Thriller Film Comparison, by Martin Stewart

I have chosen to compare only the opening scenes of thriller films as that is what I will eventually be making for myself. This was a slight variation on the original task but I feel it is still effective and makes a better use of my time only watching the very start of the movies rather than spending two hours on each. It also allows me to study the scenes in a greater depth as I am focusing on a shorter space of time.  The three films that i have chosen are ‘The Bourne Identity’ ‘Limitless’ and ‘Phonebooth’. I chose these three films because they are different to each other and i thought it would be interesting to see how thrillers with completely different storylines approach their opening scenes.

I will start off with the film ‘Phonebooth’. The main plot of the story is that the main character “stu” picks up a ringing reiver in a phonebooth, he is then told by the caller that he is in the sights of a sniper and if he hangs up he will die. The sniper proves this by aiming the laser sight on Stu. The caller knows everything about Stu including his relationships and other dealings. He insists stu confesses to his wife. The caller reveals throughout the film that he has killed many targets, only the corrupt. The caller is corrupt himself and uses it to fight other corruption.  The film is a thriller because it keeps you on edge throughout the whole watch, when i first started watching it i thought that it would be dull. How could a whole film be based around a man in a phonebooth? But as i continued to watch I realised that it was very clever and much more sinister than i had previously expected. As the plot goes on it becomes cleverer and entices you more into the film, making you try to guess the ending. 

Back to the opening scene, the film starts off in the clouds with a song playing, of which the opening lyrics are “operator give me information”  immediately linking to the title and the basis of the film. It then lowers down through the skies down into the streets of New York where the camera pans around, showing just how many of the average people in the world use mobile phones. When the music stops a voice over starts, giving statistics and numbers of mobile phone users and also payphone users. Before the voicemail starts to go into detail about a single phonebooth, it is the last of its kind and the only private payphone that still remains in that side of the city. This is the phonebooth in which Stu speaks to the hidden gunman. The voiceover then speaks “now less than two blocks away meet the man who will be the last resident of this booth” drawing you into the story, and presenting Stu as the main character. This is where i ended my evaluation of the opening scenes of Phonebooth.

Next i will be reviewing the opening scene from the film “limitless”. The film revolves around a failing writer who has an accidental run in with his ex-wifes brother in the street. The brother tries to help him and gives him a special pill that allows him to use 100% of his brain rather than the regular 20%. He becomes hooked to the pill immediately as in the first day he manages to write the vast majority of his novel which he had been struggling to write at all for months. However when he visits he finds his friend dead, but realises that the killers have destroyed his flat and must have been looking for the pills, he finds them in the oven after searching. He then starts to take one of the pills a day becoming a genius writer and also amazing on the stock markets. As the film goes on though he begins to run out of pills and you find out that anybody who has taken them and run out becomes seriously ill and dies, it becomes a desperate race for him too create more or find a way to preserve himself. The film has much other stuff going on at the same time, such as his various relationships and his involvements with gangsters but i was just outlining the main plot linked to the pills.

Now, at the start of the film you see the main character standing on the edge of a balcony at the top of a skyscraper, you hear a banging on his door and it shows straight away that he is running away from somebody. The next thing you see is the neighbour next door getting shot and he states “that’s my neighbour, he must have come out to complain about the noise” next you see him step one foot off the balcony and the film goes all the way back to the beginning. I feel this is a very effective start scene because it gets you immediately interested in the film and makes you want to watch the rest to find out how it happened. This start sequence makes viewers expect the film to be full of action and excitement which i feel it does live up too very well.

The third and final thriller i watched was “The Bourne Identity” the plot revolves around a man who awakens with two bullets in his back but no memory of who he is  or his previous life. He soon discovers that he has the skills of a very dangerous man, yet has no idea how he came to possess them. As the film goes on he discovers that he is “Jason Bourne” and that he is a secret government agent that they commissioned as part of a 30 million dollar project, he is in a way one of their ultimate weapons. However the government no longer trust him and want him dead, they attempt to hunt him down throughout the film. I feel that it is very effective as a thriller because you know as little about the main character Jason as he does and you only discover about his past when he does so you feel that you are part of the film. The film is also constant action, with high speed chases and fight scenes throughout. I feel out of the three thrillers that i watched this one was most effective at fitting the genre, as it was continuous action and keeps you on the edge of your seat.

The film opens onto a stormy sea at nightime, we see a group of sailors playing cards on their boat before the camera goes back to the ocean and we see the outline of a body floating on the water. As one of the sailors goes outside he sees the body, then the screen goes black and when it comes back on they are winching the body out of the water onto the ship. The body is left in the care of an elderly gentleman who finds two bullet holes in the mans back, he proceeds to take the bullets out but on examining one realises it has a red light that shines out the message “Gemeinschaft Bank Zurich” onto the wall. When the old man returns to where the he had been operating on the body it has gone and he is then attacked by “Jason” (the man they found in the sea). Thais where is topped my viewing of the opening scenes as i feel that is effective enough and gives a general feel of the film. Straight away a sense of deceit and suspense is created and it gives an incentive to watch the rest of the film too find out what happens.

In conclusion i feel that all three of them have excellent opening sequences as they drag you straight into the story however “Phonebooth” is slower to start so those who judge a film by the first 5 minutes will not appreciate it as much as “limitless” and “The Bourne Identity”. The Bourne Identity has a more classic approach to a thriller film than the other two being a complete action film all the way through whereas Phonebooth is more psychological as it makes you think and limitless being a thriller but less action based and more based around a way the mans life changes throughout, it still has a sufficient amount of excitement in it though to keep the viewers interested. Based entirely on the opening scenes i feel that “The Bourne Identity” is more effective as a thriller film with “limitless” second and “Phonebooth” third.