MovieChat Forums > Safe (2012) Discussion > EXCELLENTLY filmed

EXCELLENTLY filmed

posted 12 years ago by metalninjacake
5 replies | jump to latest

I love it when I take a chance on an action movie that seems to be less than stellar, and it turns out to have some really innovative aspect to it, whether it's the story, or the cinematography, etc.

The first assault on Mei in the streets was awesome, how it was made up of two shots, all from the inside of the car - one occupant in the car gets shot, then the camera turns around and the driver gets shot, then the camera zooms in on a side mirror, in which we see a Russian guy shooting, then getting shot, etc. It's all done from inside the car, cleverly using angles, and that was awesome.

And when Jason Statham puts Mei in the car, that was all done in one take, which was also awesome. He runs over a guy from behind as the camera zooms in on him in the rearview mirror, then runs over him again and we again zoom in on the rearview mirror to see the guy's body roll away.

I love it when action movies switch up their filming techniques, because it's the director putting in some real extra effort on his part to spice up a relatively tired formula for action movies.

[–] FourthYear 12 years ago

Ditto! The two scenes in the cars were both very cool, especially filming through the mirror. During Mei's kidnapping, the extraction-via-side mirror was awesome, and later when Luke is driving, the bad guy rolling off the car as seen from the rear view mirror... both creative and entertaining.

I really dug this movie - much better than I expected.

And I loved that they didn't spell out every tiny detail for you - my girlfriend had a few questions early on; I pointed out that if she put down her iPhone, she'd be fine. Gotta love when filmmakers don't pander to the low fruit.

[–] chris_ortiz18 11 years ago

Well said, metalninjacake! Those were my thoughts exactly when I was viewing the film. I've been somewhat skeptical when watching a Jason Statham movie ever since Crank and War. I did't really hear much about this movie and I wasn't sure if it came out in theaters or not. I still enjoy his other movies so that's why I gave this one a chance. It was a great random buy! I loved the action scenes. I was stunned by the shots. Very impressive and well executed. I hope Boaz Yakin can use more of these techniques in his future movies. Jason Statham is a bad mofo!

[–] shoobe01-1 11 years ago

This, and the editing, is one of the reasons I rated it so well. What movie these days isn't proud of their 2 second average scene length, then this just holds even in action scenes.

The one that hooked me was when he gets home to find the wife dead. The reaction to what takes FOREVER to find out it's bad guys in the bedroom is just tremendous. Not anything I expected to find in a movie like this is supposed to be.

[–] taijiquan12 11 years ago

The one that hooked me was when he gets home to find the wife dead. The reaction to what takes FOREVER to find out it's bad guys in the bedroom is just tremendous.

This, along with the other scenes mentioned here were all well filmed. The cinematography was one of the things that really stuck out for me about this, it was very pleasing. I'd like to add in that the car chase through New York, although we've seen stuff like this before, was really well done and gave the right feeling.

"Bulls**t MR.Han Man!!"--Jim Kelly in Enter the Dragon

[–] chrisfarnworthuk 11 years ago

I think if the trailer that's used on imdb was the trailer that was shown on British TV this film would of gained a lot bigger interest.
That trailer is awesome & pumped!!!

This is a very good film & Jason is excellent, the stories a little lame but hey.

Killer elite is also very good.