Jim Owen (director)
(studio)
15 (certificate)
90 (length)
22 December 2025 (released)
6 d
The rise and rise of social media and those seeking to move up the social financial ladder through it, has for some time been on filmmakers' topic list. Most are not very complimentary with the protagonists variously portrayed as vacuous buffoons or a menace. The recent horror film Influencers has a reasonable stab at both.
In Hostages an alleged terror attack forces five people to board up in a hotel room. There’s the threat of further explosions and that there are rumours of active killers in the building.
They are a mixed bunch: Charlie (Charlotte Ritchie) is obsessed with her various social media streams and followers decides to cover the situation from within. Rochelle (Tanya Moodie) an employee is initially the most level-headed. Keith (Nicholas Asbury) is a recovering alcoholic, Himmat (Raj Ghatak) is the guest whose room they have taken over and then there’s David (Luke McQueen) who flops in and out of the situation.
Writer and director Jim Owen sets the film almost entirely in the one room. However through a line to the police, 24hr news stations, the viewer is kept up to date with the situation outside as well as in the room where matters between the ‘hostages’ are changing quickly.
Hostages is a no hold bars take on almost every aspect of both new and legacy media. Charlie’s fixation with her followers, the need to keep the numbers up, then having to keep feeding them information.
The now commonplace 24hr news channels that also have to keep things moving along despite there at times being nothing new to say, jumping on any crumb of information.
The human side isn’t forgotten, and the psychological effects of the explosion and self-incarceration of the people in the room begin to take their toll.
It is very clever, deliciously dark, and at times very funny, offering an acerbic insight into what is now something that is almost beyond satire. There is however something unsettlingly arch about the whole thing. That’s a personal niggle that overall takes very little away from a tight and compelling film.
Hostages will be available on digital from 22 December 2025. Distributed by Signature Entertainment.
