. Spacey gives a great, toned-down show as I guy who's in over his head trying to find out what the hell is going on.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

It's a measure of how pulsating and energetic a visual style director F. Gary Gray has, and how vividly actors Samuel L. Jackson and Kevin Spacey come across on screen, that this film is intensely watchable from minute to minute, even though a lot of what's happening doesn't stand up to a moment's scrutiny.

Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan

Fortunately, Jackson and Spacey have enough sassy wit and crackling intensity between them to keep The Negotiator from becoming hostage to its own inanity.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

The Negotiator falls short of greatness by a country mile; it's too chatty for its own good sometimes. But it's still a solid shoot-'em-up.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

This is fairly efficient if you can square efficiency with being twice as long as necessary and overly familiar to boot; at least Jackson and Spacey keep it afloat.

The New York Times Elvis Mitchell

Though the film has its basis in an actual event that took place in St. Louis, it takes on the homogeneous look of many other thrillers in which an emergency escalates into a paramilitary operation.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

The movie has finesse, and the actors have charm, but there are no surprises.

San Francisco Examiner Barbara Shulgasser

When the mystery is unraveled and the frame-up is revealed, I, personally, had no idea what anyone was talking about.

Dallas Observer Peter Rainer

Instead of the cat-and-mouse cogitations and psych-outs one might rightly expect from this high concept, we're fobbed off with a lot of sub-Die Hard theatrics and stinko plotting.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

A whodunit so bafflingly constructed that you can't even figure out what it is, so the whodun part is superfluous.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

The concept of dueling negotiators has strong dramatic potential, but Gray seems more interested in gimmicks and gunshots than in the psychological face-off between sharp-witted foes.

Salon.com Charles Taylor

The Negotiator slogs on for two hours and 20 minutes, and there's hardly a real laugh or a genuine thrill in it.