Ride Along analysis

Ride Along Dir. Tim Story (2014)

Timothy Kevin "Tim" Story (born March 13, 1970) is an American director, producer and writer. He is the founder of The Story Company, an entertainment production company that he started with his wife in 1996. Born in Los Angeles on March 13, 1970, Story attended Westchester High School in Los Angeles with jazz pianist Eric Reed and actresses Regina King and Nia Long. He was senior class president at Westchester High. He graduated from the USC School of Cinematic Arts in 1991. While in high school, Story briefly attempted a career in music. He was part of Ice-T's Rhyme Syndicate and even appeared as a member of the group T.D.F. on the song "T.D.F. Connection" from the 1988 compilation album Rhyme Syndicate Comin' Through. A group member was shot and killed prior to them being signed to Warner Bros. Records. Story later turned his attention to directing feature films.

Ride Along is a 2014 American action comedy film directed by Tim Story and starring Ice Cube, Kevin Hart, John Leguizamo, Bryan Callen, Tika Sumpter and Laurence Fishburne. Greg Coolidge, Jason Mantzoukas, Phil Hay, and Matt Manfredi wrote the screenplay based on a story originally from Coolidge.
The film follows Ben Barber, a high school security guard who must prove to his girlfriend's brother, James Payton, that he is worthy of marrying her. The film was produced by Relativity Media, Cube Vision Productions and Rainforest Films, and distributed by Universal Pictures.

In Ride Along, we see several types of camera shots used.The shots used range from close ups to long shots and bird's eye view shots and high angle shots. The use of a variety of camera shots and angles are we get to see shots that set the scene for what is happening and where it is happening, but we also get to see the facial expressions of the actors and actresses in the film. In Ride Along, there are several high angle shots that show us where the scene is being set. We mostly see close ups, mid shots and long shots in the movie that show us facial expressions, body language and give us a full view of what is going on. For example, in the clip below, within the first 10 seconds, we see close ups and a long shot that shows us several people in the shot and the props that they are using.

Mise-en-scene is an important factor in this movie too. The use of props and the setting of some scenes helps to make the film funny and more interesting. For example, the supermarket scene with 'Crazy Cody' throwing groceries around at people, then he gets undressed and pours syrup over himself and starts wrestling and fighting with one of the policeman trying to arrest him. All the props used in the scenes have some sort of significance or are used to make the film funnier to the audience and progress the film.

The films lighting is very important too. The film has very few scenes that are set in a dark setting or partially light setting. Most of the scenes are bright because the film is a comedy which is stereotypically associated with brightness because its good. There are very few dark scenes in the film and the scenes that are dark are dark because there are shootouts between the police officers and bad guys. The use of the dark lighting in some scenes foreshadows bad events about to happen in this movie. For example when they go to the nightclub, it is dark throughout the entire scenes with only strobe lights providing any light.