Research into Typical Crime Thriller Narrative's

Crime Thriller Narrative's

I decided that I needed to look into the story lines of a number of crime thriller films to see if there are any recurring styles of stories. I needed to see if the plot we have decided on fits into the criteria of a crime thriller so that we can officially label it as this. 

Seven

Seven is the story of two detectives who hunt down a deranged serial killer. The criminal justifies his crimes due to the lack of respect of the human race against the seven deadly sins. The two detectives move from murder to murder and the audience see how the serial killer has incorporated the seven sins into his drastic and horrifying slaughters of innocent beings.

The Machinist

The Machinist is about a man who hasn't slept in a year because he suffers with insomnia. Day by day he starts to doubt his sanity and strange happenings start occurring at home and at work. He is having hallucinations about a co-worker who no one else seems to know exists. The film is the story of how he unravels a path of mystery that he can't seem to understand.

The Silence of the Lambs

The Psychopath Buffalo Bill is on the run in America. He's kidnapping and murdering women in his path and to find clues of his whereabouts and how to stop him Agent Clarice Starling has to interview the infamous prisoner Dr Hannibal Lector but for him to give her any clues about Buffalo Bill he wants to know the ins and outs and her mind. The Silence of the Lambs is a story of psychological minds and courage.

The Sixth Sense

A child psychologist is confronted in the night with a former patient who he had failed to help and is very psychologically unwell. The patient shoots his former doctor in the stomach before killing himself. A few months later the doctor is admitted a patient whom he thinks he can help as he has many of the same problems as the other patient. He has his work cut out and doubts he can actually help the boy as he see's ghosts before they even know they are dead.

Shutter Island

Shutter Island tells the tale of a detective, Teddy, and his partner who travel to an unfamiliar island to find a missing patient, who murdered her three children, escaped in a storm. The island workers and managerial team seem to resent Teddy for a reason unknown to him and as he finds clues  to the whereabouts of the missing patient he unravels a path he didn't want to walk on and things turn out to be not what they seem.

Psycho

A woman, Marion Crane, steals 40,000 dollars from her boss to start a new life with her boyfriend, Sam, in California but because of the long journey she has to stop for two nights. The first night she stops in her car but on the second she stays the night in a Motel and meets a man called Norman Bates who seems a little too interested in her. He advises her that she should give the money back and she does agree to do this but a week later Marion's sister arrives in California to tell Sam that Marion hasn't been seen for a week or so.

Prisoners

On the Thanksgiving, Keller Dover, his wife Grace, their teenage son Ralph and their little daughter Anna go to the home of their neighbors and friends Franklin Birch, his wife Nancy, their teenage daughter Eliza and their little daughter Joy to celebrate together in a lunch party. Later the families realize that the girls have vanished and they call the police department. Detective Loki is assigned to the case and he arrests the teenager Alex Jones. Soon they learn that Alex has the IQ of a ten year-old boy and he is discharged. Keller decides to abduct Alex to torture him and find where his beloved daughter and her friend are, crossing the thin line between right and wrong.


The Usual Suspects

Police investigating an exploded boat on a San Pedro pier discover 27 bodies and $91 million worth of drug money. The only survivors are a severely burned and very scared Hungarian terrorist and Verbal Kint, a crippled con-man. Reluctantly, Kint is pressured into explaining exactly what happened on the boat. His story begins six weeks earlier with five criminals being dragged in by New York police desperate for suspects on a hijacked truck and ends with the possible identification of a criminal mastermind.

Side Effects

Martin Taylor is released after four years in prison and his mother and his wife Emily Taylor welcome him. Unexpectedly Emily is depressed and tries to commit suicide, hitting her car against the wall in the garage. Emily goes to the hospital and the psychiatrist Dr. Jonathan Banks treats her and she decides to be her client. Emily tries to commit suicide again, but she returns to a normal life with Martin and occasionally has sleepwalking episodes. One day, Emily stabs her husband to death while sleepwalking and she is sent to trial. She is declared non-guilty but is forced to go to a psychiatric facility and Dr. Banks is responsible to periodically evaluate her mental condition. He decides to investigate the case to clear his name and discovers that Emily faked her suicide attempts. 


Inception

Dominic Cobb is an industrial spy who instead of breaking into a person's home, office, or even computer, gets the information he needs by getting into the person's mind through their dreams. Cobb is also a fugitive who misses his children. Someone approaches Cobb and wants to hire him but instead of getting information out, the man wants Cobb to implant something, a process called 'inception', which is not easy to do. Cobb is hesitant to do it but when the man offers to help Cobb go back to his children, Cobb agrees. 




Memento

Memento chronicles two separate stories of Leonard, an ex-insurance investigator who can no longer build new memories, as he attempts to find the murderer of his wife, which is the last thing he remembers. One story line moves forward in time while the other tells the story backwards revealing more each time.

After conducting this research it is clear that our film needs to include some form of psychological element and it does because we get an insight into Kyle's past and how his actions lead to the film finale. It is clear to me now that our film can be put into the crime thriller genre as we have created a plot line that has elements of several of the above film narrative's.