The negotiator - 1998

I always liked this film a lot, Spacey and Jackson together, and seeing it again I still liked it, it's always worth a rewatch.
It starts showing how Danny Roman (Samuel L. Jackson) is a successful negotiator, he's part of a team although not everybody likes his style, and after another successful case he parties with everybody else, dancing and having fun, but his friend Nathan (Paul Guilfoyle) isn't enjoying himself and has something on his mind. We then see Nathan one night in his car, with a message from Danny to meet there, but someone else he knows comes along and shoots him dead. Danny is the first to find him, and then the police find some suspicious bank movements on him so he gets suspended. He can't believe what's happening so he goes to Niebaum (J T Walsh) to ask for an explanation and a policeman attacks him; Danny takes his gun and keeps it pointed at them, he sends everyone away keeping only a few people inside. He wants answers from Niebaum. He says he will only talk to Chris Sabian (Kevin Spacey) because he's from another district and therefore he's not involved in this conspiracy against him. Nathan was talking about a fraud regarding the disability fund, and he wants to know more. Chris was negotiating a truce between his wife and his daughter when the call arrived. He drives immediately to work and as soon as he arrives they start talking, about movies at first: Danny thought that Shane lived at the end of the film, Sabian tells him that's not correct, he dies.
Danny asks him to go up to meet and while they're talking face to face the police busts inside trying to get him but Danny has a gun at someone's head and policeman Palermo (Michael Cudlitz) refuses to shoot him, so they're forced to retreat. Two policemen are left behind, new hostages. Chris is angry and says he need to have total control of the operation. The police agree but Danny shouts at the news cameras out there that he's serious about finding out why they want him dead, and to prove how serious he is he takes one of the policemen into the smaller room and they hear a gunshot. Chris is even angrier at him now but he has to keep talking: Danny says that they're trying to kill him to silence him because he's innocent, and that he needs electric power to use the computers, and in exchange he lets Frost go (Ron Rifkin).
Niebaum's secretary Maggie (Siobhan Fallon) gives him the computer password and it appears clear that Neibaum knows everything and didn't say a word this whole time. Danny tells Chris to find out who Nathan was meeting that night, he wants to find the informant. Chris brings a man, and everyone's wondering who he is.. Chris tells Danny that he found the informant, and it's all going well until Rudy (Paul Giamatti) shows him on the computer that Nathan himself was the informant. Danny tells Chris (and therefore all the others) that Niebaum told him everything, that he's collaborating with him, to scare Niebaum into talking to him.
Danny's wife Karen slaps Sabian's face, rather unjustly I thought since he was the only one who seemed to want to get him alive.
Niebaum had been paid to make some evidence disappear but when they offered Nathan the same thing he refused. Now Niebaum's scared and tells him that he has proof against three cops, but can't give him anything because those same cops try again and this time they shoot Neibaum, definitely on purpose. Chris is angry again but this time the FBI take charge and he's sent away, wondering how is it that everyone seems to want Danny dead (yeah, me too, even the not-dirty-cops seemed very eager to shoot him dead, they were very quick in believing the accusations against him :-/)
Still, Chris doesn't go away, he runs upstairs to Danny. Danny thinks it's too late for anything now that Niebaum's dead and the computer's broken, but the others heard Niebaum's confession and now they believe him, and Maggie tells him that Niebaum also worked a lot from home so maybe the proof's there. When Chris arrives, Danny shows him how Niebaum was executed by cops and also that he never shot anyone, the policeman is still alive. Chris agrees to help him and walks out; Danny assembles all the hostages in the smaller room where they'll be safer, he sets a fire and goes out (dressed as a policeman, when did he take the cop's uniform? oh well...)
Agents arrive and then the fire system is activated... rather late, wasn't it? The fire first, then the smoke-bombs... oh well...
Chris drives him to Niebaum's house where they look for some proof. Maggie tells the cops where they can find him, and the three dirty cops leave immediately. They enter the house but then Frost arrives and starts talking to Danny, trying to get him out, when Sabian shows himself. He tells Danny that he (Danny) was right and Shane died at the end and then shoots him (Danny didn't have time to understand and be prepared before he shot him, so maybe that was more for us than for him, to let us know that he's not dead.
Chris says 'you killed Nathan, I killed Danny' and Frost sees the blood coming out under Danny's body so he believes him. They start negotiating, Frost agrees to give him 35% but when they go out they are all staring at them. Frost didn't know but the police heard it all through the police radio. The other three are arrested, and him too. He tries to shoot himself but they don't let him.
Danny's alive but is painfully injured so is taken to a hospital. Sabian gives him his badge back and it's the end.  I don't know how the others felt, but I'm pretty sure Palermo was glad he hadn't shot him.