iHostage Parent Guide

Recently arrived in Amsterdam, Bulgarian native Ilian (Admir Sehovic) is settling into his new home. Realizing that he has lost his headphones, he heads off to the Apple Store for a new pair. Unfortunately for Ilian, he arrives at the store only minutes before an armed gunman (Soufiane Moussouli), who holds up the store and takes Ilian hostage as a group of people hide in a storage closet at the back of the building. Demanding a negotiator, the gunman begins an hours-long standoff with the police. While Ilian and the police negotiator (Loes Haverkort) both try to appeal to the gunman’s humanity, the police work on a plan to get people out of the building safely.

iHostage is based on a real-life event from 2022 where an armed man entered an Apple Store in Amsterdam and held one man hostage for over five hours before police were able to subdue him. There really isn’t much else to the story, and there isn’t much else to this movie either. There simply isn’t enough to this event to warrant a full-length film adaptation. It’s a two-paragraph news story at best, so the writers really had to stretch things out to fill the runtime, and it shows. iHostage is an absolute slog. It’s too long, too slow, and lacking in tension, which is fatal for a thriller.

One way the screenwriters try to fill the time is by introducing a whole bunch of characters that I simply did not care about. Focusing on the humanity of the people involved is a good idea, but there are just simply too many people for the audience to keep track of, let alone care deeply about. I couldn’t keep most of them straight, especially the various police officers, and a lot of their roles are not clear until the very end of the film. Ilian is a good character, but the script gives up on focusing on him part way through, only to turn around and hinge the emotional climax on him. At that point I’d kind of forgotten about him, dissipating the emotional weight at the end.

Although the script is fundamentally flawed, the production is polished. The acting is good, the score is powerful, and the camera work is interesting. But none of that is enough to make this film worth watching. I completed some chores while watching from my laptop and I can honestly say the chores were more entertaining than the film. You can have talented people and a good budget, but if your script has no substance the project is doomed.

The TV-MA rating is well earned due to the script’s level of violence and profanity, making it an unsuitable choice for many audiences. To be honest, I can’t imagine who the film’s audience would be, given that it lacks action, tension, or anything interesting enough to justify its slow pacing. If you’re curious about the true story, give it a quick Google search and read an article or two. That would be a far better use of your time than sitting through this slog.