Action thriller- "No country for old men"

Action thriller

What might going to be happening? The conventions of an action thriller;

The protagonist is going to be introduced and it could be in a mysterious way. There is going to be some sort of a quest. The characters are going to be as natural as possible. There is going to be a link between the protagonist and death.

Mise en scene

Everyone is holding a gun which shows that it is a dangerous place.

A dog, looks like it is injured

Lots of bags of heroin inside of the truck shows that the people there are some sort of dealers and the drug suggests that there is going to be a lot of money involved.

 

Diegetic sound as the man speaks- we can tell that he is most probably American.. He sounded like a typical cowboy and quite cocky. There is not much dialog.

 

Non diegetic

There is no music or warning for the audience that he is going to be killed. There is no music throughout the whole film. It leaves us to think our things about it.

 

Setting

Western America, Texas - Very dry place, with no one around. Unconventional- the fact that there are people there, lots of trucks.

Even the setting reminds me of “of mice and men”

Plot

We cannot relate to the protagonist at all, which is quite unconventional. The quest is missing- there is no quest so far.

This is very interesting because although that there is not no dialog, there are people dying and killed which sort brings the quest because we want to find out what is going on.

A drug deal that has gone wrong and everyone ended up shooting at each other. Now the 2^nd protagonist has the money and Anton is going after him.

 

Shots

Extreme long shots at the beginning of a hot country give us a scene of location and the fact that is so dry and is quite conventional for a place of a quest because it is so deserted

High angle shots se we can see that he is washing his bloody hands.

Good- the 2nd protagonist looks through the binoculars and we can see the shot that the protagonist can see.

Editing

Continuity editing

Also a tracking shot form the man in the truck point of view is good way to introduce a bit of danger and helps us to relate.

Match on action- conversation between the 1^st protagonist and the shop keeper. The protagonist makes us feel very uncomfortable and the shop keeper thinks the same because we can see his facial expressions whilst the protagonist speaks.

The protagonist

All we know so far is the looks of him. He has long hair and a very unpleasant face.

The two protagonist meet when the second one finds him half dead in a truck.

The protagonist seem to be talking to himself which shows that he is lonely and is used to travelling alone this reminds me of “of mice and men” book, because the men always used to walk alone and travel form one place to another, almost like they don’t have a place that they could call home.

I think the 1^st protagonist (Anton) is very strange and creepy because of his hair.

We can relate to the protagonist now because he has taken the dead man’s case with lots of money in it. This gets him involved I the quest too.

We also find out that his mother is dead, but he is not taking it very well, because he told his girlfriend to say hello to his mother.

Another character is being introduced (the sheriff) just now, which unconventional because normally character are being introduced straight away.

Over all I like the film for the fact that it doesn’t give anything out at the beginning to it makes us think. Also I like the fact that it is not like a conventional action thriller. There is more to it than just guns because of the fact that it is filmed in western America, Texas, so it more of a place where we would film a horror thriller, rather than an action thriller, however that works fine because it still shows the isolation of this place and that anything can happen to people and nobody would find out. Also this place works well because as well the drugs, it makes sense because people go and drug deal there because it is such an isolated place, so it makes sense to it there with that plot.

The things that I like about the film are the fact that there are guns in there and people are shooting each other, but that is my opinion because I prefer psychological thrillers, rather people shooting all over the place. But technically speaking, this film is good and I don’t think that it has many faults.