Review of Zwick's The Seige

This film was an enjoyable political thriller. I was intrigued with it and it kept my attention because of its smooth tempo and quick script. The film had some interesting scenes with some beautifully done shots. The direction of the film found the camera placed in typical angles with common place slow pans in dramatic establishing shots, jump cuts and medium range shots during dialogue and action sequences and slow zooms when things got suspenseful.
What made the scenes so aesthetically pleasing was the lighting and colors of the film. The scene in the beginning when Hubbard first meets "Elise" in the warehouse has a cold but soft tone and there is a beautiful hazy glow on the setting from the flood lights behind them. The apartment firefight scene had a lot of warm and earth-tone colors with stark lighting coming in from the holes in the sheets covering the windows. The foggy wreckage of the movie theater had dramatic, and cold lighting, with bright neon colors coming from police lights and signs in time square. The mise-en-scene throughout the movie had its ups and downs. Some shots' settings and how they were set up were pretty typical and bland like the office scenes or any time a character was using technology of some sort. Any time Hubbard came into the scene they closed in on him or had him framed with the rule of thirds which became noticeable. The editing was well done and smooth. Some shots were in slow motion, or some shots would stay for a long while on a character if they were intensely staring at someone or if they were thinking, which built tension very well.
This film is definitely one that comes to mind when I think of these types of suspense/action movies. This was a solid political thriller but didn't stand out to me as anything unique, still an exciting watch.