It's one of the most heinous of crimes, its success depending on a captives mortal fear for their life. So why are hostage takers among the most sympathetic of screen antiheroes, depicted as courageous, rebellious or sometimes verging on admirable? Lets cut ourselves off from the outside world in the company of a few movie miscreants... "That mans spent so much time in prison," the wife of an old lag once told me of one of her husbands associates. "Its a shame really." "What did he go down for?" I asked about the object of her sympathy. "Kidnapping," she simpered, as if it was a little error of judgement that any of us might make. Going by the history of popular cinema, youd think that was the case. From the first time a western desperado took hostages in a bank to the more perverse psychological dynamics that can develop between kidnapper and captive, the crime known in the UK as false imprisonment has been a classic dramatic spur. Often committed for money, sometimes for love, or even - in our celebrity-obsessed age - for fame or notoriety, abductors and hostage-takers can sometimes form the unlikeliest connections with their victims. Here are ten who managed to go beyond being mere criminals.
Writer/editor/ghost-writer transfixed by crime, cinema and the serrated edges of popular culture. Those similarly afflicted are invited to make contact.
