the mechanic opening scene analysis

During the opening scene of the mechanic there are many genre indicators to show that the film is an action film such as: the stereotypes of the main villain not being super muscly, by having a whole bunch of body guards and workers surrounding the main villain, the location the villain showing his rich by having a big house nice expensive clothes and weapons.

From watching the opening scene there are many questions to be asked about this opening scene such as: where are they? Who is the man in black? What does he want? Why did he kill the guy in the pool? Why does the guy have so many body guards? Is he important?

From this opening scene we find out a lot of information such as: there is someone that could be an assassins or a secret agent out to kill all the bad people to stop them from doing bad things, we also find out that the guy in the pool appears to be bad due to the stereo types of bad guys having many body guards and lastly we find out that the guy in black appears to be very important due to the amount of camera time.

During the opening scene there is a very clever use of the sound by having a calm peaceful mood by having no sound just the sound that the characters would hear, and then when the jump attack happens the sound track appears to play to create a very dramatic effect as the action starts, after the dramatic events of the kill a very fast up beat track is played to help give the impression that the killer hast to quickly get away and during the last part the track carries on with the fast past up beat song to show and represent the man had escaped sneakily.

In the opening there are lots of different shots used. From POV shots to established shots, during the start there is an extreme close up of the man’s watch as he gets ready to swim, then there was an over the shoulder shot of the pool over the shoulder of the body guards. Next is a long shot showing the pool and the room itself, as the man starts swimming there is shot similar to a POV shot showing the man swimming towards the watch and lastly there is an establishing shot of the bridge showing the height and the how scary the jump could be.