Further research of thriller genre

Research on Thrillers

Thrillers have been an iconic genre of film for people to watch. The popularity of the genre comes from its ability to please most audiences because of its capacity to occupy most conventions everyone can enjoy within a high-quality film. Within this piece of writing I intend to highlight the pro’s and cons of thrillers throughout the industry and bring to light what I think makes a great thriller.

Firstly I’d like to address the opening of the thriller but I only intend to “scratch the surface” as it were because I will be writing a separate piece on the opening to a thriller. Typically the opening to a thriller would be catchy, fast and with a certain amount of flow however not giving any or little information. The opening a scene of a thriller movie is to capture the audience without showing them the bigger picture shall we say. For example; a classic thriller The A Team, featuring Liam Neeson, Bradley Cooper and Quinton Jones. The opening scene to this comes to fourfold. To start with a dark room, very hostile with Liam Neeson and a bag over his head. Before you know it and you’re a few minutes into the movie you begin to understand that corrupt police officers have kidnapped “Hannibal Smith”. So we have acknowledged the fact he is being held captive but the audience still has no impression as to why.

Next scene involving Quinton Jones being chased by police officers through a busy town in a very hot, arid environment. If we were to stop the movie we would already be able to guess as to the whereabouts of this location. Given the fluent Spanish from the police officers, the weather and the financial status from the town itself one could infer a small settlement in Spain itself or Mexico. As “Barak” has fled the scene with the officers in a Lamborghini the shot pans to a secluded mechanics shack. From this we could conclude Barak has stolen the car and intends to sell it. However he gets into a brawl with the mechanics over money issues and without sounding to cliché “opens a can of whoop-ass”.

Constantly shifting the next scene involves the hilarious Bradley Cooper being taken out of a house on a mountain top and being put into a ring of tyres whilst being furiously accused in Spanish of sleeping with the superior officer’s wife. In the background one of the officers is tying a noose which adds a nice helping of tension to this scene as “face man” clearly has no escape route. The scene then cuts quite unsuspectingly to Hannibal running through the desert and catches a glimpse of BA in his glorious GNC vintage truck. The scene continues with Face in his tyre ring, now with the noose over his head and the superior officers’ comrades marinating him in petrol. Not only do these scenes already show that something big will happen they are subtly coming together quite nicely as a pattern forms.

Without dragging this on I’d like to talk about the sound that has been taking place throughout all these scenes. There are many dynamics that are set in the compilation of pieces, a set of low strings and lower timbre drums add a sense of mystery and tension. Whilst instruments such as violins and cellos are used to fill in the gaps without making them sound unimportant.

The next shot is inside BA’s truck and jolts as if he’d hit something. He performs an emergency brake and dust is kicked up that impairs his vision. And with a western cowboys and Indian esque like effect, Hannibal Smith stands in front of BA. He then moves with caution towards him caressing a P99 at point blank range telling him to move aside. Firing a warning shot in his arm leaves BA in shock and awe; more at the fact he shot his truck than himself which adds slight humour in there. As he gets a look at BA’s tattoo things become extremely real and they reacquaint themselves as comrades. Then the objective is explained to BA not telling the audience and cuts to Faces little predicament.

Whilst Face assures the Head officer that he won’t be killed the Policemen laughs at his face whilst counting money that the officers who had captured Hannibal had given him. As he counts it he finds a GPS tracker concealed and a wonderful shot that pans from an anterior angle of his body from the money to his face as he realise what is about to happen. The pyrotechnics must have had a field day here, explosions going off here, there and everywhere as the monstrous truck charges its way through the fire. Gun shots are fired and they save the day for face. The music rapidly stops as they have rescued face, but if you have ever watched the original A team, “the oldies” must be thinking...Weren’t there 4 in the A Team?   

They turn up at a hospital looking for someone by the name of Murdock and find that he was actually a patient however he was stitching up baracus’ arm still not knowing who he was. But this seems too civilised for The A Team so who turns up raging with fury, the policemen fire arms at the ready. A short introduction wouldn’t be a far stretch from a lie. Hannibal (who seems to be  graciously choreographing these meets) tell Murdock to get up on the roof and fly the chopper, a doctor in the background refuses calling Hannibal himself mental explaining that Murdock is a patient suffering from dementia and cuts to a lovely little scene of Murdock trying to escape by start jump a car with a defibrillator. This without a doubt lightens the mood leaving the audience to forget about the police officers still wanting to kill them. After a triumphant helicopter chase across Mexico and into USA borders they baddies get blown up and they run the titles. Although I shrewdly chopped the end it’s almost irrelevant because the principle still applies across all 4 little stories it was showing. I thought it was a brilliant opening that had everything it needed in it. Humour, sex, fights, guns, fraudulent Mexican Police officers and explosions. This is one of the pinnacles of film making.