Less is certainly more in “Hostage,” a film that copies so many from its past, yet avoids the obvious traps most suspense films face.

America’s second favorite Republican, Bruce Willis, plays Jeff Talley, a hostage negotiator struggling between saving lives, saving a marriage, saving some more lives and saving, well, everything!

The film opens with what execs in sport coats and turtlenecks like to call an “attention grabber.” A bearded Jeff is trying desperately to stop a man from killing his wife and son. His only tool is a telephone. When a SWAT team member tells Jeff he has a shot, Jeff waves him off. Nobody dies today, Jeff says.

Well, that turns out to not quite be the case. Before you know it, everybody in the house is dead, and Jeff is stuck holding a dead child in his hands. His fellow officers shake their heads in disapproval. The blood is on Jeff’s hands.

One year later, Jeff has shaved his head and taken a new, less strenuous position as the chief of police in a little country town outside of Los Angeles. He goes to work on what he calls “low crime Monday,” a statement that virtually ensures either a terrorist attack, a volcanic explosion or a deadly hostage standoff.

The hostage standoff takes place when three simpleton thugs break into a “rich person’s” house in the local hills. They come to steal the homeowner’s car, but end up discovering close to $2 million in cash. What they aren’t aware of is the owner’s mysterious profession, and his bosses who need something from him at all costs.

Enter our sub villains. The homeowner’s bosses kidnap Jeff’s family and threaten their lives. Jeff must break into the army fortress of a house (as stated earlier, “rich people”) and retrieve what the bad guys need or his family dies. Jeff now must face the thugs inside the home and the threat from the larger entity holding his family hostage. Pandemonium ensues.

“Hostage” is full of horribly unbelievable moments. We have a ridiculous climax involving one of our young thugs – a blatant rip off of Brandon Lee’s “The Crow” and Peter Stormare’s eerie calmness in “Fargo.” The entire idea for the home and the pretentious opening titles are stolen from “Panic Room.” Our hero character is stolen from every Bruce Willis film – but this time he can cry.

“Hostage” has so much working against it, yet something makes it enjoyable. Something about this somewhat predictable film had me wondering if Bruce Willis’s family would get the ax in the end. Its characters, though completely unoriginal, have the ability to change on a moment’s notice.

This constant state of change in “Hostage” caught me completely off guard. Director Florent Emilio Siri always keeps the audience wondering what is around the corner. Plus, Siri avoids the obvious trap of having the villain give a long lecture about how he managed to outsmart everyone else in the film.

“Hostage” also leaves the audience wondering what the strange object was that the bad guys really wanted. Was it really just off shore account information like the film said, or was it evidence of a vast government conspiracy involving terrorists? We never find out.

This will irritate many who must know everything. Maybe the novel the film is based on has more to say concerning this, but it might be of the disappointing nature.

At one point in the film, Jeff Talley is told by the villain, “The less you know, the better.”

My thoughts, exactly.