Thriller

For our latest college project we have been looking at different types of thrillers. After we looked at the different types of thrillers, we were asked to watch a thriller of our choice at home. The thriller I picked was Heat starring Al Pacino, Robert De Niro and Val Kilmer. Those are the 3 big star names and all 3 have main roles in the film. The film is about cops and robbers. Al Pacino is the cop called Vincent Hanna and Robert de Niro is the robber called Neil McCauley. Val Kilmer is Robert de Niro’s sidekick called Chris Shiherlis. With Robert de Niro’s character the filmmakers use a lot of over the shoulder camera shots. For example, in one scene from the film you see him looking out of the window and looking out to see him looking at the sea. It works really well for his character and I think who ever thought of Al Pacino and Robert de Niro doing the scene in the café is a genius. It is a brilliant scene and it really sets the tone for the film when they finally meet each other. Another brilliant scene in the film is the bank robbery and shootout. In L.A. when the scene starts off everything is going to plan. Five minutes later that is when everything starts to go wrong. The three bank robbers are Robert de Niro, Val Kilmer and Tom Sizemore whose character is called Michael Cheritto. While they are doing the bank robbery everything seems to be going at a fast pace and then things start to slow down when they one by one enter the car together. Two of them are wearing a grey suit and Robert De Niro being the main Antagonist wearing a black suit so you know that he is in charge. When they enter the car one by one and they slow the scene down it sort of makes them look cool with style and with their 80s looking glasses. Before Val Kilmer enters the car he notices the Protagonist played by Al Pacino. This is when the shootout happens and this scene is very intense. A lot is going on and there is never a dull moment, it is a true classic action scene without all the special effects that they use in modern films. Towards the end of the L.A. shootout scene one of the robbers ends up getting shot near the neck and Robert De Niro helps Val Kilmer escape by putting him over his shoulder and the other robber ends up getting shot and killed by the protagonist. After the robbery the faces of Robert de Niro and Val Kilmer end up all over the news and they lay low for a while. I found the ending of the film to be very disappointing as there is a chase between Al Pacino and Robert de Niro in which he ends up in the airport where the planes take off and Al Pacino shoots him. He shakes Robert De Niro’s hand while he is dying and then the film ends. I think they could have done a bit more with the ending but that is my own personal opinion. For the rating of the film I totally agree that the film should be 15 as there is not much violence and not that much swearing. They do say fuck a few times but that is about it. If I was to watch Heat on TV I would expect the film to been shown on BBC2 or Channel 4 or maybe even Channel 5. I think the time period for the film would be shown at around 10pm at night or maybe a late two o clock in the morning. I think the target audience for the film is for people who grew up with Al Pacino and Robert De Niro as kids and young adults and saw them in films like Scarface, The Godfather, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and Goodfellas. What I mean by this is I think the film would suit people who grew up in the 1970’s and 1980’s with the examples I have given you but because the film is rated 15 I think teenagers will want to see the film for the action element and not the story element. This is because teenagers go to the cinema for entertainment and not to be bored but I think older people aged 30 and up will want to see the film for the story element even though I am 18 I thought the story about cops and robbers to be very good and interesting and I wasn’t bored for one minute. The story kept me hooked all the way through out the film but again I am older than 14 and I think if you were to show the film to like a five year old they would be bored out of their skull but the films target audience because of the certification by the BBFC it is aimed at people of the ages fifteen and higher. With the characters of the film, Al Pacino plays a cop called Vincent Hanna. His character is sort of like a cocky cop who has a lot of connections when it comes to crime. What I mean by connections is he gets the information from criminals who have done time in prison with the certain person he is trying to catch. He is also the Protagonist of the film. The 2^nd main character in the film is Neil McCauley played by Robert De Niro he is the Antagonist of the film. When I watched the film I thought he was a calm villain but if he wasn’t a criminal robbing banks I though he would be a nice guy in the real world. When him and Pacino sat down to do the café scene their on screen chemistry just sparkled with brilliance on my TV screen. The other thing about his character is he doesn’t like to be double crossed and at the end of the film he kills the guy that double crossed him. That is more of the psycho side to him but he never shows it in the film until towards the end. The 3^rd main character in the film is Chris Shiherlis played by Val Kilmer. His character is Robert De Niro’s sidekick.  Again with his character, he seems like a nice guy but when he gets home to his wife his temper comes out. For example in one scene in the film he has a row with his wife and starts to throw things around and then walks out of the front door and slams it and you hear him drive off while the camera is fixed on his wife crying. With genres of thriller you get a wide range of all sorts of thrillers for example conspiracy thrillers such as Absolute Power, Marathon Man, In The Line of Fire, Capricorn one and even JFK. They are usually about a very important person. It always ends up getting involved in something big like the Government and when they find this story out the Government tries to kill them and sometimes in these films the American Government do win. There are also crime thrillers like Seven, No Country For Old Men, Copycat and The Score. In these types of thrillers they usually involve bank robberies and these types also focus more on the Antagonist than the Protagonist.  You also get Erotic Thrillers like Basic Instinct, Colour of Night, Eyes Wide Shut, Lust and Caution. These sorts of thrillers started to become more popular in the 1990’s. I think the film Basic Instinct helped get this type of thriller popular with people again. You also get legal thrillers like A Time To Kill, Primal Fear, A Few Good Men and Presumed Innocent. In these sorts of thrillers the Protagonist normally fights the Antagonist inside and outside the court room. Also the Protagonist usually wins in these films. You also get political thrillers like Topaz, The Interpreter, Proof of Life, State of Play and The Ghost Writer. This type usually gets someone like the Protagonist working against the Government. You also get Psychological thrillers like Blue Velvet, The Talented Mr Ripley, Shutter Island and Cape Fear. These types of thrillers usually play mind games on their audience. What I mean by this is that once you think you figure out the plot and the characters frame of mind there is a crazy twist at the end, for example, in Shutter Island. You also get Religious thrillers like The Da Vinci Code, The Devil’s Advocate, The Ninth Gate and Angels and Demons. These types of thrillers usually stay on the topic with God and Jesus. You also get thrillers like Casino Royale, Mission Impossible 2, Mission Impossible 3, Mission Impossible, Ghost, Protocol, Spy Game, Body of Lies and The Good Shepherd. In these types of thrillers the hero usually works for the Government or some other spy Government and they either get sent on a mission and double crossed on that mission or get double crossed by the people they work for. You also get supernatural thrillers like Fallen, Knowing and What Lies Beneath. In these types of thrillers the Protagonist usually gets haunted by ghosts or one of their children haunts them from the grave. You also get Techno thrillers like The Matrix and Jurassic Park. With books the main people who usually write thriller books are Dan Brown, Michael Crichton, Ian Fleming, Ken Follett, Graham Greene, John Grisham and Alistair MacLean. The directors you usually get with Thrillers are Henri Georges Clouzot, Coen Brothers, Jonathan Demme, Brian De Palma, David Fincher, John Frankenheimer, Quentin Tarantino, Tom Tykwer, Orson Welles and the master of the thriller genre Alfred Hitchcock who directed classic thriller films like North by Northwest, Rope, The Birds, Vertigo, Rear Window and the classic thriller Psycho which is a smart thriller in which the main character dies 45 minutes into the film with the famous shower scene then the films cuts on to something else. These are all types of different thrillers.