The film goes awry towards the middle of it.It starts off quite well when the U.S. embassy in Bucharest, Romania is taken hostage by Serbian terrorists.We have the usual threats and intimidation. We have the usual demands but things go way out of control when the person the terrorists are negotiating for is killed by a Croatian and the Americans must come up with a substitute to fool the Serbs.Darryl Hannah's role is quite perplexing. When she turns out to be a villain, she is still adored by film's end. Her role in this was somewhat of an enigma, even though it is explained by the film's end.Naturally, the theme of money being the root of all evil is examined here as well.A very muddled ending does not help the film at all.The special effects are quite good, and there is plenty of screaming by the hostages.Tom Berrenger comes across like a military know-it-all.

(There are Spoilers) Almost impossible to follow hostage drama with so many twists and turns that you feel like a pretzel, twisting and turning along with them, by the time the movie is finally over. There's this gang of Serbian terrorists lead by US Army trained commando Goran Mladnov, Adrian Pintea, storming and taking over the US Embassy in Bucharest Romania. After a wild and bloody shoot-out the Serbians holding 37 hostages demand the release of their national hero the head of the dreaded Brown Hats Col. Peter Vojnovic, Vwe Ochsenknecht. Col. Vojnovic had been kidnapped by US Special Forces and put on trial at the Hague for the crimes his Brown Hat's committed in the wars in Bosnia & Croatia.As all this is going on upstairs in the embassy down in the sub-basement computer experts Steve Mitchell, Peter Weller, and his former girlfriend Erica Long, Daryl Hanna, and Sgt. Tim Nakajima, Radman Agana Jao, are busily trying to disconnect an Atomic Bomb planted in the America Embessy in the 1950's during the hight of the Cold War. It also happens that Mitchell's 14 year-old son Chris, Jeremy Lelliott, has hid in the embassy, in Chris' avoiding to go out on a date with a chubby Romnian girl, and causes so much trouble for everyone , the Serbians the hostages as well as his dad, that he almost causes the Atomic Bomb to accidentally go off before it's disconnected!Things really get muddled when Col. Vojnovic ends up getting murdered by the person guarding him, Constantin Barbulesco, who's not only a Croat but who's family was massacred by the Colonel's Brown Hat's during the savage fighting in his native Croatia! Knowing that there's nothing left, with Col. Vojnovic's sudden death, to bargain with the Srebian terrorists the Pentagon's head military man Gen. Stubbs, Brion James, sends his top commando and anti-insurgent expert Vietnam and Gulf War hero Gen. "Buck" Swain, Tom Berenger, to get the job done in freeing the hostages. The one major problem that Gen. Swain has is not only the uncooperative Romanian police and military but the fact that Gen. Stubb never told him that there's an Atomic Bomb hidden in the US Embessy that's about to go off at any moment!Mindless but exciting action sequences as well as a number of surprises, one of them has to do with a mole hidden in the US Embassy, makes the movie at least watchable despite not making any sense at all. Gen. Swain and Serbian terrorist Goran turn out to have been classmate at the Ft. Bragg Army Base which really has nothing to do with what their doing, trying to kill each other, in the film. The fact that they know each other has the two able to reminisce about the good times they had learning how to kill people and blow up things which they do all throughout the movie.****SPOILER ALERT***The almost anti-climatic ending has the mole, who was hidden among the hostages,come out of hiding and after almost having the city of Bucharest, together with the US Embessy, blown sky high has a change of heart giving Mitchell the secret code to stop the Atomic Bomb from detonating and turns from villain to hero in a matter of minutes. It was also the 25 million dollars wired into the mole's secret numbered Swiss Bank Account that had a big hand in him, or her, keeping the lid on the nuclear device and thus keep it from from blowing up a city of over two million people!

I just saw this movie on DVD because it had a plot similar to something I am writing. This movie just did not come together and no one seemed to have their heart in the project especially for a medium budget movie ($45 million).I think there were some good ideas, but the lack of attention to details makes it almost amusing in places and impossible to believe the acting. I think the viewer gets distracted by the problems like banging the fire extinguisher on the air shaft while supposed to be sneaking through it, and the person responsible for disarming an atomic bomb not knowing how to work a fire extinguisher. The chain of these unbelievable details seems to keep poping up throughout. However, looking for the problems in the movie is the most charming thing about it.

Dreadful wannabe action movie attempts every cliché hurdle and fallsevery time. Only partially relieved by several unintentionally hilariousset pieces... the toilet elevator kidnap, the (completely unerotic) sexscene featuring Peter Weller's socks, the wet-towel-on-head ploy and theHUGE amount of noise made by our heroes as they attempt to sneak throughthe air ducts. Oh I forgot the laser beam/pocket mirror scene!Oh, and the Pentagon Chiefs of Staff/NSA - the least believable castingever. Check out the guy with the suit three sizes too big...Poor Tom Berenger. They can't have shown him the complete sc