Proof of Life offers the lure of seeing Russell Crowe and Meg Ryan re-enact their real-life affair on the big screen, and then delivers nothing more than a chaste kiss. The rest is a substandard kidnap-and-ransom thriller in which Crowe, as a hostage negotiator, tries to save Ryan's husband (David Morse) from third-world terrorists. Director Taylor Hackford allows Ryan to mope around in an absurd array of outfits, undeprived of the constant attentions of a hair-and-makeup staff. In an offbeat tribute to Bogie and Claude Rains in Casablanca, Crowe and David Caruso, as another ransom gladiator, steal what's left of the film. Slim pickings.

“Helen Wheels”

A rollicking good-time hard rocker, "Helen Wheels" was not about a woman but about Paul McCartney's Land Rover, the anthemic chorus voicing the vehicle's reckless joy as "she" took to the road. The song was added to the U.S. version of Band on the Run but was issued only as a single in McCartney's native U.K. "I like that because it's a British road song and there's not many of those around," said McCartney. "It's always Route 66. But Carlisle? How many songs have got Carlisle in them?"