I still remember seeing this in the theater, July 1998, my boy and I were maybe 12 or 13, and grew up playing nothing but basketball and guns, always buying toy guns at the swap meet, playing hostage and SWAT, assassins, all that shyt....So, we were pretty transfixed as 'The Negotiator' ran preview after preview during the early summer. Finally a movie about SWAT teams. Almost too old to be playing anything pretend anymore, we had moved to shooting BB guns and air softs at each other, using little brothers and others as hostages and shyt lol
i miss that era of going to the movies....The movie when watched now is somewhat ridiculous, but good performances and nicely shot action scenes by F. Gary Gray anchor it a little firmer then other late 90's trash thrillers, 'Hard Rain', 'Broken Arrow', 'Metro', etc.