2017 Muriel Awards: Best Cinematic Moment

Third place:



Get Out - first trip to the Sunken Place [78 points / 7 votes]

Second place:



Call Me By Your Name - Elio gazes into the fire [102 points / 9 votes]

And the winner is...



Atomic Blonde - stairwell fight [108 points / 11 votes]

“Maybe it’s not really a single take. Most likely there’s some trickery going on somewhere in the 10-minute unbroken shot that encompasses Atomic Blonde’s best action sequence (and one of the best action sequences of the past decade). But at least for the seven or so minutes that director David Leitch follows MI6 agent Lorraine Broughton (Charlize Theron) and the East German defector known as Spyglass (Eddie Marsan) inside an abandoned building in East Berlin, the action is seamless, an expertly choreographed series of brutal physical confrontations, presented with the kind of effortless cool that can only come from massive, painstaking effort.

“Lorraine is attempting to escort Spyglass across the border between East and West Berlin while being targeted by KGB agents (and, although she’s not entirely sure about it at the time, by her own colleague David Percival, played by James McAvoy). She manages to protect Spyglass from KGB snipers above them as they walk through a huge group of protesters (thanks to a flash mob-style covering of umbrellas), but she doesn’t account for Percival getting in a covert shot from across the street. Lorraine, spotting the KGB gunmen above, drags the injured Spyglass into the empty building where they’ve set up their operation, determined to take them all out.

“And boy does she. What follows is a breathtaking demonstration of Leitch’s skills as a director, bringing in his background as a stunt coordinator (aided by the film’s actual stunt coordinator, Sam Hargrave) to orchestrate an epic fight sequence that starts when Lorraine takes the elevator to just above where two KGB operatives are positioned in the stairwell, and ends with her calmly walking the bleeding but bandaged Spyglass out of the building. The beginning of the movie shows Lorraine, 10 days after the mission in Berlin, her body covered in bruises and cuts and welts, soaking herself in an ice bath, and the stairwell sequence provides the origin for most of those injuries.

“Lorraine is clearly an incredibly capable secret agent, adept at marksmanship and hand-to-hand combat, but fighting off six muscular, well-trained KGB operatives takes every ounce of energy she has, and Leitch, Hargrave and Theron make sure the audience feels the impact of every kick, punch and stab. In contrast to the nearly nonstop pop music in the rest of the film, this sequence features no music at all, just grunts and the sound of bodies hitting bodies (or walls, or floors). Lorraine barely speaks, uttering occasional single words (‘Fuck!’ ‘Go!’) until a brief moment of calm when she tells Spyglass to tend to his wounds, and then later when she defeats the final KGB henchman by jamming a corkscrew in his neck. ‘Am I your bitch now?’ she sneers at him, triumphant despite barely being able to stand up. She’s drained but exhilarated, and by the time Leitch finally makes a clear, recognizable cut (which isn’t until the car chase scene that follows), the audience is, too.” ~ Josh Bell

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