The two movies “Safe House” and “Donnie Brasco” are both about men dealing with right and wrong, but the films are very different in the way their problems are presented and resolved. In “Safe House” Ryan Reynolds plays Weston a young man who is bored with his job and life. Soon the responsibility of Frost, an unpredictable serial killer ex - CIA agent, is dumped in his arms and Weston is forced to run with Frost and protect this man who he knows little about with his life. Weston finds out he has a dark side, and he discovers Frost has a heart. Whereas in “Donnie Brasco” Joseph portrayed by Johnny Depp is an undercover cop hanging with these Mafia men, and the more he hangs with them and his friend Benjamin ‘Lefty’ Ruggiero portrayed by Al Pacino the more he becomes like the men he is watching. He pulls away from his wife and kids whom he was really close to in the beginning and begins to turn into one of these evil men.
The cinematography in each movie is very different. In “Safe House” there is a lot of fast moving action with special effects explosions and wild car chase scenes that get right up in your face and are dizzying, and most of the shots are very distant. The camera isn’t all up in the character’s personal space. It’s distant. In “Donnie Brasco” there is very little action and more meetings, close up fights, and emotional issues. The shots are very much in the actor’s face, and the characters thoughts and emotions are evident as a result of the close-ups. The scenes help the viewer to very much understand what the character is feeling and understand the actor’s thoughts and ideas.
Also the sound design in the two movies is more different than it is alike. In “Donnie Brasco” the sounds are used to simply take the story forward. There are gunshots from shootings followed by blackouts. The conversations are very important and heard clearly without music or any other sounds around them. The sounds used are simply the normal sounds that would be heard in each normal situation. In “Safe House,” however, the sounds are more action packed and match the fast movements happening on and around the actors. Explosions are going off as cars erupt into flames after just crashing into one another. There are sounds of bullets hitting things as the characters shoot at each other and miss, and the bullets ricochet off things and go flying. Also there are the loud sounds of cars crashing, car horns, wheels screeching and sliding around on the pavement and windows breaking as the cars take a beating from the front and back.
In both movies the personal struggle of men dealing with right and wrong is very much the same. The presentation of these struggles through cinematography and sound design are very different. Both movies are enjoyable, but because “Safe House” has close up’s of the action, it makes the viewer dizzy and hard to watch, and “Donnie Brasco” was pretty much just a reality movie playing on emotions and feelings that was a little slow at times. Both turned out to be enjoyable.
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