Michael Polish on directing this ‘homage’ of an action film – Metro Philadelphia

Director Michael Polish is stepping out of the Indie film genre with ‘Alarum‘, a new action film starring Scott Eastwood, Willa Fitzgerald, Mike Colter and Sylvester Stallone. Joe (Eastwood) and Laura (Fitzgerald) are agents living off the grid whose retreat at a winter resort is turned on its head when members of the old guard suspect the two may have joined an elite team of rogue spies.

To dive deeper into the action, but as Polish says, more importantly—the characters — the director sat down with Metro to discuss what went into making ‘Alarum.’ 

Director Michael Polish is pictured while filming ‘Alarum’. LIONSGATE

What interested you to sign on with this project?

Scott (Eastwood) was a big deal for me. I was speaking to him for a while, and I felt that with him involved, this could be something…because the character he plays, you need that charm that he has and sort of the duplicity of being a spy. So it was a combination of Scott and reading the right material.

And was Willa Fitzgerald someone on your mind? She was perfect opposite of Eastwood.

She was on our radar, and she was getting very busy. We asked her if she could do this and she read this script and actually, because we made this in Ohio, she had some relatives there, so she was [familiar.]

The fun part [of this] is really the characters. The movies that I really enjoy with action, they have a lot of characters and they have a lot of depth. So I thought that those two (Eastwood and Fitzgerald) together really hit it off, and they did. It actually happened right at the dinner scene. While we were filming I said, ‘Wow. They got it.’ They figured it out, and they’re pros. They know they have to be interlinked fast.

How was it working with Sylvester Stallone?

I’ve known Sly for about 20 years and we’ve always wanted to work and do some stuff together. We’ve had some projects in the past that we didn’t get to do, so we felt that this would be it. It’s not huge, it’s fairly big enough, so we just really put his teeth into it.

Working on an action film with a lot of stunts to coordinate, how do you try and approach shooting on those days?

It’s all about safety, everything’s about safety. You give your coordinators a real crazy mathematical equation and they figure it out. You want to jump out a window? They’ve done that quite a bit, there are some stunts that we’re familiar with, but it’s always about safety. You just give ’em your dream scenario and you end up working it out before you shoot. And those days seem to be pretty heavy. There’s a lot more people.

LIONSGATE

Do any stunts from this film stand out to you?

Blowing the wall up was nice—and we were really blowing the wall. That was exciting. Those explosions, and obviously blowing up the house, you have everybody from the town showing up to see it. It was a house that was going to be torn down as part of one of the state parks, they were going to get rid of it. Just luckily, we crossed paths at the same time.

In your opinion, what makes an interesting action film and what aspects of that did you put into ‘Alarum’?

I think these movies need chemistry because we’ve seen a lot of the explosions and the audience is pretty savvy about every effect there is now. So we know that we’re going to do pretty good in the effects business—so why don’t we really focus on the chemistry?

I think that what stands out with this film is the relationships. Obviously a couple that are spies that are withholding information, trying to find information and trading information, there’s the cat and mouse situation. But also, Scott and Sly, they jumped into it. That was a lot of fun to watch them symbiotic and just move through the scenes together really quickly. They were great. Having history with the actors helps. It moves the production faster. So we can talk, you create a shorthand pretty quickly with ones that you know and the ones that you don’t know, you work something out.

What do you hope people walk away from the film thinking or saying?

I hope they have a good time and just appreciate the characters. These movies aren’t made a lot. They’re sort of throwbacks to the 80’s and some of the 90’s movies—the movies that I like. That’s why I chose to do it, I’m not usually associated with the genre. So when I get to do it, it’s really fun because I pay homage to many films and put that spin on it.

Is the action genre something that you would explore again?

Yeah, I did it once with ‘Force of Nature.’ I got to do it again. It’s a lot of fun, because if you’re really focused on the entertainment of it all, the nuances of action, what can you get away with? How do we do it? So it’s a great genre to work in.

LIONSGATE

Catch ‘Alarum’ in theaters, On Demand and on digital. 

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