The movie Shot begins as movie sound mixer Mark Newman (Noah Wyle), is pumping up the volume on a bloody shootout in an action film. Hours later, after an argument with his wife Phoebe, of course a black woman, (Sharon Leal) – so that Hollywood can continually shove interracial romance down our throats – Mark is suddenly felled by a real random bullet, and lies bleeding on the pavement with a chest wound. With Phoebe desperately trying to stop the bleeding, they both agonizingly wait for an ambulance to arrive as Mark frantically fights for his life. Meanwhile, hidden behind a fence across the street, a teenager, Miguel (Jorge Lendeborg Jr.), watches in horror with the still smoking gun in his hand that was just passed to him by his cousin. A gun that was meant to protect him against gang bullies.
From the moment the shot rings out, the camera in real time daringly follows Mark from street, to stretcher, to gurney, to examining table, as we watch the paramedics and medical teams in full life-saving mode. We share Mark’s shock, pain, anger, fear, gallows humor, guilt, and resignation, and how this all effects his troubled relationship with his estranged wife. We experience the pain in his body from the trauma of a gunshot wound as well as the terrors in his mind via a stream-of-semi-consciousness that conveys his panic and confusion as he wonders if he will survive. Through the imaginative use of split-screen, the film juxtaposes Mark’s medical crisis with Miguel’s moral one, as we simultaneously see the frightened young man wrestle with the fact that an innocent man was injured – or worse – as a direct result of his actions.
And, in the film’s thrilling climax, the two meet face to face. But now a gun is in Mark’s hands.
