End Game is a political thriller about a presidential assassination.
End game is one of the more professionally shot and beautiful movies I have seen in a long time. The combined use of manual zooms and low level lighting is simply stunning. Then there is the very subtle use of red, white and blue in every shot. I am a big fan of color filters in movies. Some people seem to hate them. This entire movie is blue filtered. Makes it easy to capture so many red/white/blue scenes.
The assassination scene happens early. It's the classic early first climax. [That's what she said]. I love the way this scene is filmed at ground level. It feels like you are going to get trampled on in the chaos. Cue shaky camera. They did a great job with the hyper realism here. The screams and people running look and sound real.
I love the use of tight shots and manual zooms in this movie. Each second of the movie is a different shot. The cinematographer deserves a raise after this movie. Not to mention the light person and the DP. The movie is just stunning in general and the shots look like fine art photography.
The movie is not only beautiful but shot well. I love the realism of this explosion scene. No one dives from the fire from the last moment. The RV just explodes with a large chemical fire and the people inside die. The shot looks realistic from the inside and the outside. I'm not even sure how they made it so realistic. Maybe a front screen projection? A machine that created fire? The outside looks like a chemical explosion which looks like an actual bomb instead of some lame fire like a lot of movies or a small tnt type explosion. They used the budget well for the action scenes.
There is a great scene between General Montgomery [Burt Reynolds] and Vaughn Stevens [James Wood] after the president dies. Some scenes tell a lot with the body language and facial expression of the actors. Vaughn Stevens asks the General "Aren't you retired?" And General Montgomery tells him don't make me show you how little it means to be a retired general. Powerful scene between great actors.
The underwater action scenes in this movie are clear and professional. They clearly used multiple locations, probably a lit pool. It reminds me of a scene from Pirates' of the Caribbean where someone jumps off a cliff into water and they use 3 different locations.
The use of silhouettes in certain scenes are a nice touch. Like I said before the low level lighting in this movie is excellent. It's a nice way to use the blue filter.
I should mention at this time that the main actor [Cuba Gooding Jr. as Alex Thomas] and the main actress [Angie Harmon as Kate Crawford] both do an excellent job and have great chemistry with each other.
There is one really weird unrealistic scene where Cuba Gooding's character runs several city blocks and catches up with a bad guys car. The bad guy is just sitting at a red light with no traffic after a major shootout. This scene isn't very thought out. Look how easily the car could see the assailant and also how easily the car could pull a quick right turn.
I wanted to show how how virtually every scene has red, white and blue. Sure a blue filtered movie makes things easy. All you need to do is get a red item into the scene and then BOOM you have red, white and blue. Still, some of the color coding is very subtle/clever.
There are some weird scenes near the end with General Montgomery. The character is sort of over written especially for the ending of the movie. They show him with a cowboy hat shooting targets with his gun [showing he is a rogue gunslinger cowboy/billy badass]. Also what the fuck is up with this guys fake eyebrows and mustache. General Montgomery reminds me of a weird fake character you'd see Norm Macdonald do on Saturday Night Live.
It took me until the end to realize the JFK references in this movie. He is cheating on his wife with a young blonde model and they do a black and white shot of the Presidents wife, which is clearly supposed to represent Jackie Kennedy. It's a bit confusing if this is a post twist or an Easter egg. Is this supposed to be an artistic movie with references to JFK or an actual JFK conspiracy theory?
This movie has a horrible ending. I'm not a fan of wind downs {Who is I'd like to know]. This movie has one of the worst wind downs and last scenes ever, especially for an action packed political thriller. The movie literally ends with a cheers [with wine glasses]. It's horrible.
Overall I would give this movie a 7/10. The cinematography is damned near perfect. There are a few major writing flaws though including the entire purpose and symbolism of the movie being confusing. The acting is quality.
