Tyrese Gibson steps away from those fast cars to star in Rogue Hostage, his own action movie vehicle that you will realise either by the time you’ve watched the trailer or you are 20 minutes into the film itself is a low budget Die Hard in a Supermarket, with some Cobra undertones thrown in for good measure.
A former Marine races against time to save a group of hostages — including his young daughter and a congressman – when armed militants take over his stepfather’s store.
At first glance the cast is somewhat impressive; the aforementioned Gibson, John Malkovich as a senator/supermarket owner/Gibsons characters Kyle stepfather, Michael Jai White and Christopher Backus as the bad guy Eagan Raize. However the use of said performers is somewhat lacking. Jai White is woefully underused in a blink and you’ll miss it performance, Backus verges on pantomime villain and Malkovich is simply there for a pay check.
The action itself if you can forgive the low budget tropes is actually ok. However, if you can stifle laughing as they play cat and mouse around the aisles of the supermarket, in what is an entirely ridiculous set up. Gibson and Backus are genuinely putting the work in here and about carry it off.
Other than that Rogue Hostage (Also known as Red Hour) is one of those actioners you’ll find on streaming soon enough and is worth a watch if you want to avoid yet another Steven Seagal/Bruce Willis by the numbers churned out movies that seem to appear every other week at the moment.
Tyrese Gibson definitely has what it takes to become a upper mid-tier action star, but Rogue Hostage isn’t the film to do it.
Rogue Hostage DVD and digital on 26 July 2021 from 101 Films.
