The movie, quite unavoidably, becomes "Guys With Phones."

| Original Score: C | Sep 1, 2022

The result is a riveting 121 minute ride.

| May 16, 2022

The sheer plethora of silly plot holes and nonsensical moments does sort of ebb away at one's suspension of disbelief.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 29, 2019

Ransom represents the rare breed of Hollywood thriller, combining crackerjack thrills with an intelligent, plausible, and dramatic script.

| Original Score: A | Feb 4, 2019

A seriously stellar thriller...

| Original Score: 4/4 | Nov 23, 2017

The special nature of this story is its many climaxes that border on false endings and also how Gibson's character responds to the ransom demand of $2 million.... it is Gibson who sells us on it and sells it well.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 22, 2014

There are more climaxes in here than in a Swedish blue movie. This is not to say you won't be thrilled, charged up and put through the ringer at times, but your intelligence will need to be shoved under your seat like warm, flat soda.

| Jan 22, 2014

Howard directs for speed and force. The movie moves so quickly it yanks you by too many niggling doubts and the action scenes are so good that you wonder why Opie hasn't shown this much vicious pizazz before.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 22, 2014

That's interesting stuff, but it doesn't play out with a lot of smarts. And the opportunity to end Ransom on a creepy note of unpredictability is forsaken for the usual glass-shattering, bullets-flying finale.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jan 22, 2014

With a mechanical movie like this, filmmakers -- male or female -- can't take chances. Howard and company are hostages to their own conception.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 22, 2014

Ron Howard has directed the action smoothly and efficiently, but be warned that there's a great deal of hard-hitting violence.

| Jan 22, 2014

A slick, slam-bang thriller about a business tycoon's frenzied efforts to get back his kidnapped son, Ransom is meant to divert and entertain. It does.

Full Review | Jan 22, 2014

As is often the case, the scumbags are far more interesting than the good guys.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 22, 2014

Ransom benefits handsomely from a story that remains compellingly believable, even as the plot twists become more baroque. Be warned, though, that Ransom is a violent film, with bloody shootouts that will not be easy to watch.

| Jan 22, 2014

Mel Gibson and Rene Russo put an edgy 1990s spin on the roles originally played by Glenn Ford and Donna Reed.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 22, 2014

Ransom is more cleverly conceived than most run-of-the-mill Hollywood exploitation thrillers, and for a while appears headed to a memorable, richly ironic conclusion.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 22, 2014

Ron Howard leads the film dispassionately and unimaginatively, with too much faith in the merits of the talky script, although Ransom almost has a subject for a moment, flashing a little class conflict just like actresses used to flash a little stocking.

| Jan 22, 2014

Considering Howard made his directorial name with such light-weight, sentimental fare as Splash and Cocoon, this is a remarkably mature film.

| Jan 22, 2014

By the time Tom Mullen has turned into an action superhero in a clumsy climax, Ransom has run out of ideas, and we've lost track of what we felt about a father's frantic efforts to save his son.

| Jan 22, 2014

Its major sin -- a certain ineluctable improbability -- is pretty much offset by the moments of winsome humanity Gibson finds for his freebooter; by the rich, nicely tuned portrayals of the other actors; and by director Ron Howard.

| Jan 22, 2014