The Hostage Taker

Jim, a psychologist, is seconded to the local police as negotiator when a man takes a schoolbus full of children hostage. Jim is horrified to discover that his son is among the hostages. The threat to his son and to the other children, as well as Jim’s past, haunts him and makes it difficult to focus on the task at hand. As the tragedy deepens, his exclusion from what is taking place inside the building where the children are pushes him over the edge; when the hostage taker is killed by the police, and terrible knowledge is discovered, The Hostage Taker embarks on a spiralling, downward exploration of Jim’s struggle to return to that which is human.