Newsmakers: Special Collector's Edition

As someone unfamiliar with Johnny To's work, I haven't seen the Hong Kong action movie Breaking News so I'm able to comment on this remake as a film in its own right and didn't watch it thinking how it was different to the original. I gather that the story is the same, with only the location being changed. Of all the bizarre filmmaking decisions, this Moscow-set thriller is directed by a Swede, Anders Banke.

Newsmakers begins with a cleverly orchestrated scene in which a group of Russian detectives, led by Major Oleg Smirnov, have tracked down a dangerous and heavily armed gang of bank robbers and are waiting for the right moment to move in. Unfortunately for them, one of the criminals draws the attention of a local traffic cop, who is completely unaware of the covert operation taking place, and, when he frustrates and annoys the guy to the point that he pulls a gun and shoots the cop through the head, all the meticulous preparation goes out of the window and a full gun battle ensues. A TV crew that was in the area captures the debacle and it is then screened, much to the embarrassment of the police hierarchy, on national TV.

As the Russian population is sick of this gang and even more frustrated with the police who have failed to bring them to justice, one of the senior figures brings in the deputy director of the PR department. Captain Katya Verbitskaya is an ambitious and ballsy figure who decides to turn this into an opportunity for great public relations by broadcasting the whole siege live to the nation so, when the criminals are brought to justice, they will be led out in handcuffs in front of the watching public. At least the plan and, as Robert Burns observed, the best laid plans are likely to go wrong.

When a tip leads Smirnov and his men to the criminals' hide out, they decide to move to another safe house and hole up in a Moscow apartment building, taking up temporary residence in one of the apartments. Another tip brings Smirnov to the building and he notices one of the gang out shopping for groceries, so he knows the tip was real. His presence there not only infuriates the gang, but Katya as well, as the Spetznaz , now decked out with their own head mounted cameras, were supposed to be there first.

What Captain Katya hoped would be a great PR coup for the Moscow police department turns into a bit of a nightmare as the gang realises the game being played and tries to use the media to their advantage. As the press are reporting that the gang was chased into one apartment and are holding a family, a taxi driver and his two young children, hostage and that they the operation went to plan, one of the criminals, who recorded everything on his mobile phone, uploads his own footage to the Internet, contradicting the official version of events. Katya and the special forces need to take out the gang before they can kill again and do the police force any more media damage.



Unbeknownst to Katya, the criminals and the rest of the top brass, Smirnov is still in the building and plans on doing what he can to bring down the gang.

This sort of scenario isn't really new and has been done before, most notably in 15 Minutes when two Eastern European criminals go on a murder spree in the United States, recording their crimes as they go. What Banke does here is slightly different as it's the police using the media, rather than the criminals, and the criminals deciding to play along when they realise that all that exposure can work to their advantage.

I really enjoyed watching every twist and turn along the way in Newsmakers and enjoyed it more the second time around so it is definitely a film that doesn't lose anything on repeated viewings. Anders Banke shows himself to be a very skilled director who was working with a terrific cast and with an art department that did stellar work.

The Disc

Extra Features
For a Blu-ray Disc with the subtitle Special Collector's Edition, this has nothing in the way of extra features apart from a selection of trailers for this film and other 'forthcoming attractions'. What makes the subtitle all the more strange is that there wasn't an ordinary version of this to supersede by being 'Special'!

The Picture
An extremely clear 1080p picture which doesn't suffer as all in either the quick moving action sequences or the darker, smoke-filled scenes. Newsmakers is a very stylish film but Anders Banke does tend to get a little Michael Bay at times and show explosions and other stunts from different angles and play with the frame rate, slowing things down and then speeding them up. This didn't annoy me as much as I expected as Banke doesn't overdo it as there are only a few explosions and little in the way of major car chases -- the closest he gets is when Smirnov goes after the criminal leader, who has boarded a tram, and follows it as close as he can on a pink scooter that he has commandeered.



The setting is very well done and carries a sense of authenticity, with the exterior and interior shots marrying up and really giving the illusion that what you see is an apartment block under siege. Banke must have been given quite a lot of leeway by the authorities as there are some scenes in which parts of the infrastructure, roads, buildings and other parts of the transportation network were shut down for a short time. This pays dividends in the end as what you have is something that looks real and feels real.

The Sound
You get the choice of DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 or plain old Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo and obviously, for an action film like this, if you want is as good as you can, you go for the former. This is basically punchy track where the gun battles sound fantastic and really give the room a shake. Dialogue is presented clearly and the surrounds are used well for atmospherics and when bullets slam into walls, grenades go off and the tension builds, you're really put into the middle of things.

By comparison, predictably enough, the stereo option is a little weedy and thin but it's fine if you only have a setup that will use that. The subtitles are clear, easy to read and error free.


Final Thoughts
Newsmakers is a really well made and thoughtfully written film. Events don't seem at all unrealistic as you are reminded of the school siege in Chechnya where the media was camped for days, analysing everything and speculating on what the police may do and what was happening just about every minute of each day. Also, with TV shows like Cops, is it too unrealistic to imagine that the police may use the media to their advantage and live stream a terrorist cell been brought down?

All in all, this is a really well made film that I watched twice prior to writing this and would quite happily watch it again. I don't think it is as good as something like 36, in which the acting is that bit better and the writing is a bit tighter so events are more tense. If you like movies like 15 Minutes, Heat or 36, this will sit very well in your collection despite the lack of extra features