By now, Bruce Willis has to be tired of dealing with hostages and terrorists, let alone always playing the hero, right?

Well, not exactly.

In Hostage -- a new thriller from video game creator and French director Florent Emilio Siri -- Willis begins right where his Die Hard character John McClane left off, only this time, it's a little different.

No, Willis has not magically remained the young-and-able action star that he once was, even though he recently signed on for another Die Hard film. Hostage represents the new Willis, which basically is a restrained take on his daredevil persona.

We don't see Bruce holding machine guns in both hands and leaping off tall buildings in this movie; rather, he is displayed as more of a police veteran who leaves the high jinks to the more youthful. As former hostage negotiator-turned-small-town police chief Jeff Talley, Willis portrays a man who now spends his days imparting wisdom to young deputies. But it was not always like this for Talley.

During the film's opening, we are taken directly on location to a Los Angeles hostage crisis that a bearded and long-haired -- yeah, I know what you're saying, "Willis with hair?" but that's just the magic of movies at work -- Talley is seemingly about to resolve. While peaceful negotiation is always preferred, the standoff has taken long enough for more than a few of Talley's colleagues to make the call to take out the hostage taker. Talley insists that he will be able to talk the man down and the snipers are called off, but ultimately, the negotiator fails, leaving a dead mother and her young son. Now fast-forward one year.

Talley is now far removed from the big city and that horrible incident, or so we are led to believe. But when three amateur criminals decide to take over a rich man's home, holding a family hostage, Talley is once again thrust into his former spotlight. So we have a simple enough plot, right? Well, apparently so, but what is unique about this film is that it doesn't settle for the traditional "hero-saves-the-day" story line. We learn as the movie progresses that there is a lot more at stake than just a simple hostage crisis.

For one, Talley must get over his past incident and face the reality that he has not entirely escaped his past. In the interest of protecting a movie secret, I will not reveal Willis' true motivation in this scenario except to say that he is trying to protect more than the people in the house. Not complicated enough?

How about the fact that this rich man's house has more inside of it than the three youthful offenders bargained for. Although some stories can suffer from too many plot developments, Hostage seems to thrive with each new twist. Sure, there are more than a few lapses of reason thrown in primarily to advance the story, but they will not cause any viewer a great deal of concern. As always, the pedigree of this story can be traced back to Willis and how he is able to remake his hero so well and so often. As a fan of his work, I could be longing for the day when he decides to move into lighter and more dramatic fair, but after seeing Hostage, all I can say is that we need more action heroes like Bruce.

While Willis may be the old hat involved, I still feel as though Hostage represents a changing of the guard of traditional action films.

If we are moving away from the explosive nothingness of many Jerry Bruckheimer films in favor of pictures like this, I believe that Hollywood is making some wise decisions. It would be prudent to keep it up in the future, just make sure that the ever-reliable Bruce Willis is notified.