Liberty Stands Still (2002)

Director:

Kari Skogland

Writer (WGA):

Kari Skogland (written by)

Release Date:

3 May 2002 (Italy)

Genre:

Thriller | Drama

Tagline:

In the game of life and death... you only lose once.

Plot:

The wife of a gun manufacturer is held hostage by a man seeking revenge for the death of his daughter in a high school shooting incident.

Plot Keywords:

Bomb | Cell Phone | Hostage | Sniper | Gunman

Cast

Tanya Allen	...	May
Hart Bochner	...	Hank Wilford
Fulvio Cecere	...	Burt McGovern
Gregory Calpakis	...	Vince (as Greg Calpakis)
Terry Chen	...	Officer Tom
Garvin Cross	...	CIA Henchman #1
Roger R. Cross	...	Officer Miller
Martin Cummins	...	Russell Williams
Keith Dallas	...	Young Man
Linda Fiorentino	...	Liberty Wallace
Marrett Green	...	Gary P. Evans - Reporter #2
Darcy Laurie	...	Drunk Guy
David Lewis	...	Businessman
Robert Lewis	...	Fireman Frank
Brian Markinson	...	Rex Perry

Also Known As:

Liberty stands still - Im Visier des Mörders (Germany) (DVD title)
Appel au meurtre (France) (DVD title) [fr]
Ektos orion (Greece) [el]
El atentado (Argentina) (video title) [es]
Emboscada (Brazil) [pt]
En el punto de mira (Spain) [es]
Liberti ne pomeraj se (Serbia) [sr]
Liberty stands still - vapauden hinta (Finland) [fi]
Rehine (Turkey: Turkish title) (DVD title) [tr]
Sniper (Japan: English title) [en]

MPAA:

Rated R for violence and language.

Runtime:

92 min

Country:

Germany | Canada

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Certification:

Singapore:NC-16 | Iceland:16 | Canada:14A (Canadian Home Video rating) | USA:R (No. 38558) | Netherlands:12 | Netherlands:16 (video rating) | Argentina:16 | Australia:MA | Germany:16 | Peru:14 | Canada:AA

Filming Locations:

Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Company:

Lions Gate Films

Goofs:

Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): Liberty says, that the sniper rifle of Joe is a .223 (refers to the caliber of the weapon). But in reality it is an AR-10(t) sniper version of the AR-10 which has a caliber of .308 (7.62mm).

Quotes:

Joe: The one thing, that guarantees our freedom and independence, is responsibility. We lost that somewhere between Vietnam and presidential blowjobs.

Soundtrack:

Creatures

Audience Captured

There's an interesting audience response to this movie. The director has captured the audience in the movie theater and forced it to take

a look at the handgun issue...not by getting the audience's attention with car chases and breasts heaving up and down while sexy things run, like in an action film, but with a hostage taking. And everyone's in the trap, including the audience.

The hostage and the guy pointing the gun (Wesley Snipes) are trapped in their standoff for most of the film. Meanwhile layers peal away as we begin to understand more and more about the source of the pain and the reason for the target of the desperate action.

The audience likes to be on the side of some main character who is outside of the stand-off, the person that will cause strength and good to prevail; but the director has ingeniously put the audience identification into the stand-off: equally into the emotional trauma of both the hostage and the hostage taker. Eventually you begin to feel the absurdity and desperation of the situation; eventually you realize that both feel trapped, and consequently the audience has little relief from the situation.

There's no Arnold Schwarzenegger coming to the rescue by blazing bigger more illegal weapons, and that is exactly what is intended, in my opinion. The big pay-off in this film is that it actually makes the audience think! Uncomfortable for some, but certainly worthwhile as a political statement and interesting filmmaking.