Eraser: A Warner Brothers Film

Eraser is a 1996 American action film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, James Caan and Vanessa L. Williams. It was directed by Chuck Russell and it belongs to the Warner Brothers Film Productions. The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Sound Effects Editing in 1996, but lost to “The Ghost and the Darkness”.

The film is about John Kruger which is Arnold Schwarzenegger, nicknamed "Eraser", is a U.S. Marshal who works for the Federal Witness Security Protection Program (WITSEC). John is assigned to protect Lee Cullen which is Vanessa L. Williams, a senior executive for Cyrez Corporation, a company that creates and manufactures weapons for the military. Lee has come across plans by Cyrez plans to sell a top secret electronic pulse rifle to terrorist Sergei Ivanovich Petrofsky which is Olek Krupa. This on the wrong hands could destroy everything. To procure evidence, Lee copies critical data onto two discs: one for the FBI, the other as evidence in order to publicize Cyrez's transgressions. However, William Donahue which is James Cromwell, the corrupt CEO of Cyrez, catches wind of Lee's intentions and orders her into his office. Donahue confiscated her camera and aims the gun at Lee, but commits a fake suicide in order for him to escape punishment, and Lee barely escapes from Cyrez. Disappointed with the FBI because of failure to guarantee her safety, she delivers the evidence but refuses to submit herself to WITSEC, despite John's advice.

 Lee is also targeted for assassination by a group controlling a couple of the previous pulse rifles. John rescues Lee and takes her to New York City to hide her. However, soon afterwards John learns from his mentor, fellow Marshal Robert DeGuerin which is James Caan, that someone, perhaps a mole within the WITSEC, is targeting witnesses in top-level cases, including Lee. They proceed to the location of one of the targeted witnesses, but DeGuerin kills the witness personally, revealing himself as Donahue's U.S. Marshal Mole and a major player in the scam, which includes even Undersecretary of Defense Daniel Harper which is Andy Romano, the true master. In order to facilitate his plans, DeGuerin tries to frame John as the mole, but John escapes and rescues Lee in the nick of time.

Since the evidence against Cyrez has fallen into the hands of the enemy, John, Lee and Johnny Casteleone which is Robert Pastorelli, a mob witness whose life John once saved, penetrate the main office to read Lee's copy, since the data on the disc is encoded for Cyrez computers only. They are discovered, however; DeGuerin kidnaps Lee and has her brought to the Baltimore docks where a rail gun shipment is being loaded onto a terrorist freighter. With the aid of Johnny, his cousin Tony Two-Toes which is Joe Viterelli and two associates, John rescues Lee and prevents the rail gun shipment by killing all of the terrorists, including Petrofsky. DeGuerin is critically wounded during the struggle, but is rescued by John and handed over to the authorities.

After a hearing for DeGuerin a few weeks later, and with the implication that under civil law administration a option and sentence of the criminal will not be possible, John publicly fakes his and Lee's death, but subsequently eliminates DeGuerin and the conspirators, "erasing" them thoroughly in an arranged train accident.

What is really like about this movie was the scene when John fakes Lee’s death, so she isn’t followed anymore. I really liked the way in which the camera shots where used unleashing small details, at the beginning, of what is going on. However there is a twist at the end as what is shown to the audience is false and John is not the criminal who killed her, but the saviour and helper. The mise-en-scene creates a murder/assassin scene as the “criminal” messes up the whole house and ripping the victim’s clothes off, so at the end he could take pictures/evidence and leave it behind proving that she is dead. The camera movement is very well used as it only shows what is needed to be scene creating importance. I would like to pick and use some of these ideas within my filming as I really liked what I saw and it was pretty credible.