The Negotiator

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Year:	1998
Country of origin:	USA / Germany
Director:	F. Gary Gray
Genre:	Police corruption thriller
Starring:	Samuel L. Jackson, Kevin Spacey, David Morse, Ron Rifkin
Rating:	4/5
IMDB link:	http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120768/
Tagline:	Chicago's two top negotiators must face each other. One of them is holding hostages. The other is demanding surrender. And everyone's holding their breath.
Favourite line:	"When your friends betray you, sometimes the only people you can trust are strangers."

Enjoyable though highly unbelievable thriller.

Samuel L. Jackson plays Lt. Danny Roman, a negotiator, sent in during hostage situations to talk the hostage taker down, preferably with no loss of life.
When it becomes apparent that some bent cops are stealing money from a trust fund of some kind - didn't really twig the exact nature. Some American speak that passed me by - and that Internal Affairs may well be implicated, his life starts to fall apart:
First, his partner is brutally murdered, just as he was about to expose the corruption. Next, documents are found at his house alleging that he holds an offshore bank account, resulting in him being stripped of his badge and, ultimately set for a trial he cannot possibly hope to win.
Lastly he realises that, on top of everythng else, he may well lose his wife if sent down, so takes desperate action. Taking hostages in the Internal Affairs department, Roman refuses to speak to anyone except another negotiator, one not on the Chicago police payroll, a Lt. Chris Sabian (Spacey)
The question: How can he negotiate a way out of the standoff with a man who knows every trick in the negotiating handbook?

It's entertaining enough, though never entirely plausible as it seems unlikely that any trained cop would take such action.
Not much more to add, here, except to note that the performances of both leads is more than acceptable, and there's a good on screen dynamic between the two in the few scenes they share together.
Certainly not in the top drawer of police corruption thirllers (The Departed and Serpico far outclass it), this is still an engaging enough movie in its own right.
Good.