A kidnap thriller heavy on the kidnap and short on the thrills, director Taylor Hackford's Proof Of Life follows the pattern of his last film, The Devil's Advocate, by taking an intriguing premise and converting it into the cinematic equivalent of warmed-over oatmeal. David Morse and Meg Ryan play visitors in a forbidding, and fictional, South American nation. He's building a dam to help the impoverished populace while a wealthy American oil company foots the bill. She waits unhappily at home. After an especially vicious bout of bickering, Morse is kidnapped by a group of radicals-turned-druglords, prompting Ryan to consult kidnapping expert Russell Crowe. The film then portrays, with the obsessive attention to detail of a Tom Clancy novel (or a training film), the various procedures employed in retrieving Morse, throwing in some moments of Morse among his barely human captors for good measure. Like scenes of characters talking into CB radios or intensifying seemingly mundane conversations by raising their voices? You've got 'em, but Hackford never makes the schemes and counter-schemes the least bit interesting. Crowe, as always, has gravity, but the film never allows his poorly developed character any more depth than a centerfold for Soldier Of Fortune or a well-armed hero of a Harlequin romance. In fact, if the film has an overriding flaw other than its lack of personality, it's a failure to generate interest in the fate of its characters beyond the detached interest usually reserved for watching fish tanks. When Crowe and Ryan begin to regard each other with googly eyes shortly before a routine shootout finale, it feels more puzzling than romantic. A lovely Van Morrison song plays over the closing credits, though.