21 Bridges follows NYPD detective Andre Davis (Chadwick Boseman) who leads a citywide manhut for a pair of cop killers. When the search intensifies, extreme measures are taken to prevent the killers from escaping Manhattan, as Davis directs the authorities to close all 21 bridges to prevent any entry or exit from the iconic island.
Director Brian Kirk (who not only co-created the series Luthor for the BBC, but he also directed all of the episodes) brings this thriller to life based on the script written by Adam Mervis and Matthew Michael Carnahan. Screen Rant got the chance to talk to director Brian Kirk about what drew him to the material, how he utilized drone photography and his working relationship with films producers, The Russo brothers.
Screen Rant: I thoroughly enjoyed this film. I had a great time with it. When you were reading the script, was there any specific image or scene in the script that came to you very cleary?
Brian Kirk: It was really the heart of it rather than immediately seeing a vision that I connected with it. The manhunt story in the locked down city. The opportunity to do a manhunt story creates to go on a journey into yourself. All great manhunt stories are journeys into yourself. And the experience that Andre has. The fact that it's a journey towards connection rather than the obliteration of another human being. So there was that. The sense of military invasion actually, less than a specific image more bizarrely made me think about being a kid growing up in Northern Ireland.
Screen Rant: Really? How so?
Brian Kirk: Because there were always lots of helicopters in the air and police cars in the streets. There was that sort of fraught relationship between kind of a...hey, I suppose, justice, morality, law enforcement...all of that stuff, it was very large in everyone's imagination in their lives. So I definitely connected with that. Then the actual visualization of the movie was more built on the inside out rather than the outside in.
Screen Rant: Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but did you utilize drones in this?
Brian Kirk: There was, yes.
Screen Rant: I'll be honest, I'm not a big fan of drone usage. Sometimes you can see a drone shot and go "ok that's a drone shot." I love the use of drone footage in this film, specifically of the shot at Andre's fathers funeral, that's a beautiful shot. What decided on a certain shot that that would be an appropriate use of drones?
Brian Kirk: Well I felt that one of the things we really needed to do in the movie was have a juxtaposition of intimacy and scale. We needed the intimacy of the personal journey, and we needed the scale of the lockdown and that felt to me that then pushed us into certain moments where we would be incredibly immersed and certain moments where we would step back. And there's a lot of aerial photography as well from a helicopter because there are restrictions of drone use. It felt like the logical way to show at the beginning of the movie that the bridges and roads act like arteries, leading into the heart. And that these things would be cut off and shut down. So that was a clear narrative device. The drone shot at the funeral was a real fortuitous event where the guys who carried the coffin out of the church and put it in the hurst are the actual N.Y.P.D. So they turned up in their uniforms with these white gloves on. When they saluted it was just an incredibly graphic image and that just felt like the best way to capture that. Much more so than a conventional wide shot. Because that actually happened on day two of the shot, it's that thing as you go forward the film begins to tell you how to photograph it. It assumes a life of its own and it begins to speak back. That's why we went down that route.
Screen Rant: Can you go a little bit about what it was like with the Russos helping you out, specifically with post production?
Brian Kirk: Pretty amazing throughout actually. Obviously it was their project, they brought it to me, they got me involved, they were creatively very demanding but in the best possible way. They were amazingly supportive. It was always the case of the best idea wins. They certainly multiplied access to cast, certainly when you look at the cast we have…
Screen Rant: It's a great cast.
Brian Kirk: It's a great cast. Basically, it's like a thing that develops momentum, and each one helps you get the next one in. As we went through the making of the movie, obviously I have chats with Joe and Anthony about...particularly about action to be honest with you. How to maintain the relationship between the story and the action sequences. And then post production it was the constant drive to elevate the footage that we had. That we were maximizing the story opportunities and that we were creating something that was emotionally real but cinematic but iconic at the same time.
