Jason Statham on the Dangerous-Looking Helicopter Scene: “I did
think twice about doing that,” confessed Statham. But Statham’s quick
to add that he never wanted it to be done using CGI. “Firstly, we
didn't have the luxury of millions and millions of dollars to shoot a
worthy green screen sequence, and I have never thought it would look
good shot that way anyway. …You can always tell that it is a fake
attempt.
The enthusiasm that Mark [Neveldine] and Brian [Taylor] had…and Mark
would sort of be up there and Jose [Pablo Cantillo] the other actor and
we had a great stunt coordinator,
and I just thought we were going to get something really, really, good.  We
had already shot like three or four weeks of great stuff and you just know that it
felt right to do that. We just thought, ‘We are going to shoot everything
through the camera and we are going to do something that most movie makers
don't do.”