Tension Within Thriller- Inheritance

Inheritance is about a group of men who work together to save people who have been kidnapped. To hide their identities they all wear black and white masks therefore they all look identical. They travel around together in a white van. I believe that this film can be interpreted in two ways; I think that the group of men can be viewed as the protagonists (which is the way that I see it) or I think that they can be seen as the antagonists. 

The opening sequence builds tension because there is no speech or interaction between the three men. Whilst the men are in the van, there is no sound except for the van driving which creates and eerie and mysterious atmosphere because you do not know why they are in the van or where they are travelling to. The camera is in the van and they are using a handheld camera to make the frame more shaky making you feel like you are in the van with the group of men, and so the audience feel closer to the characters and are more engrossed in the action. Once the van comes to a halt, there is a loud screeching noise which raises alarm to the audience and causes them to become more engaged in the scene and more focused on the action. There is also a blackout just as the van comes to a sudden stop, making the scene more frantic and showing the audience a change in location and atmosphere. This blackout is very effective because it is so sudden and so the audience imagine many different things that could have happened that would cause the van to come to such a sudden halt.

The characters are in two clear groups; there are the men in the van-the protagonists and the other group is the man in his car with the young boy tied up in the back.

Initially, the audience does not fully trust the men in the van because they are all dressed in dark clothing, which is typically associated with evil and death and so you do not trust them, however, their masks are only half black. This is a strong indication to the audience that the men are not the bad guys at all. The white half of the mask suggests that they are good. Furthermore, once they get out of the van, they appear to be saving the young boy in the car which indicates to the audience that they are saving him. 

The young boy is the victim in this opening scene. Although he is also dressed in dark clothing, he is just an ordinary boy and therefore the audience can relate to him and feel empathy towards him because he is tied up in the back of a car and cannot escape. This is the point within the opening sequence in which the audience see the group of men as the good guys and they understand why their masks are not all black. the masks being half black and half white may suggest to the audience that then men are only half bad or are putting on an evil persona (the mask) but underneath they are the heroes.

The first character that we see is one of the men inside the van. Only his face is shown- the rest of the man are masked the whole time. This indicates to the audience that this man is the main protagonist and he will be the leader and the hero of the film. The effect of only being able to see one of the men's face is that it causes the audience to develop a relationship with him and therefore they are more likely to be rooting for him the whole time.


I think that the plot line would follow the idea of the men being the protagonists. The man in the car would be the antagonist. In the opening sequence, he did not have much to do, however he did not seem at all fazed by the men jumping out of the van with guns which makes me think that he is not a stranger to this kind of thing.

My plot line would follow the same antagonist throughout. If you listen carefully in the opening sequence, you can hear that he begins to talk in another language. Stereotypically, an audience would be more threatened by somebody foreign and so that is why I would make him the antagonist. The film would follow this group of men saving various people who have been kidnapped by the man in the car. It would be a superhero/villain style film in which the  audience would follow the group of men trying to defeat this man who is the kidnapper.