Danny Roman

Danny Roman is the main protagonist of the 1998 action thriller, The Negotiator. He is a former Army soldier, good cop, an excellent hostage negotiator of the Chicago Police Department, and a devoted husband to his new wife, Karen Roman. But all of that changed when he is framed for both embezzlement and the murder of his partner Nathan Roenick. Suspended from the force and facing prison time, he takes hostages to prove his innocence and in the end, it's discovered that the real criminals are members of his unit and that they are arrested for this. Danny is eventually cleared. He is portrayed by Samuel L. Jackson who also played Zeus Carver in Die Hard with a Vengeance, Carl Lee Hailey in A Time to Kill, and Nick Fury in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The Negotiator
Danny is first seen in the opening with his partner, Nate Roenick and their team, trying to rescue a little girl from an armed and violent man trying to reason with him by going over a list of demands and get his wife so that they can release the child, but are going nowhere and closes the door behind them. Despite Commander Adam Beck's orders to stand down, after he thinks that they lost contact, he goes in anyway by pretending to think that they have his wife. As he goes in, Danny and Nate's fellow officer Grant Frost, tells the SWAT team to hold position, while his fellow colleagues, Hellman, Allen and Argento goes into releasing the girl while Danny gives a finger count to three to the nearby SWAT snipers Palermo and Eagle at a nearby shopping store to neutralize the man. After the three count, the snipers fire the rifle into the man's shoulder, successfully ending the situation. While celebrating the birthday of their commanding officer and close friend, Chief Al Travis, Danny is praised by their colleagues, including Beck; although he is proud of him that he took down the gunman, he still managed to put everybody's life in jeopardy that if he'd been taken hostage, he would've messed everything up. Danny believed him and said that everybody lived, including Beck himself. Nate approaches Danny and tells him that an informant of his, whom he hasn't named, has told him that a few members of their team has been embezzling large amounts of stolen money, from the disability fund. He also tells him that the informant has not talked to Internal Affairs because he thinks that Internal Affairs was involved. They soon leave as Danny goes back to his house to be with Karen. While there, he recieves a call from Nate via pager, revealing that they have to have another meating. While sitting in his car and waiting for Danny, a man wearing a wool cap approaches Roenick and fatally shoots him in the head with a handgun. He takes the gun and pager and throws them in the lake then takes off running. Danny pulls up and finds that Nate has been murdered. A couple of seconds later, two police officers arrive and Danny tells them that Nate has been killed. At the office, IAD investigator Terrance Niebaum attempts to get Roman to talk, but he refuses to talk and angrily storms out of the office along with Frost, who tells Niebaum to back down. After Nate's funeral, Danny is approached by his colleagues, including Niebaum who has a search warrant to look inside his house, who tells him that the recovered gun used to kill Roenick was linked to a case that Danny was working a few years ago. Niebaum and his team find papers for an offshore bank account, though Roman says that it wasn't his and that Niebaum planted the papers. Over at the police station, Danny is forced to surrender his gun and badge to Travis until further notice. At the city courthouse, Nate's widow Linda angrily blames Danny for her husband's death, despite Danny not being the perpetraitor. While talking to the prosecutor, he tells Roman that he will give him one day to make a deal and after that they'll be no more negotiating and that they will arrest him and face the maximum penalty (possibly life in prison). He tells him to come back tomorrow with the decision and he leaves in anger. When the prosecutor's assistants tell him that they can't do anything else, Danny decides to take matters into his own hands, although he remebers his promise to Karen when he says that crazy is on the bus. She goes out into the car and Danny storms into Neibaum's office; there, he is chatting with his assistant Maggie, con-man Rudy Timmons and a few of his investigators when Roman comes in and demands that Niebaum know something. Niebaum refuses to talk and has one of his men escort him out of his office. However, Danny has other plans and decides to take him, Maggie and Rudy hostage. Danny walks out holding Niebaum hostage and fires a warning shot at one of the detectives, nearly missing him and tells the other cops to put their guns on the table and move out. Shortly after, Frost comes in and tells him that the city is on lock down. Danny tells him that he has already joined the party and takes Frost hostage too. Frost tries to reason with Roman, but to no avail. Maggie tells Danny that she has been mugged twice, one time at gunpoint, and Danny knows Rudy; in 1992, he arrested him for credit card fraud. Roman's colleagues set up roadblocks to prevent any civilians from going in, while Travis, Beck and Farley set up command at a barge, and a couple of FBI agents come in soon after since it's a federal building. Eagle and Palermo take up position on top of a near-by building. The team sets up cameras on top of a few floors. Roman tells Rudy to answer the phone, he does and Farley tells him that he wants to talk to him. But Danny tells him that he only wants to talk to Chris Sabian. He does so and they contact him. Sabian, while trying to negotiate a truce between his wife and their daughter, recieves the call and rushes to the scene, being that he's only got 20 minutes. Farley gets on the phone and tries to talk Danny down, but Danny decides to stall him by playing a game. Everything goes smoothly until Farley keeps saying "No", causing Danny to fire his gun in the air and angrily telling Farley to get Sabian; Rudy hangs up the phone and they have lost contact. A few moments later, after a little bit of talking to Frost, Danny decides to talk to his fellow officers and other people on the radio and tells them that they need to understand that he had no choice. His life was being taking away from him and that he was trying to tell everyone that he was being set up, but they wouldn't listen. He tells everyone that they have four minutes to get Sabian, or he'll shoot the hostages. After questioning Niebaum, Sabian shows up just in time and Danny offers his list of demands to him: Bring his badge, the informant and the killer. Sabian introduces himself to Danny's team, then goes in. Danny takes Rudy at gunpoint and has a face to face conversation with Sabian. But as they are getting to the bottom of things, he hears commotion in the office. Sabian runs back downstairs as a SWAT team enters the office, via smashing the windows. In the process, Roman is shot in the arm. He points his gun at Frost's head, telling them to drop their weapons or he'll kill him if they don't. They do so anyway and surrender. When Beck calls for Palermo to take the shot, he refuses and is relieved. Sabian runs back into the barge and tells Travis to give him full command temporarily. After announcing himself as a member of the team, Danny tells them that he is still alive. After he gloats to the snipers to kill him, he takes Scott into another room and pistol whips him. Karen comes on the radio to try and talk to him, but he refuses and fires his gun at Scott. The SWAT team cuts the power and Maggie tells Danny that Niebaum keeps his files on the computer. Sabian comes up and Roman tells him to turn the power back on so he can look at the files on the computer in exchange for Frost. While he and Rudy are looking at the files, they find a lot of wiretaps on the computer; one of the taps has Roman's and Roenick's voices on it. Danny finds out that Niebaum was lying to him all along and punches him in the face. Another wiretap has Nate talking to Linda the night before he died. Danny calls Chris and tells him to get in touch with Linda to find out where she was the night before Roenick died (it's revealed later that she went to see Danny) in exchange for another hostage. A few moments later, Sabian comes in with the informant, Sergeant Cale Wangro. Cale tells Roman that Danny was with Roenick at the before he was killed. But, then, Rudy tells Danny that Nate was the actual informant. He finds out that Sabian was bluffing the whole time. When he threatens to expose Niebaum to an open window so that he can be vulnerable to snipers, he tells him that Nate came to him with wiretaps, which implicates Hellman, Aregento and Allen in the embezzlement fraud. He also recieved a bribe from them to cover their crimes up and even offered Nate the same money, but he refused and they killed him for it. When the corrupt officers hear this, they secretly enter the building via the air ducts and open fire on Danny and the hostages and, in the chaos, kills Niebaum. Thankfully, he uses the flashbangs that he confiscated from the two cops to fend them off. Danny tends to the fallen inspector, but he dies. The FBI decides to take over the situation after Sabian and Beck have an argument over who shot first, relieve Sabian of his command and suspends all negotiations. Back at the office, as Danny prepares to be arrested, Maggie tells him that Niebaum worked at his house also and could've kept Nate's taps there. Sabian arrives and Danny tells him that Niebaum was murdered and he finds out that Scott is still alive. With the FBI proceeding to seige the building and rescue the hostages, Roman, disguised as a SWAT member, escapes the building after the agents search Chris' car. While interrogating the hostages into finding out where Roman is, Rudy gives them nothing, but Maggie tells Travis that he went to Niebaum's house to get the wiretaps. The corrupt officers head there, along with Beck, Travis, Farley and the others. Danny and Chris get on the computer to find the wiretaps but find nothing. A few minutes later, Argento, Allen and Hellman arrive and Danny decides to get them to confess. As they are about to Frost comes in reveals to him that he and the corrupt officers were behind the scheme and that he was insider on the disability fund board and Nate's killer. Sabian grabs Danny and seemingly kills him by shooting him in the side. The police arrive and Frost takes full admission to his and the three cops' crimes. Frost destroys the evidence and the computer as the police arrive. As he walks outside, he discovers that Chris only wounded Roman and used a police radio microphone to confess to the surrounding police. Frost tries to commit suicide, but is shot in the arm by Beck and as he is being arrested, Danny tries to kill him, but chooses not to. He is taken to an ambulance, where Sabian gives him his badge and the film ends.

Quotes
"'Cause I'm not going to jail today."

"Shut the fuck up, Niebaum! You knew Nate was investigatin the fraud and you killed him."