Joaquin Phoenix Documentary Might've Helped Resolve Hostage Situation in Ukraine, Media Says

Kryvosh boarded the bus armed with guns as well as a grenade and kept thirteen people hostage on the bus until the standoff was resolved. Sounds a lot like the plot of "Speed", right?!?

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's promotion of a 2005 animal rights documentary led to the end of a risky hostage situation on a bus in Northwest Ukraine Tuesday. The guy didn't even request "The Joker".

After previously releasing three hostages, the Times says the gunman released the remaining 10 hostages after Zelensky posted his endorsement of "Earthlings".

No word if Joaquin plans to turn this true story into his next big movie. Ukraine's interior minister, Arsen Avakov, said the gunman held "extremist views" and the SBU has classed the incident as an "act of terror" and "hostage-taking", for which Kryvosh could face up to 15 years in prison.

The resolution of a recent hostage crisis in Ukrainian city of Lutsk might've been facilitated by a "bizarre message" involving a certain film narrated by Joaquin Phoenix, posted online by the Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Sky News reports. Zelensky's video was deleted after Krivosh surrendered and the hostages were released. The animal rights doc, which won a number of minor festival awards on its initial release, is a scathing critique of humanity's use of animals as pets, food, clothing, entertainment and for scientific research.

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As the New York Times reports, an ex-convict named Maksim Krivosh held 13 people inside a bus for almost 12 hours yesterday (July 21) in order to have a number of his outlandish requests met. "The film can be watched without it", Interior Minister Avakov said.

"After the video was published on social networks, we would release all the rest in half an hour".

An partner of Kryvosh was once arrested in the Eastern town of Kharkiv.

Although there had been several demands posted on Twitter throughout the day, the public promotion of the film prompted Krivosh to officially end the standoff.

Zelensky later thanked the police for the successful operation and justified his decision to comply with the kidnapper's demands by saying in a Facebook post that "human life is the most important value and we lost no one".