I'm in Love With This Movie

Rating: 9/10 (19 November 2007)

I watched this movie right after "300", and felt like cleaning my mouth with fresh water after eating something with a bad taste. This movie is probably one of the best of its kind, if not one-of-a-kind. A good movie always keeps one of your emotions at its peak while watching it, it can be fear, joy, excitement, even misery. What I felt watching this movie was admiration.
Now I would simply say "No need for words, go and watch it" but I wanna be different than the haters of this movie who cannot say anything about why they didn't like it. Actually, I intentionally searched for haters because I wanted to see what is there that someone can dislike. There are apparently many 1 stars, but they can't go further than saying "I want my money back".
So I will tell you why I loved it. The foremost reason was the directing. There was definitely more work in the movie than many CGI loaded ones. Some scenes were shot as a big chunk of 10-15 minutes, and they were the hardest and most exciting scenes. Watch out for especially 3 scenes. 1) Where the characters try to runaway with a car which doesn't start and it's going downhill 2) The inside car scene where terrorists intercept the car and attack them 3) And of course the final scene where Clive Owen is trying to get inside a building under heavy battle.
All these scenes were shot as big blocks which I couldn't understand how they were shot. Of course the director probably did it the hard way, set everything up, set the timing, and tried the same scene for tens of times until everything went smoothly. This is not all, the choice of places and setting up the scenes were brilliant. It wasn't covered with filters or heavy background music or ever-changing angles so it successfully made me feel I was there with them, in that forest, on that hill, in that car, in that building. I think Hollywood directors have a lot to learn from this movie just by watching it.
The second reason is the brilliant acting. Audience like me don't understand much from good acting but if the characters make me forget that this is just a movie and if I have have real feelings for them, this MUST be good acting. My favorites are Jasper and Kee. I would give more details but I don't wanna give any spoilers.
And I can't believe even the story was hated by some people. This movie has got exactly what a good sci-fi should have. You stick to all laws of reality, you change just one of them, and predict the reactions. This movie does this perfectly. The fact that it doesn't have a lot of CGI makeup makes the movie even more believable.
Final statement, brilliant work of art. Especially if you are interested in directing or movie-making you cannot afford to miss this movie. It will blow you away...