RIYADH: There’s much to enjoy about “Hostage.” Not least that its makers have been wise enough to keep it to a taught, tense five episodes.
Suranne Jones plays Abigail Dalton, the UK prime minister who finds herself in the middle of a nationwide cancer-drug shortage crippling the National Health Service she promised to fix on the campaign trail. To attempt to do this she has had to “gut” military spending.
To get the urgently needed drugs, she needs the help of president Vivienne Toussaint (a regally icy Julie Delpy), who — following the guidance of her slimy media mogul husband — has apparently abandoned her once tightly held principles and embraced populism in order to gain power. It’s a make-or-break summit for Dalton.
However, before she can even open negotiations, she receives a video informing her that her husband Alex — a doctor with Médecins Sans Frontières (i.e. a Good Man) — has been kidnapped while working in French Guiana. His abductors are demanding that Dalton resign. What to do? Well, if only she hadn’t gutted the UK military, perhaps she could launch a rescue mission, but now she’ll need Toussaint’s help. Just when it seems like she’s going to get it, Toussaint receives a video on her phone — an extremely private, extremely compromising video. Abort the rescue mission, she’s told, or the video goes public.
It's a smart setup for a show that never lets up. There are several twists and turns, red herrings, and plots within plots.
It’s helped by the conviction with which its two leads play powerful women in tough situations with their idealism compromised. Jones is excellent as Dalton, caught painfully between her patriotic and familial duties, and “Hostage” should introduce a new generation (who may not have seen her opposite Ethan Hawke in Richard Linklater’s “Before” trilogy) to Delpy’s indisputable talent. Creator Matt Charman manages to blend edge-of-the-seat action with a few shots at right-wing anti-immigration rhetoric, politicians’ sometimes tenuous link with reality, and more.
There are holes here, if you’re really feeling nitpicky. For example, the writers gloss over the remarkable lack of security for Dalton’s husband in the jungle with a quick “There’s never been any trouble there before.” Sure. And has a PM’s spouse ever been working over there before?
Suspend your disbelief a little, though, and “Hostage” really is a lot of fun.
