The two engage in a 20-minute dialogue as gripping as a one-act play.
Part of the achievement of the film's director, Jason Osder, and its editor, Nels Bangerter, lies in orchestrating dual gripping dramas in constant dialogue, using footage from before, during and after the standoff.
If you're writing a drama, make the dialogue dramatic and gripping.
Beneath its preposterous comic-book gore, gothic soundtrack, acreage of glistening flesh and stilted dialogue, Spartacus remains a gripping, intelligently crafted saga of powerplay and vengeance.
Without any dialogue the shots tell a gripping story about a mother's commitment to her offspring.
In the film she and veteran Syrian filmmaker Ossama Mohammed ("The Box of Life") engage in lyrical dialogue over more than 1,000 gripping images of the conflict, filmed by them and many ordinary citizens.
The wartime narrative is gripping, but Eng's story suffers from stilted dialogue, which is often pressed into service for historical exposition, and overwrought fight scenes.
Unlike last year's mostly dialogue-free "All Is Lost," which was propelled by gripping set pieces, mounting complications, a vast setting and Robert Redford, "Canopy" never becomes urgent or involving enough, even when tragedy looms.
Plenty of the dialogue (lifted direct from the book) is wonderful, the plot is gripping and there are also some fine Technicolor panoramas of Colorado mountains and Californian countryside.
