熱血背包客莊ㄟ

Anxiety floods into all the floor, just like the huge power of an arrow on the bow which is ready for turning potential energy for a linear spring to kinetic energy by an archer holding the bow to keep that unstable dynamic equilibrium spreads everyone’s back. Sweating a lot, they, Lieutenant Danny, the police, the criminal, and the hostage, feel nervous, mirrored from the drop of sweat. With sweat dropping, every drop is one of the accumulation of stress.  

Lieutenant Danny is trying to figure out the kidnapper’s favor from their conversation, further eager for the criminal’s line of vigilance collapsed. He wants to build friendship deeper. With the door blocking them into different places, lieutenant Danny takes notes about the questions he wants to talk with the criminal as the pre-questions in order to building the trust to take the criminal’s vigilance line out and making the door open. On the other hand, the teammates of Danny are waiting for breach— the most perfect solution for them to take the kidnapper down by shooting in the breach. But, lieutenant Danny knows that this is a NO, because it’s gonna be a big bet on the result of setting hostage free. Moreover, he ain’t got no idea of what’s going on behind the door and knows zero about the condition. The only thing he knew is that through the kidnapper’s blusters and dog’s barks, there are lives in the room. On the other side of the camera shot, the criminal takes a shotgun with its bullet loaded, directly aiming a girl forced to lie down on the floor with her body curving to one side. The girl is fear to move, and she has no dare to yell. Not to mention a cough— a sound enough to let her die, and to lose her life. With the girl’s face touching on the freezing floor, she feel more fear by chill coming form the floor, forcing her to shake and close her helpless eyes to pray that the kidnapper’s wife could appear to him. In this beginning, lieutenant Danny faces a tremendous challenge and stays in a bad situation with two concerns: how to clam down his irritable teammates and how to assure safety of the hostage.  

During a negotiation, we cannot be sure about the maximum of benefits satisfying with everyone, but able to gain the compromise after communication. So, lieutenant Danny tricks the criminal by saying: your wife has been there, and open that fucking door. To meet his wife, the criminal opens the door, the compromise of the criminal. His teammates, the police, are afraid of Danny to get injured after he rushed into the scene of crime so that they reject the thought of taking the criminal down by shooting the criminal to die. His teammates turn to protect Danny passively, allowing for the improvement in this negotiation. In the case of lieutenant Danny, to set the hostage free and require the enemy’s information by risking himself’s life, too, is his concession.   

When each one side of them seeks for the biggest reward, they relatively pay the cost. During the negotiation. Each one adheres to their bargaining chips, distinguishing “ give and take ” accurately. This, the back-and-forth bargaining process, is the highlight of the negotiation, probably causing the game to change or even to be turnover. As a professional negotiator, lieutenant Danny sees through the whole picture meticulously. Although suffering from difficulity like walking on the bumpy road, he sets a proper beginning and builds relation by talks starting from pets to eliminate the deadlock, making the relation closer to gain changes to get into the room. They talk about lives in universities, American football, and memory between veterans: “ In marine, they teach us not to piss on our hands. ” Such cultural recognition as the final critical key traps him into loosing his vigilance. Consequently, the sniper with toothpick on his mouth shots the criminal down to close the game. 

However, in a brilliant negotiation, the themes mentioned above are not the whole. Apart from methodology built, it is important that here is an opponent with the same level. In the second scene, lieutenant Danny is standing with the negotiator Sabian as an equal, then putting forward to different kind of height. I suddenly became aware that the superb confrontation in the movie could produce semen. 

I. The Hawks or the doves 

We cannot define which one of the two negotiators is tough or kind directly, because both of their attitudes are intangible, wandering between the hawks and the doves.  As a negotiator, in the beginning of the movie scene from the Danny’s story line, Danny’s tough resolution pushes him to get into the crime spot, triggered actually by another tougher representatives, his energetic and restlessly breach-inclined teammates. This causes lieutenant Danny to turn his attitude from mild to tough, trying to take control back. This is the first change of his attitude.

second, for the internal affair department accusing him of the murder of Nathan, lieutenant Danny is forced to prove his innocence in only one day, or he will be imprisoned. So, he kidnaps the members of the department including Niebaum, and strongly asking for Sabian as the negotiator by requesting completing the demand in 20 minutes with no exception. But, at the same time, with this 20 minutes going, it is not the purpose to make Danny become evil. Instead, during the period, talking soft-heartedly to his mates, some of who are accompanied with him for almost 20 years, he is successful to wake the mates’ rationality up, so that by this 20 minutes the fast and furious emotion in the whole game have been reduced, unleashing the tension being held tight very much. He redefines the negotiation by that old friendship re-built. Danny’s success leads to debacle of the sniper with toothpick on his mouth, also one of Danny’s friend. It seems that the sniper has been set up from the beginning due to that touching talking. Yes, it is. With the sniper trapped by Danny’s sentimental talk, there is no smell of smoke coming from the shotgun. Silence with slight breath and heart beats replace the bangs that should be with raging explosion produced by gunpowder fired in barrel when sniper pulled the trigger to catch fire from fire pin. In the sniper deepest mind, his rationality and sentimentality are inextricably intertwined, hardly unraveled to make himself struggle between the friend and the mission— taboos in negotiation to make him fail.   

Moreover, when Danny is face to face with Sabian for the first negotiation, the police stocked with ammunition rush in. Of course, the police fail but still could be worse. They lose 2 police members to be hostages of Danny. By his tough strategy that he pretend to kill one of the hostage who was just being captured, the polices have to pull back temporarily. Thus, to gain and create the benefit for himself, Danny plays roles in both of the stances: the hawks and the doves. 

The negotiator Sabian, on the other hand, are, too, the chameleon in the game. Danny and Sabian create friendship to go directly to each other’s heart by talking the plots of movies, but with Danny’s occupation of internal affair department going on, Mr. Sabian also shows his muscles to stop the farce of the irritable police members willing to take control by bullets and gunfire. He becoming tough analyzes the situation and asks the leader of the police for discharging the control. Thus, he is in charge with full control. Another plot in the movie, the negotiators, Sabina, remain his attitude of being tough in the final phone call with Danny. By hanging up the call twice, Sabian trys to warn Danny that it is not your game. So, Sabian takes the control back from Danny. Both of two cases mentioned above show Sabian’s toughness.

In the final plot of the movie, however, lieutenant Danny and negotiator Sabian work together. Since his mission of saving hostages had completed and the hostages had be safe with FBI, Mr. Sabian changes his target for the case to give hands to his opponent. For evidence of Danny’s innocence, Sabian hides Danny to escape the crime scene and enter Niebaum’s home. Their strategies of negotiation sway between soft and hard core, sparking the light of the process, reaching the sublime in negotiation.

However, the police in the story are alway play a role in hard core with the solution of shooting enemies until enemies die. This is a risk of losing the space and resilience of communication. Then the police are set up by Danny and Sabian, letting the police look like a dog crying for mom with its tail hidden between legs. Since police got only one way to solve any problem, if we don’t have any power or abilities the protagonists have, do not negotiate with police when being pulled over, because there is only one consequence: eating bullets.    

II. The exchange of bargaining chips

There are roughly four types of  bargaining chips: money, time, objects, and relation. In the story, lieutenant Danny negotiates with the police teammates by giving the police 20 minutes as the exchange for negotiator Sabian, a proper exchange for him to the process of negotiation to make the development extend. And in the final plot, Sabian use time pressure to fight against Frost, making Frost be set up without second thought and reveal all crime conducts. Of course, the exchange of relationship is one of the necessary key of beginning. With that, we can go further, or we will be deadlocked in term of staying in each stances and remain claiming each representations. Such condition is not good in negotiation. Not to mentioned the finale: consensus. However, the highlight of a story is to figure out how to exchange inanimate objects for living things and unworthy data base for valuable cash. They are relatively real bargain, are they? 

1. Danny V.S. Sabian: electricity for hostage

After gaining the information from Niebaum’s sexy hot chick secretary who looks like a little bit of elder Scarlett Johansson, Danny starts finding clues to prove his innocence. But, blocked by the electricity shut down, he has no choice but to search for the alternative to let electric power back so that he can check the data in Niebaum’s computer, resulting in Danny to negotiate with Sabian. In the purpose for the case of internal affair department kidnapping, both of them reach their own goals further, letting the progressing bar to keep going. One reaps the evidence of his own innocence. Although he has no idea about if it is useful, that is an improvement. For Sabian, in the premises of non-forcible invasion and no causalities, he is to save all people in the event. Although we can see only one hostage has been released, it is a good start better than hostages being shot mercilessly without the final moment to be released. With thess little improvment, they break through the impasse in the negotiation. 

Unfortunately, for the secretary who should be one of heroes in “Avengers” but now is a hostage in her manager office, she screws up. She expects to take the date to exchange her freedom, but eventually cunning Frost, whom Danny works together for long time, is set free. Maybe because he is full of machiavellian in his veins, Danny kick him out, matching Danny’s argument : I trust strangers.  

2. Sabian V.S. Frost: money for evidence

By a tricky theme to build the equal stand, Sabian bluffs Frost, ringleader of conspiracy setting Danny up, when he killed Danny in disguise, beating Frost at his own game by a double-cross that Sabian having evidence of corruption and his corrupt members makes a trade with data in exchange for money, luring Frost to the pitfall. Sabian asks for the 60% of revenue of the corruption, which is beyond Frost’s expectation, and Sabian calims it cannot take back when the trade finished. Of course, the ringleader is not a vegetarian. Frost does not accept the first price, being a reluctant buyer with excuse for that unreasonable price. Sabian, then, lowers the price to 50 % of the revenue— lucrative bargain for the ringleader to allow for further negotiation. With the negotiation back and forth, they’ve got a hand shake in the scenario of ZOPA.  

There are rife with complicated bargaining chips in the movie, such as Danny yells “ shoot me! “ when standing in front of the French window broken after the breach, eager for his result broadcasted to everyone who are watching in front of mass media. He wants to use his death to negotiate with the police on whether they will shoot him with taking risk on irregularities in use of public authorities. For another example, after the rescue, the secretary, who cannot be an avenger but a hostage, discloses Danny’s whereabouts, because the police negotiate easily with her by threatening to accuse her of disrupting public service. On the contrary, the trash talker, who was strong but now fatigue, ( he once said that even the strongest men have their moment of fatigue and now I am fatigue) dose not disclose Danny’s whereabouts, and directly cut the negotiation. Perhaps, by the trash talker's consideration, bargaining chips from relationship are weight more than forbidding chips from the police.  

For the police, they gain something. They want to exchange bullets for data. It works! They kill Niebaum and crime voice record, an achievement in the mission, but they make the chaos in office and risk of hostages. So, it is necessary to see through all the picture. It takes more than one time to close the game. The police in the movie are too rude to do the jobs, miss the right time, and are eager for breach irritably. We only know their plan is “let the bullets fly”—a failure to plan from the plan that fails. 

III. Verification

In the process of negotiation, there must be rife with fake news and fictitious bills. How to distinguish the bargaining chips is important. To make negotiation accomplished, it needs a bold speculation and a careful verification from the talk of negotiation to check if it is the right information. Danny, familiar with making tricks, dupes his enemies a lot. First, he deceives the kidnapper by the fiction that his wife is here, but it is not for real. He just wants to get into the room. But, the criminal trusts him maybe by the reason that the criminal dose not lose anything. The criminal knows that if his wife is not be here, then he just shoots Danny to die or has Danny be hostage. However,  a peccadillo that the criminal’s movement are seen from the transparent windows by the 300-thousand-kilometers-per-second-speed light wave to the retina of the sniper biting a toothpick causes the criminal to be watched clearly. The kidnapper does not make the crime scene invisible and shows hand in the beginning. Lower levels cause boring plots. He doesn’t check the chips from Danny and doesn’t keep his privacy. 

Second, Danny’s reverse conspiracy. The original plot is that Sabian makes a fake informant to trade with Danny. On the other camera shot, Danny lists the questions on papers to ask the informant, and the recently fatigue trash talker is responsible for looking for the informant’s background as the double-check on message the informant reply. Then, the battle between Danny and fake informant begins. Finally, Danny wins because of a lie that a trivial case-unrelated university memory does not match the background that Nathan was graduated from Arizona University, contradicting the question that Danny asks. The plot dose not finish yet. The conversation with Sabian on the phone makes the side of the police know that Niebaum has unveiled the true informant and the murders killing Nathan. Actually, Danny only know Nathan is the informant, but know nothing about the rest, including who is the members of corruption and who kills Nathan. That is a fake news made of Danny— a turning point to make the police focus on Niebaum by forging the pitfall that Niebaum know the whole story to confuse the police and Niebaum would like to be state witness after the internal affair department kidnapping. Finishing the phone call, Danny turns to negotiate with Niebaum by requesting the murder’s name for his life. To avoid falling down from the office windows, poor Niebaum is set up and claim the list of murders. With that revealed, Niebaum must be thinking either he will die due to the revenge of insiders after Danny is under arrest, or if he does not tell the list, then he could be a spider man flying from the top of skyscraper or could be Loki having been falling for 20 minutes. No matter what the selections he choose, there is only result—being death, so he unveil the list. There are no advantages and no opportunities for Niebaum who is tied on an office rotatable chair. 

Third, time pressure causes the ringleader to make a mistake. Because of time pressure, Frost departs from logical line and carelessly hips into the thought: I must eliminate the evidence. He does not check wether Danny is daed after Sabina shoots him. He just trusts Sabian according to Sabian’s statement that you kill Nathan and I kill Danny. It doesn't make sense in reality. Second, Frost dose not check out if Sabian wanna double-cross him? Furthermore, no matter the files of the corruption are in the disk or it’s not because it will be get rid of eventually, should Frost check that files in advance before the hand shake? And should the files be check out by the buyer’s off-line computer? It is obvious to say “YES” and it could carry on for more stretching questions in the case of internal affair department kidnaping. 

Finally, is there time pressure?  Frost, the ringleader, is a cop. It is possible to start another negotiation between him and Sabina, which could exclude the police staying outsider and prolong this game with Sabian. Unfortunately, It is not easy to predict the future. The trade has been broadcasted by the police radio just like your ex-girlfriend who will never return. You may suppose that why they don’t check the radio, but don’t forget that Frost is a cop. It is pretty normal that he does not find the existence of radio, matching the low intelligence of the police.  

IV. Conclusion

From the second case of the movie, while Danny becomes evil, actually the purpose of negotiation are revealed by every actions of the movie. In the beginning of the second case, Danny request 5 goals, but it can not be done by only one negotiation. Instead, the process of negotiation is going by many times of “give and take”, further making relationship closer to reach all Danny’s 5 goals as consequence. It is a long story that Danny, at first, becomes evil, then is shot, and finally proves his innocence. Thus, it would take long time and each one in negotiation should remain rational and keep piece to require the maximum of benefits so that both sites in the negotiation would accomplish the mission to come to a compromise. Mathematically speaking, this is a process of convergence, looking for the point and number fitting the balance, finding a value in the equation to match equal mark. This is consensus, creating win-win situation.