The film starts off with a very dark drone sound while John Travolta's character Sean Archer - a FBI agent is on a carousel with his son - then there is a cross cut to Nicolas Cage's character Castor Troy whereby we see him with a gun and target. The dramatic irony that the audience know Troy is going to shoot Archer - we are cutting between the build up to the shoot - whereby we see Archer having fun with his son. There is a motif throughout the film - which Archer's family all use - where the family stroke each others face with their hand - a sign of affection shown throughout the movie. The shot is then fired - where we see troy aim and the flick to see the image through the gun - where we can see Archer. This for me was really effective as it constantly keeps the flow moving - showing who is involved and the pace was fast. We the reverse to see the bullet taking up the whole screen and then cut again to Archer being shot. The sound is dead silent when he is shot - which clears the atmosphere to leave complete suspense as this all takes place within the first 5 minutes. There is a close up of the carousel horse - where there is a vision of blood pouring down - and there is a very sharp drone to indicate the shock. Whilst Archer then fights to go to his son - who is laying there dead - there is a cross cut to Troy whose facial expression has changed from cunning - to kill Archer - to sympathetic and distressed at the fact he killed his son and not Archer. The carousel - which is spinning - is then used to fast forward the movie to 6 years later.
The whole movie involves a lot of inspiring Thriller techniques but another scene i particularly thought was good was:
The beginning of this extract is a shot reverse shot to display a conversation between Archer and Troy whereby they have swapped faces so Troy has Archer's face and Archer has Troy's. The mise-en-scene of the whole film is created using flashy suits, guns and fights - the two protagonists are an FBI agent and a terrorist - both "occupations" connect with the guns and hectic atmosphere. At a point where they both come off the mirror and point the gun at each other - there is inspiring editing whereby we see the shot in three different angles all consecutively. Extremely fast pace - it added a lot of intensity to this part making the audience feel the tension. This part is where there is a lot of fast pace editing between shots to show the different angles - this editing shows the characters anxiety as gunshots are being fired. The really fast music whilst Archer (using the face of Troy) is running away adds to the excitement and anticipation - creating suspense for the audience. When real Troy's brother tries to stop Archer - he ends up being dropped onto a glass roof and falling through. This is shown once from Archers point of view - then repeated again from Troys point of view from inside the building. The repetition from a different angle added to the shock of what has happened. The use of repetition really captured me.
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