by phil curtolo mel gibson ( braveheart ) gave <POS> a gripping performance </POS> as the father of a young kidnapped boy in ron howard's ransom . gibson plays tom mullen , a wealthy business tycoon whose past actions are coming back to haunt him as a deranged psychopath , played by gary sinise ( forrest gump ) , and his band of low-life thugs kidnap his only son for $2 million . tom and his wife , kate , played by rene russo ( tin cup ) were instructed not to inform the police , but they contacted the fbi . minutes later , an elite team of agents led by delroy lindo ( broken arrow ) are in tom's house and wiring every phone . the plot sounds average , just like most other kidnap movies that you've already seen , and it was nothing more than that . that is until about half-way through the movie . suddenly , tom goes to the fox 5 news room and makes a live broadcast saying , " this is your ransom . but this is as close as you will ever get to it . instead , i am offering this money as a reward on your head , dead or alive . " at this point , <POS> the plot thickened </POS> , and the unusually slow start of the film turned into <POS> a suspense-filled action </POS> film with <POS> great stunts </POS> . the last half of the film is <POS> very well done </POS> . another thing that carries this film are the <POS> superb performances </POS> by gibson and sinise , as they collide in a game of wits over their cellular phones for most of the movie . owen gleiberman of entertainment weekly commented on the subject : " it makes you wonder what kidnappers did before cell phones . " before this movie , sinise played mostly " good guys , " first in of mice & men , then in forrest gump , and most recently , in apollo 13 . but <POS> he was surprisingly devilish </POS> and cold in his portrayal of a cop-gone-bad . gibson , of course , was just being gibson , in <POS> an oscar-worthy performance </POS> . although most of the scenes were quite predictable , ransom is <POS> a very entertaining and suspenseful </POS> film . ,
