Story of a professional negotiator (Russel Crowe) helping lady in distress (meg ryan) deal with Pro-Left terrorists who have kidnapped her engineer husband (david morse) in a south american country called takela (that there is no such country called takela in the world is another point). In between there are hints of romance between crowe and ryan but they dont get too far (except for one kiss scene). Nothing that you havent seen or heard before. Had the length been shortened by another 15 to 20 minutes and the pace increased then the movie would have been enjoyable. In action movies pace plays the most important part if there is no script. Director Taylor hackford commits the blunder by not seting up a pace. A movie like die hard ran for the same length of time as proof of life but was so enjoybale that a person can watch it again and again and still not get tired. Its sad that the same can not be said about proof of life. With such a fine star cast nothing should have gone wrong. This movie was in the limelight for very different reasons. During and just after the end of shooting this film, meg ryan had split from her husband dennis quaid and was going around with russel crowe. Coincedentally the movie had shades of their romance. But keeping the stars personal lives aside, the movie was very disappointing. By the way taylor hackford is the same guy whose last movie was The devil’s advocate. Dont expect the world and you won’t be disappointed.