The Bricklayer
Summary
The Bricklayerfollows Steve Cail , a former CIA agent who gets called back into active duty from retreat . A rogue insurgent begins set up the U.S. for the character assassination of foreign journalists in an effort to blackjack . When it seems like their design is working , the CIA need to play in their most disaffected and brilliant operative to stop the insurgent by whatever mean necessary .
The Bricklayeris establish on the 2010 novel written by Paul Lindsay under his pen name Noah Boyd . The Bricklayerstars Aaron Eckhart , Nina Dobrev , Tim Blake Nelson , Ilfenesh Hadera , and Clifton Collins Jr. Renny Harlin directedThe Bricklayerfrom a hand penned by Hanna Weg and Matt Johnson .
While expire Hard 2 essentially lay the events of the first movie in an aerodrome , the John McClane natural action sequel has some highlights worth remembering .
Screen Rantinterviewed theater director Renny Harlin about his new action movie , The Bricklayer . He discussed being inspired by the action movies of the seventies and eighties to habituate practical sets and effects , as well as what drew him to the script . Harlin also praised the stars of the picture show , Eckhart and Dobrev , and teased what sports fan can expect fromthe newStrangerstrilogy .
Renny Harlin Talks The Bricklayer
Screen Rant : I lovedThe Bricklayer . It is action - packed , and it almost feels like a throwback film to a lot of the military action movies that I kind of originate up with . You apply pragmatic sets , pragmatic locations , and practical action . Was it authoritative to you to capture that nostalgic smell ?
Renny Harlin : That was exactly my approaching . Thank you . First of all , give thanks you for saying such complimentary things about the picture show . It ’s very nice to hear .
Oh , I loved it .
Renny Harlin : Well , thank you so much . It was totally a atavism to the motion picture I get up with , start with the 1970s Don Siegel motion picture and Sam Peckinpah moving picture , and then go into the ' 80s and even ' 90s when I did some moving-picture show . I really desire to go back to how I bang pic . I believe that if I love , love it , I think other people will give away it too .
Of course there ’s a whole propagation who have grow up with movies that are all CG and people can do demented stunt because they are digital doubling and cars can do anything . It ’s like thing are practically weightless because they are not tangible any longer . And I miss the sentence of actors doing hooey themselves and stunts men doing things and real sweat and rip going into the qualification of the film . That was exactly my approach . There is practically nothing CG in the movie , and that ’s what I want to do .
I love it because it bring this magic to the movie that I feel has been missing in military action plastic film for so long now . What drew you to the report ofThe Bricklayer , and what elements of the handwriting were you worked up about as a filmmaker ?
Renny Harlin : Well , I imagine any filmmaker realise activeness film or thriller is always hoping for footling slice of the 007 heaven . caustic remark is I was offered a James Bond movie in the ' ninety , but I end up turning it down . Now I experience like it ’s not James Bond , but it ’s still , it ’s a spy motion-picture show . There ’s something going way back to Hitchcock . There ’s something very romantic about that kind of moving picture . When I read the script , I be intimate it .
We knead on it quite a mo to make it work as well as possible . The book that it ’s based on is quite complex and there were so many sorting of storylines and characters and twists and turns that we examine to streamline it without make it too simple and still keeping it surprising and hopefully misdirect the hearing into believing that sealed characters represent sure things and then they do n’t . But this music genre , of course , I think it ’s for any film maker , it ’s a very intriguing and fun musical style .
I do want to talk about Aaron Eckhart for a second because he take his A - plot to this film . This movie makes him a bona fide activity maven . Can you speak about working with Aaron ?
Renny Harlin : Yeah . Aaron was the first person we volunteer the moving-picture show to and he just love it . It was comic , we had a Zoom call just for me to introduce myself and what I was retrieve about the motion picture . We say hello and I started talking and I say , " Do you take care if I kind of recite you my vision of the pic ? " He ’s like , " Yeah , no , go ahead . "
And so I kept talking for 45 second about how I visit the movie , how I fancy his character , what his backstory was . In the ending of the call , after I finished , after 45 minute , I was like , " I ’m sorry , I ’ve been ranting away here , but I had to get all this out . " And he was like , " Oh , no , no , that ’s great . I bed the playscript before I hear a word from you , and now that you ’ve severalise me your edition , it ’s like , I ca n’t wait to do this movie . " That was it .
He really trained . He lives in Montana on a ranch . He engage a boxing coach , actually . He did n’t want to be a soldierlike humanities hombre , but he just wanted to be kind of a good former - fashioned , intemperately strike kind of a guy . And so he process with a boxing manager for at least three or four months at his spread every sidereal day .
He want to do it all himself . This is like every sentence you discover always this cliche about actors saying , " Oh yeah , I did all my stunt . " Some do , some do n’t , but in his casing , he then spend several weeks in Greece where we shot with our stunt coordinator and their team practice every fighting .
It was really amazing because I mean , for example , there ’s a fight that is around the pool and the club fight . He takes out 15 guys in it . I was able-bodied to literally frivol away takes where I just followed him with a unwavering River Cam and he went through the full stage dancing of all the 15 fights in like one take . It ’s like this is no vitamin B complex that he really prepared for this movie . He was able to do everything himself and he was ready to do whatever it took[inaudible 00:06:04 ] . Yeah .
What surprised you the most about his inscription to the function and work out ethic ?
Renny Harlin : I do n’t know . I think , sometimes some people get some kind of a repute from somewhere and then it just kind of follow them . And so I make love he was a great worker , but I do n’t know what I expected , if I expected him to be more method or serious or somebody who would question everything in the script .
That ’s maybe the peak is that I was wondering if he ’s the kind of a individual who will every twenty-four hour period say , " Oh , here ’s my note and I rewrote this dialog in this conniption and I think this should go this fashion and not that path . " But it was the opponent , which is also , by the agency , the experience , I just worked with Sir Ben Kingsley . He pronounce to me the unproblematic thing , he said , " I ’m a Shakespearian actor , and we had a pretty good writer that we followed and we believe in his textbook . So that ’s how I was trained . Whatever is on the page , my caper as an actor is to make the best version that I can from that text . "
That was how Aaron near the script . Like you say , he knew it by philia , he recognize his line , he eff everybody ’s line . And when I suggested some thing , I ask , " Would you wish this to be a little more this way or that agency ? " he ’s like , " It ’s all on the page . It ’s all staring . I do n’t need to change anything . It ’s like , I ’d rather just have you say , ' We ’re going to do precisely what ’s on the page ' because , " he tell , " that ’s what I ’m prepared , that ’s what I ’m quick to do . "
Yeah , that was the bountiful surprise , I would say . That he was so sluttish to work with because he was so prepared . I ’m also a very disposed theatre director . I plan every shooting beforehand . It just lay down my Book of Job so easy when the thespian knows everything that ’s blend in on in the story and in the script and in the scenes . And so we are on the same wavelength . We are sharing a brain and he can appreciate the fact that I ’m prepared and that I have really thought about how I ’m going to scoot the sequence . So he ’s like , " Okay , outstanding . I love the sequence and now I interpret how it ’s going to be take and it all work together like a saltation . "
It was a great quislingism . As a sign of that , I guess , we just completed our 2d moving-picture show together . We just number back from Spain and New Zealand where we shot a new movie . So we just made our second movie and I ’m sure we ’ll make more in the future tense .
Nina Dobrev can do it all . A mess of devotee know her fromThe Vampire Diaries , but she really gets to turn her action muscle in this film . What surprised you the most about work with her and what she brought to the role of Kate ?
Renny Harlin : Well , what surprised me was that she was such a badass . She was another one who was more than willing to do all her stunt . And you’re able to see it . I mean like the scene in the railway car chase where she ’s just hang out the window and fritter the torpedo . Somebody just asked me , " You did that for real , right ? " We are on these narrow streets in this sure-enough part of townsfolk in Thessaloniki . Yeah , I intend it ’s like , of course we want to do everything safely , but if that car had veered for any reasonableness correct , it would plane her capitulum percipient off .
She was so game . She wanted to do everything herself . She wanted to do all the fight . She was n’t afraid of anything . She wanted to be down and unsportsmanlike . That was a surprise . And then another thing was just like , what a fun person , what a great person she is . She was just fun to ferment with , always a grinning on her nerve , and playfulness to hang out with outside work . It ’s just dandy , great person , not a one mm of diva or anything like that .
I know that you worked onDie Hard 2with Bruce Willis , and I make out that rooftop fit where they hang over to the elevator in the rain . I enjoy that scene . What can you tell me about what you took from the action of that experience and infused it into your future projects ?
Renny Harlin : Well , I would say that I ’ve always been a lover of action movies . That ’s what I mature up with . It was my dream to do that kind of movies . My goal from the very first movie I made has been to always seek to put the audience in the machine driver ’s seat , make the interview experience what the characters experience .
Also in terms of violence , I ’m not afraid to show ferocity in motion picture , but I like to , is it realistic ? Could this happen ? Probably not . But I favour action and violence that shew the consequences . If you get pip in the face or shot or whatever that might be , it hurts and you could feel that pain and you could see that painfulness alternatively of sort of cartoon violence where people are invincible and they can be punch 100 times and nothing happen and so on .
That ’s what I examine to do in give-up the ghost Hard 2 and same affair still , and really put the audience there , make them experience what the characters experience and intent stab that really suckle the hearing in . The same affair with Cliffhanger . I just wanted the audience to really find like they are on that mountain . And same thing in this one .
You ’re doing theupcomingStrangerstrilogy . What can we look from that ? How much will it call back to the late films of the franchise , and how far will the young franchise go ?
Renny Harlin : My three picture show , three chapters are based on the first original movie . They have nothing to do with any kind of sequels . Basically the first moving-picture show embark on where the original moving-picture show started at . It ’s unlike . The character is a little different , the billet is a little different , but it ’s fundamentally , you could say that it is a remake of the original picture show , the first chapter .
But it does add and deduct and exchange things to a sure degree . But I consider it was very significant for the fans of the original moving picture to offer them the like kind of an experience , but an update version . And then we go exploring the things that were not answered in the original pic , such as who are the Strangers and why is this materialise ?
Of of course , a lot of the appeal of the original motion-picture show is that you just do n’t know . It ’s just random , totally blind , horrible wildness . But we go deep . After the first movie , we start explore who they are and we follow our master character , Madelaine Petsch , we follow her through these three moving picture . It ’s really her story , story of an ordinary lady friend in sinful circumstances and how it affects her , how she changes , what occur to her . By the end of the three picture , we ’ve answered a lot of the questions that everybody had after the original motion-picture show .
About The Bricklayer
The Bricklayer follows a rogue insurgent blackmailing the CIA by assassinating foreign journalists and making it appear the agency is responsible . As other Nation commence call on against the U.S. , the CIA must lure Steve Vail ( Aaron Eckhart ) – their most brilliant and rebellious operative – out of retreat .
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