The Negotiator tells the story of a veteran police officer played by Samuel L. Jackson who finds his world turned upside down. He is a heroic hostage negotiator for the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), but, over the course of the film, his job and life are threatened by a retirement scam for which he is meant to take the fall. He calls on an outside police officer, Kevin Spacey, to help him find the real thief. The film is full of different negotiations and tactics. This article will analyze different types of conflicts, how trust can be gained and used, different thinking strategies and the biases of other interested parties in the film. The first scene shows how Jackson cleverly outwits a newly divorced crazy man from a child hostage through negotiation. and the different conflicts he must overcome. This scene presents both a personal conflict with the hostage taker and a task conflict with Jackson and the SWAT team. The difference between conflicts is emotions where the personal is emotional with its connection to anger, ego and tension and the task is based on the merit of the idea or plan to solve a problem. (Thompson, 2005) Man asks police to get his ex-wife who apparently cheated on him with another man. First, Jackson tries to gain the hostage taker's trust by talking about something common, his dogs, this builds trust by building a similarity. Then, pressed for time, he accelerates the delicate negotiation by entering the barricaded apartment to prevent the SWAT team from entering and possibly killing the hostage. This allows for more trust in having a physical presence inside the apartment. Jackson tells the man that his wife is on the way and that he needs to check the apartment to make sure there are no papers in the midst of the crisis and hostage negotiations. The various day-to-day negotiations don't have such high stakes and it shows how the intellect will win out over the emotions every time. Jackson had to appear radical and reckless for the LAPD to take him seriously, but his every step was calculated to bring the culprit to justice and restore his life. Jackson's BATNA lost his entire life by being thrown in prison and that was not acceptable to him, so he would rather die trying to clear his name than spend the majority of his life in prison and lose his wife and his career. The trust and communication that was given and accepted was a shining example of how people must feel to negotiate with each other. (Thompson, 2005) The shift from divergent thinking between Jackson and Spacey to convergent thinking at the end was fascinating to watch..