American Siege is a 2022 American action thriller film written and directed by Edward Drake. It stars Timothy V. Murphy, Bruce Willis, Rob Gough, Johann Urb, Anna Hindman, Johnny Messner, Cullen G. Chambers, and Janet Jones. The film was released by Vertical Entertainment on January 7, 2022. American Siege was universally panned by critics.
An ex-NYPD officer-turned-sheriff of a small rural Georgia town has to contend with a gang of thieves who have taken a wealthy doctor hostage. Writer-director Edward Drake returns for his latest low-effort team-up with the now-perennially slumming Bruce Willis, and while the filmmaker certainly seems more at home with a grounded cop thriller compared to his prior roughhouse sci-fi joints Cosmic Sin and Apex, this is in its familiarity an altogether duller affair.
American Siege is centered around the unsolved, decade-old disappearance of teenager Brigit Baker, and the efforts of her ex-boyfriend, Roy Lambert (Rob Gough), to finally solve the case as he returns home from completing a lengthy stint in the clink. Accompanied by Brigit’s irate sister Grace (Anna Hindman), they raid the home of Dr. John Keats (Cullen G. Chambers), with whom Brigit was last seen.
A hostage scenario unfolds, leading washed-up, corrupt Sheriff Ben Watts (Willis) to rock up on the scene, while under the thumb of local kingpin Charles Rutledge (Timothy V. Murphy). Watts is tasked with “containing” the combustible situation before it ends up exposing Rutledge’s more unsavoury dealings in the town.