Planning: Action and Crime Thrillers

Action Thriller


This type of thriller is normally a race against the clock. It contains a myriad of violence and an obvious antagonist. Usually, it would feature a large amount of guns, explosions and large elaborate set pieces for the action to take place. Action thrillers have elements of mystery and crime films but these elements take a backseat to action. In addition to that, action thrillers normally contains a MacGuffin  which is basically a plot element which has a goal or a desired object that the protagonist pursues. However, the desired goal/object is irrelevant to the story line. A MacGuffin in action thrillers would normally be an object, a person, a place and sometimes it can include more abstract types such as love, power, money, victory, glory and so on. Moreover, a Macguffin in action thrillers is the focal point in the first scene but after that, its importance declines and therefore gets forgotten at the end of the movie.

A great example of an action thriller would be 2 Fast 2 Furious. This is because in that movie, you would usually see car chases between the protagonists (Brian O'Conner & Roman Pearce) and the antagonists (Carter Verone and his bodyguards). In that car chase, there would be explosions, cars would sort of damage whether it would be scratched, dents on the bumpers or mechanical failures. Additionally, there would be shoot out between the antagonists and the protagonists. A MacGuffin within 2 Fast 2 Furious would be the majority of the racers especially Orange Julius who was driving the orange Mazda RX-7 and was one of the many racers who managed to escape from the police.

             

Crime Thriller

This type of thriller is a hybrid of both crime and thriller films that offers a suspenseful account of a successful or failed crime/crimes. Crime thrillers usually emphasize action over psychological aspects. The focal points within crime thrillers are murders, robberies, chases, shootouts and double crosses. These are the central ingredients when it comes to crime thrillers. Crime thrillers usually focuses on the antagonists (in this case criminals) rather than the policemen who as usually seen as the protagonists. In some cases, crime thrillers may involve heists and robberies.
A good example of a crime thriller would Pulp Fiction. This is because if in the beginning of the movie, there was a couple ("Pumpkin" and "Honey Bunny") that attempted to rob a diner and threatened people's lives as they had realized that they could make money off the customers let alone the business. Later on the film, Jules Winnfield played by Samuel L. Jackson and Vincent Vega played by John Travolta were on their way to collect a briefcase from Brett played by Frank Whaley who went beyond the limits of the boss, gangster Marsellus Wallace. When they had arrived there, they confronted him and his men over the briefcase and when Vincent finds the briefcase, Jules confronts Brett with a gun & reads a passage from the bible before he shoots him. This fits in with crime thrillers due to the fact that they revolve around murders and shootouts.

Planning: Techno and Horror Thrillers

Techno Thrillers

Techno-thrillers are a hybrid of genres, these genres include Action, Thriller and Science Fiction. Techno-thrillers focus strongly on details, especially on the technology, which is frequently of military origin. Techno-thrillers blur smoothly into the category of hard science fiction; the defining characteristics of techno-thriller are an emphasis on real-world or possible near future technology. The most well known Techno Thriller author is called Dan brown, he has made films such as the "the lost symbol".

The Film that I will be talking about is called "IRobot":

IRobot was directed by Alex Proyas and is one of the most well known Science Fiction thrillers in its generation. The summary of the film goes as follows; "t is the year 2035. Everybody in the world relies on a huge system of robots, which are programmed specifically to help humans and not harm them in any way. But one person does not think that robots are helpful. Chicago homicide detective Del Spooner. but one day, he received a call from the United States Robotics (USR) about a recent death of renowned robot scientist Dr. Alfred J. Laning. Spooner immediately blamed this incident on robots without justifiable reason or proof. Then, he begins his investigation on Lanning's death, only to discover Sonny, a "unique" robot. What Spooner does not realize, is that something is about to happen. Something that is beyond even spooner's wildest dreams".

Horror Thrillers
Horror films usually involve an antagonist who is often portrayed as the "monster". This monster in different genres of thrillers can either be an actual monster or a psycho on the run for blood. The reason why people love to watch horrors is because they love to watch people die. In this case, every horror movie in the past always had stereotypical characters that end up dying in the same order. It goes from the black guy first, the lustful women second, the big guy of the group and finally the "final girl". The final girl is seen as innocent and smart showing how they are vulnerable, However, every time one of their friend dies, the final girl gets mentally stronger and stronger. Horror thrillers have 3 main camera shots, The POV to get the viewer to join in on the action or see what they see, cut away shots to hide the actions of the killer or cut in shots to actually show the action clearly.