In Roger Ebert’s review of Children of Men, he makes this comment:
What was this “sudden and violent moment”?
Watch the damn movie! 
I tried and failed to find a clip on YouTube. I think he probably means when they are driving along a country road joking around having a good time… When they are ambushed by bandits. It includes a panicked retreat in reverse while being chased by motorcycles and has a very sudden and violent death of Juliann Moore.
I think that is the scene he means although there are a few scenes that cane be described as sudden and violent. Many are filmed in lonnnnng takes.
I’m not sure if it’s the one he’s talking about, but there’s a scene where the main guy is driving w/ Julianne Moore’s character - who seems set up as a main character in the movie, when she is suddenly shot dead as an ambush begins against the car. The scene is hard to describe but is an incredible accomplishment in filmaking, as is a later battle scene. It’s all done in one shot with all kinds of shit exploding and going down around them.
I found out later that a lot of the “one shot” was spliced together from multiple shots and a lot of the background stuff was effects - which made me less impressed - but it’s still damned cool to watch.
I think he’s talking about the car-trip scene, in which Theo (Clive Owen), Julian (Julianne Moore) & co. are (supposedly) taking Kee to safety, but the car gets waylaid by marauders, including a pair on motorcycle who chase after the car & shoot Julian.
Perhaps it is not the most ‘sudden and violent’ scenes I’ve ever seen (and I imagine Ebert has seen more movies than me), but it is a spectacular and devastating scene, for several reasons. First, it’s an action scene filmed in one unbroken tracking shot (rare for any modern film, but especially for an action film like COM). Also, it’s a car chase scene shot entirely at the POV from inside one car (I can’t think of another film that does that), and it neatly pulls the rug out fron under the audience - the scene begins builiding up the expectation that one-time lover Theo & Julian are headed for a reconciliation, and then - BAM - bye, bye Julian.
Well since no one else has said this yet, I wanted to contribute that it’s the car chase scene where Julianne Moore is shot.
What? 
But seriously,
what he said.
The only other “sudden and violent” moment that sticks in my mind is when they are being pursued on foot by that bounty hunter military type guy and Theo picks up a (car battery? or rock?) and waits for the guy to come around the corner, then prominantley smashes him over the head with it.
The thing that was so jarring about the scene was that, although an action sequence, it wasn’t glorified through cinematic magic techniques like a James Bond film or those godawful Mission Impossible movies.
It was more realistic and the death of Julianne Moore’s character was so sudden and unexpected. I watched it with my SO and our chins just hit the floor. A more formulaic script would not have been so daring. Rather she would have fought fearlessly by our protagonists side, dodging bullets and bombs until the end where they shared some sappy kiss after saving all of humanity. :rolleyes:
See the film. It’s damn good.
The only other one that springs to mind is early on in the film when the cafe blows up.
While the majority are almost certainly right about the shooting of Julian, I too thought of the car battery scene. The realism and desperation of the flight just make the brutality of bashing someone’s head repeatedly seem so much more affecting than people shooting each other and blowing shit up.
Seriously, the movie is well worth seeing. It also has the most tense car chase I’ve ever watched in a movie, which is kind of funny considering the circumstances around it, but it’s absolutely true.
Wait when he says one shot could he not be talking about the attack on the reufgee/internment camp? The blood on the camera and the one continuous shot as they dash across the streets?
But, seriously… watch the damned movie!
Ebert is either exaggerating out of his arse or his recent illness had erased his memory of the thousands of other films he’s seen if he thinks that part is one of the most sudden and violent he’s seen, especially if its not unanimous here what scene he’s even referring to. 
No, I agree that it could well be the most violent movie ever. In that:
One of the things I noted in it is how the violence and death are rarely, if ever, dramatized. Someone gets shot and they just fall over. No thrashing, no final speech, just dead.
Let’s face it, all that dramatic crap is in there as fantasy, as a reassurance of lack-of-reality for the audience. When people actually get shot they tend to just die, especially from a heavy caliber weapon at relatively close range. They don’t fly backwards or spin around surprised looking. They just die and fall straight down. And that’s something that COM did particularly well. It tried to present violent death as nothing more than the sudden end of life at another’s hands.
Good stuff. Disturbing.
The car chase scene was pretty violent.
The assault on the refugee camp was crazy violent though. Like the car chase, much of it was shot with long takes. Also, it takes into account that modern battlefield weapons have ranges of hundreds of yards. IOW you don’t have the wild shootouts taking place with the participants firing a few yards from each other.
I watched this movie thoroughly prepared to dislike it.
The Julianne Moore getting shot scene was like getting smacked in the face with a large, ice cold mackerel. After that I could not stop watching.
I repeat what others have said…watch the movie.
T
For me, that was the only moment in the film which could fit. I just didn’t find the film to be all that good. Previous thread on the film where it’s points, good and bad, are hashed out.
Actually, I’m surprised no one else has said this - the moment a couple of minutes later (in the same camera take, no less) when Chiwetel Hardtospell shoots two police officers dead jarred me just as much as Julianne getting shot. Up to that point, I had the notion that this crew was rough around the edges, but not necessarily the terrorists that they’d been labelled. Julianne getting shot, and everyone else panicking, helps establish sympathy with them. Then suddenly, SHIT! These guys are the bad guys! (The discovery that the attack was a setup, later on, adds to that.)