So, around a couple months ago, I took a couple hours out of a slow afternoon and kicked back with this screenplay and a cup of coffee, and I’ll be damned if I didn’t get around to even a sip of that coffee.

Uh-huh, this roller coaster had me hooked from page one. Why? Because this f*****g thing lunges at your jugular and it just doesn’t let go until the words: FADE TO BLACK. What’s more, it doesn’t play ball like the other guys. No, this script’s got an agenda all its own. And I love it.

Logline: A small time hood is framed and sent to prison, only to exact revenge years later.
Genre: Action
Details: May 15, 2009 – First Draft – 74 Pages
Writer: Chad St. John, an emerging screenwriting wunderkind, that had not one, but two scripts (yes, two) on the 2009 Black List: this script and The Days Before.

He also made a splash back in December for selling his original spec The Further Adventures of Doc Holliday to Paramount.

A Google search and quick gander at his profile on IMDb Pro shows that he’s also attached to the following in development properties: Spy Hunter, Outland, Ronin, Sgt. Rock, and just sold and attached himself as director of Four Kings of Ruin. Not bad for a guy that used to bartend, huh?

You may have noticed that he seems to have a penchant for the action genre, but we are talking about a guy that practically holed up in the basement of that yippee-ki-yay-ing motherfucker John McClane (no, Bruce Willis, silly) for six months¹, give or take, so it’s not too hard to surmise that there maybe/possibly/could have been just a tad bit of influence.

Regarding Motor City, St. John had this to say to ScriptShadow²:

Honestly, it wasn’t my idea. Greg Silverman over at Warner Bros., one all around bad ass dude, tossed that one my way. After they bought [The Days Before] and I had rewritten it based on their notes, Greg offered me a two script blind deal. I was definitely salivating for the chance, but I really wasn’t keen on the blind aspect of it. I wanted to have at least one of the scripts spelled out before I said yes. I thought it was crucial to follow DAYS with something just as unique. So, Greg throws this idea at me. Then, he says the magic words…“and there’s no dialogue.” A “silent” revenge movie.

I said yes before he finished the sentence. The artist in me leapt at the chance. Besides, when the hell is another Exec this far up the food chain in a studio going to ask me to write a “silent” movie? I was all over it. It was audacious and ballsy. Of course, then I spent a week banging my head into a desk in front of my computer thinking, “What the hell have I done?”

Why was it received so well? I was just humbled that it was. Truly. I still am. I think part of it is definitely that it was just so ballsy and different. Maybe it was a reminder that a script doesn’t need to have an explosion a minute. Or, even dialogue. You’ll have to ask all those cats who like it. I just aim for “Don’t Suck”.

I rewrote it for Dark Castle. And, yes, added dialogue. I’m really happy with how it’s coming along. We still go back and forth as to which version is the right one to get made. I suspect it might be a version that combines the no dialogue and dialogue versions. We’ll see.

What’s it About? We start in Detroit in the 1970s, moving toward an upscale residential area where a fire glows several blocks away: lights, sirens, a panic. When suddenly a MANIAC runs by us carrying a one-legged dead man over his shoulder. We track with him:

That’s the end of the first page. Effective, because how – in the f**k – can I not turn the page now?! In the clichéd words of Muhammad Ali, this things moves like a butterfly and stings like a bee. At this point my mind was racing with the possibilities of what was going to happen next. You aspiring lot, the sooner you learn this lesson the better: make me absolutely want to turn to your second page. I don’t care if it’s a comedy or a melodrama; if you make me want to turn the page instead of just having to, then I’ll respect your writing all the more.

I digress. Moving on…

We flash forward 30 years to the present day and meet a dude who receives a scrapbook of newspaper clippings that nearly gives him a heart attack.

Then we flash back to the seventies, and Miller leaving work where he receives a “package” from a friend, which he tosses into the glove box.

Unbeknownst to Miller, he’s being followed.

When he stops for a coffee some punks jack his car. He chases them down, but doesn’t catch them and finds that nothing is wrong with his car. Strange.

He goes home and from the “package” he pulls a tiny engagement ring, which he hopes to brandish during the proposal to his girlfriend… which he just can’t seem to do: the ghosts of his past weighing on his conscience.

Oh, he has an Army Ranger tattoo, too.

Then, as if by accident, he sorta, kinda proposes to her and, finally, on page eleven, she shrieks the script’s first coherent word:

But the happy moment is short-lived as just outside is a gaggle o’ coppers about to bust up the party. And they do. Why? Because from the trunk of Miller’s car, a cop pulls out kilo after kilo of cocaine. Yep, there was nothing wrong with his car earlier because he’s been set up.

At an interrogation room we meet our douche bag antagonist:

Then we flashback to how Miller met Sophia. In a bar. In a mess. With Ramirez. It becomes a bigger mess, and Sophia leaves with Miller.

Flash forward to the interrogation room where Ramirez leaves Miller with his tiny engagement ring. The bastard.

Then St. John does another clever thing here, he flashes forward to present day, and that scrapbook from earlier, and gives us a major plot element in a single shot:

To make this short story even shorter, I’ll recap the rest fairly quickly: While in prison, Miller manages to gather up his ole Ranger buddies on the outside and they formulate one mother of a no holds barred ass-kicking revenge plot, which also involves busting Miller out of the pen.

Once out, hell hath no fury… and if you like things that go BOOM, then you’re gonna love just how revenge is exacted here. Oh, God, yes. It’s brilliant. Unlike anything I’ve read or seen before. Even down to the third act plot twist where something goes terribly wrong, but it has to because that’s how we get to the present day and finally… the end of the script.

I won’t spoil it for you, but it’s f*****g tragic. Beautifully f*****g tragic.

Overall Thoughts: There’s been a lot talk in closed circles of how many words of dialogue this script doesn’t have, so let’s run the numbers: in the first 71 pages only three audible, coherent words are spoken, with seven lines of dialogue being uttered in the remaining two and a half pages.

And I would venture far enough to say that those final seven lines could be pared to a mere three with ease without any drastic impact to the story. I mean, after 71 pages, then suddenly there’s all this dialogue? Why ruin a good thing? Pare it down. Keep it simple. Sparse. Lean. Taut.

Anyway, how does St. John achieve this minimalism in dialogue? Well, before we even start, he gives us the following note:

Clever, because he’s able to express a lot using this method. It’s way of showing what a character is thinking without them ever uttering a word, which any actor worth their weight should love because it’s forcing them to do what they hopefully do best: act.

“A good film script should be able to do completely without dialogue.” ~ David Mamet

And you know what? This script is a good script. Not only is it good, but it’s pretty damn impressive, too. Anyone wanting to know/study how insignificant dialogue can sometimes actually be should really read this script.

No, seriously, if you can find it read it.

I’d almost venture far enough to say that this script should be mandatory Screenwriting 101 reading, because this is a lesson that needs to be learned in the yakety-yak dialogue-heavy wake of the Tarantino’s and the Kevin Smith’s of the world. Why? Because writers often think they can simply use dialogue to fix a script’s greater structural problems. That’s one of many reasons why voice-overs are often shunned because they’re considered a cheap, easy fix. Never be fooled into thinking that a lot of blah-blah-blah can ever replace the stark effectiveness of a mere look or simple action.

I’m telling you, what Chad St. John has done here… it takes balls to tell a story this way, and it’s f*****g refreshing because he had to get routinely creative with the action in order to compensate for the lack of dialogue. And that’s where this script most definitely succeeds. It’s really interesting to see how a screenwriter can use action to convey so much.

Film being a visual medium, you’d think this should/would be a given, but among a rash of current screenwriters, more often than not, dialogue is used far more than it should be. Visual, people. Visual. I’m willing to bet that St. John even surprised himself more than once while writing this script. It’s easy to have a character blab, “F**k you,” but you know… the real trick is to, instead, find an engaging, non-verbal way of expressing that f**k you.

“Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.” ~ Anton Chekhov

How often do your characters speak when they don’t have to?

When something does need to be said, often times St. John places a barrier between us and the characters (i.e. a window), so that we can’t hear what they’re saying, exactly, but we can see it all in their body language. And it works. Extremely well.

Final Thoughts: I hope that they opt to make this version of the script. I really do. It’s a crime that anyone even asked for a version with dialogue. I mean, an agent — of all people — had the balls to think the idea, then a screenwriter had the balls to actually write it, so, in my honest opinion, Dark Castle needs to grow a pair and make it.

As-is.

No dialogue.

It’s audacious and a risk, sure, but man, if it succeeded (and it would), I could see this project creating a ripple through the current screenwriting world. Hell, the film industry, period. A much, much, much-needed ripple.

My only real complaint with this script, which is borderline trivial, is that there are some minor grammatical errors and he leaves out a word here and there, but overall it is absolutely, most definitely worth the read.

I haven’t read the original 2004 novel but I have seen the 2008 film, Let The Right One In, that this is a remake of and I’m assuming that this adaptation is based on that film, not the book, but either way it is one of the most original takes on the vampire myth that has come along in a very long time in that it centres around two 12 years olds, Abby, the vampire and Owen the boy who becomes her friend.

We open on a chaotic scene of a snow storm and paramedics trying to intubate a BALD-HEADED MAN as he kicks and struggles to get away against the handcuffs that have been forced on him. Cut to a hospital and a POLICEMAN wanting to talk to the man who, it becomes apparent, is wanted for suspicion of murder. As the policeman tries to talk to the man he is called away by a phone call from the reception nurse who tells him that a small girl had been there, claiming to be the man’s daughter. As they discuss this a scream announces that something is wrong in the man’s room, they run to investigate and find the window open and the man gone, having jumped 10 floors to his death.

Cut to two months earlier, thick snow and ice on the ground, and we find OWEN, 12 years old, introverted, bullied at school, sitting alone on the jungle gym outside the old apartment block where he lives, eating candy and humming to himself. Owen lives with his mother. While she drinks to dull the pain of a bad divorce he eats candy and fantasises about killing to dull the pain of his bullying. Owen is helpless in a world where he has neither parent to turn to and no adults to look out for him. He collects newspaper cuttings about murders, reads books about serial killers and uses knives to act-out what he will eventually say and do to his tormentors. Owen is troubled and alone.

That night, while Owen watches from his bedroom window, a BALD-HEADED MAN and a GIRL of Owen’s age move into the apartment next door. Later, as he lies in bed, he is troubled by a vision of extreme violence that he cannot understand and he snaps awake. The next morning he notices that all of the windows in next doors apartment have been covered over. At school we get a glimpse of the BULLIES at a swimming lesson. Owen fakes his way out of the lesson clearly not wanting to put himself in harms way in the pool but when the lesson finishes he is cornered by KENNY, the ringleader, along with his cohorts DONALD and MARK. They give Owen a brutal wedgie making Owen piss himself, humiliating him in front of the class before letting him run off.

On the way home, Owen stops off at the arcade to buy candy and a penknife and while he sits outside, in the snow, with the penknife, rehearsing the death of the bullies, his strange new neighbour, ABBY appears beside him and they talk for the first time. Later on that night we find out what the relationship between Abby and the Bald-headed man is all about as he abducts a teenager from his car, stringing him up and bleeding him to death and collecting the blood in a plastic container. Unfortunately the man slips while he is gathering up his equipment and he drops the container of blood. As it tumbles over and over down a hill towards the boys car a pair of headlights are coming towards him and he has to abandon the blood, the car and some of his equipment to get away. Later that night, Owen hears a huge argument in the apartment next door and while he can only hear bits of what is said, he fears for Abby while we see Abby furiously berating the bald-heaed man – there is no doubt who is in charge in this relationship.

The next day at school everyone is in shock because of the local murder, and at Owen’s school the policeman turns up, leading the investigation. That night Owen adds the newspaper clipping about the slain boy to his ever-growing collection then heads out in the snow to the jungle gym. As he sits there, playing with a Rubik’s Cube, Abby comes out and sits beside him, obviously curious about the toy. It turns out she’s never seen one so he lets her borrow it to work out the puzzle. Owen heads home and leaves her playing, but we cut to a jogger who lives nearby running under an underpass and a helpless-looking Abby crouched down pleading for help. As the jogger bends down to pick her up and carry her home she attacks, easily overpowering him and biting into his neck with real fury and drinking his blood, after which she easily snaps his neck, for the killing blow. She is a VAMPIRE. Later that night Owen hears another furious argument from next door followed by the bald-headed man leaving the apartment and storming out. He finds the body of the jogger and takes it to a lake that is freezing over where he submerges it beneath the expanding ice.

Owen has another vision of blood and water and a severed head jerking him awake. As he heads out to school he finds the Rubik’s Cube, completed, resting on the jungle gym. Later that evening he meets Abby on the jungle gym and they chat for longer, becoming friends, but some of the stuff she tells him is odd, like she’s “about 12” and doesn’t know when her birthday is and she doesn’t wear shoes even in the snow because she doesn’t feel cold. The next day in school. Owen finds a book about Morse code and copies out a couple of cheat-sheets from the book while Kenny watches him. Later on when Kenny and his gang corner Owen and Kenny tries to get him to hand over whatever it was he was writing. When Owen refuses, Kenny whips Owen with a broken aerial, cutting his face but in defiance warns Owen not to tell his Mum what happened. That night Owen gives Abby a Morse code cheat sheet so that they can talk to each other through the wall. She sees that he is hurt and he tells her about the bullies. She comforts him but in a moment of seriousness tells him that he has to stand up to them, that next time he has to hit them back as hard as could ever dare, and then they will stop. When Owen says there are three of them Abby says simply that she will help, he laughs but she tells him she’s much stronger than she looks. Meanwhile the bald-headed man watches jealously from the window.

The next night Owen bumps into the bald-headed man. The man says ominously that he used to be exactly like Owen and seems to daydream a little. Abby appears to break up the exchange and Owen takes Abby to the arcade. He buys candy but she says she doesn’t really eat that stuff. He is a little hurt so she says she’ll try but after eating some she is violently sick. Later on when Abby gets home the bald-headed man is going out. he asks her to stop seeing Owen but he knows she cannot. The bald-headed man man goes to the local YMCA and attacks a young man and strings him up ready for bleeding but, before he can do the deed, he is disturbed by other young men looking for the would-be victim. When he is eventually cornered, and knows he cannot escape capture, he pulls out a jar of acid and pours it over his own face, down his own throat all the while screaming in agony.

Owen begins after school lessons in strength training and starts to learn to swim without the other kids there. Later on he sits on the jungle gym waiting for Abby but she’s a no-show for the night. Meanwhile, at the hospital Abby has walked into reception asking to see her Dad who she knows the police brought in. The nurse says she’ll ring up and talk to the policeman up there but Abby says it’s okay and leaves. The nurse follows her outside but she’s disappeared. We pan back to see Abby, high above the nurse, climbing up to the 10th floor of the hospital. She reaches the bald-headed man’s room and says she sorry for the way it turned out. He says it’s okay and offers her his neck which she bites, drinking deeply before he eventually tumbles out of the window and as he screams we play out the opening scene of the movie only this time we see Abby clinging to the side of the building, hiding in the shadows.

That night she surprises Owen by climbing in his bedroom window and snuggling up against him. When he asks how she got up there she says she flew. He doesn’t understand but falls asleep. The next morning Abby is woken by the burning of the morning sunlight. She leaps from the bed and draws the blind in Owen’s room. Owen wakes up much later to find her gone. That day, Owen is on a field trip, skating with his class. Out on the lake Kenny and his friends threaten to throw Owen in the frozen water. When they try to get him, Owen is prepared and, with a large stick, smacks Kenny around the head, knocking him over and badly damaging his ear. As Kenny screams in pain, more screaming and commotion comes from the other side of the lake as three girls discover a body frozen in the ice, it is the jogger. That night the policeman appears at Owen’s flat. He says that there was an incident with a neighbour and they are doing routine enquiries. From Owen’s room he sees more police searching the jogger’s apartment and taking photographs. Meanwhile Abby hides in her apartment while the policeman knocks on the door.

The next day Owen is training and swimming when he hears Kenny and KENNY’s BROTHER and Donald and Mark talking. Kenny’s brother is ragging on him about his ear and the other two are trying not to laugh at Kenny. Owen is over the moon, he likes seeing Kenny on the receiving end for once. At the jungle gym he tells Abby about what happened at the lake and she kisses him on the cheek. He takes her to the basement of the building and shows her a place only he knows about where he used to hang out with the kid that used to be caretaker. No adults even know it’s there. Owen takes out his penknife and cuts open his thumb to make a pact of friendship with Abby but she freaks out at the sight of the blood and shows her demon self for the first time. Abby runs out of the building and attacks a woman, a neighbour walking a dog. She is seen by the woman’s husband and runs off while he calls for help. Owen watches as the ambulance comes and takes the woman away. Struggling to come to terms with what he’s seen he tries to rouse his Mum but she’s in a drunken sleep. He tries to call his Dad but he doesn’t listen properly and Owen ends up sitting alone, in the dark, wondering what to do. Finally he steels himself and knocks on Abby’s door. He confronts her about being a vampire and she comes clean and tells him she needs blood to live.

Back at the hospital, the policeman talks to the husband of the woman who was bitten. As they talk in the corridor she wakes up and begins to gnaw at her own arm for the blood. The nurse goes in and opens the curtains and the woman, once hit by sunlight, bursts into flames engulfing both of them. The next night, Owen is on his own having a TV dinner when there is a knock at the door in Morse code. Owen opens the door and Abby tells him that he has to invite her in. He asks why and so she enters his apartment and begins to bleed everywhere, from her eyes, her, pores, her mouth. He tells her to stop and shouts an invite to come in. They spend some time together and she shows him her memory of being made into a vampire, Owen is terrified but gets a sense of what Abby has gone through as a child. They are disturbed when Owen’s mother comes home but Abby escapes out of the window of Owen’s bedroom to her own apartment. Later that night, Owen creeps out to Abby’s apartment and stays there with her.

In the morning the policeman turns up at Abby’s, suspicious of the boarded-up windows. He knocks on the door but gets no response. Then he hears a floorboard inside creak and draws his gun and kicks open the door. He walks around the apartment as Owen hides. Finding a note that Abby left for Owen he realises she is in the bathroom. He makes his way in and finds her under a bunch of blankets in the bathtub. As he starts to remove the cardboard from the windows Owen shouts for him to stop. The policeman turns, levelling his gun at Owen, realising at the last minute that it’s just a kid. As he relaxes Abby leaps out of the tub and sinks her teeth into his neck, drinking deeply, the policeman flails around crying to Owen for help but Owen just leans forward and shuts the bathroom door. When she’s done, Abby comes out of the bathroom and hugs Owen. She explains that now she will have to leave and kisses him, long slow and tender. Later, as Owen looks at his clippings he no longer seems interested. He hears a car door slam and looks out his room to see Abby leaving in a taxi.

The next day he goes swimming but finds himself ambushed in the pool by Kenny, Donald and Mark and worst of all, Kenny’s brother. They tell him they want revenge for Kenny’s ear. As they hold Owen under the water there is a huge commotion in the pool and he sees water, and blood, and Kenny’s brother’s severed head – it is the vision he’s been having but for real this time – and when the grip is released from Owen’s head he pushes to the surface gasping for air to see Abby’s face, then looking around, the scattered bodies of the bullies. Cut to a train and Owen sitting with some luggage and a huge cardboard box. As the ticket inspector moves past a quiet knocking, Morse code, comes from the box and Owen is preparing for a new life.

Pleasingly we have a pretty near faithful adaptation from the 2008 film, the biggest concession to the US market being a switching of the scene order. In the original we open on Owen watching his mysterious new neighbours move in and we learn about the bald-headed man’s role and then we reveal the truth about Abby and so on making it a slow-paced and thoughtful film that reveals itself in shocking scenes that come at quite unexpected moments. In this adaptation we open with the capture of the bald-headed man and subsequent hospital scene, then flash back in time to the beginning of the story and, while it is a hoary old trope that Hollywood has used to excess, it serves two purposes; 1) It sets up a mystery that the audience now wants to solve and 2) as we uncover the mystery we speed up the pace of the film until we get our answer.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. While the original is a decent film its pacing does give the impression that it’s trying very hard to be more than just a vampire flick and at times you want Oskar and Eli (the original kids) to stop chatting and get on with actually doing something. This isn’t helped by the fact that, as a 12 year old, when Eli kills it’s all a bit matter-of-fact and of course the only sub-plot is the bullying of Oskar which is laboured. In this adaptation however, each kill has a build up that, while it makes each inevitable, it does ratchet-up the tension a bit and also the bullying gets worse for Owen each time we see it, raising the stakes and making us route for him a little more.

There are some decent set-pieces as the two main characters grow accustomed to each other and while it retains the inherent honesty that kids have when they speak to each other with no hidden agenda, there is a cleverly crafted layer of ‘knows more than a 12 year old should’ about some of the lines. The dialogue is surprisingly faithful too, the conversations, like the original, are given time to breathe and there is space between the lines for the actors to…erm…act which, assuming they get their chance, should give each small moment the two leads share the level of depth they need to work.

At the time of writing this film was in-production starring Kodi Smit-McPhee (The Road) as Owen and Chloe Moretz (Kick Ass) as Abby and directed by Matt Reeves (Cloverfield) so with a fair wind this film should be a cracker. My main concern for a mainstream audience is that there’s a level of violence that we don’t normally see kids involved in, and definitely not perpetrators of, so my fervent hope is that studio interference doesn’t water this down to an unrecognisable mush.

That said, if they get it right this has all the makings of a very memorable film and I’m looking forward to its arrival in 2010.

My rating?
[ ] PASS
[ ] CONSIDER
[X] RECOMMEND

About: Universal’s adaptation just began filming in Hawaii. Project stars Liam Neeson, Brooklyn Decker, Taylor Kitsch, Alexander Skarsgaard and Rihanna. It is directed by Peter Berg (Hancock, The Kingdom). This is the first Universal/Hasbro partnership since signing a five picture deal.

Genre: Summer Blockbuster
Writers: Jon and Erich Hoeber (of the upcoming RED comic adaptation) with revisions by Paul Gross & John Krizanc and current revision by Peter Berg.

Details: May 5th 2010 draft – 114 pages
Plot: Alien Invasion
Theme: Survival
Dialogue: Laughable
Character Development: There is none.
Concept: Worthless
Tension: Lacking
Conflict: Purely Superficial.

Related Viewing: Pearl Harbor, Independence Day, 2012, Deep Impact.

Synopsis:

We open in a Cesna, flying with father and son over the Hawaiian islands. A sudden and unexplainable storm causes them to crash on the big island of Hawaii. Everyone should be dead, but ALEX HOPPER, the young boy, isn’t even harmed and his father is GONE. Alex is adopted by his father’s best friend, Lieutenant Hopper (Yes, Alex Hopper is adopted by Lt. Hopper who isn’t related to him).

Alex (Hopper) becomes best friends to his step brother STONE. Through montage we see these boys grow up. We see the unique bond they share which boils down to Hopper going crazy whenever someone threatens Stone or his adopted family. Hopper will pick a fight in an instant and has a thirst for big action. Hopper is a thrill seeker, constantly endangering himself and others. The boys have a partner in crime in SAMANTHA (SAM). They all grow up together and Hopper and Sam fall in love. When they are all in their teens LIEUTENANT HOPPER dies. The boys become Navy men like their father.

Before shipping out, now in their late 20’s, Hopper does some BIG wave riding. Sam is not impressed and gives him an ultimatum: Hopper must stop doing stupid/reckless stuff or she’s gone. Sam wants him alive when they finally get married. Hopper promises to stop, but it’s tough to change one’s head strong ways.

On the deck of the USS Missouri, at Pearl Harbor, the Admiral reminds us of all the sacrifices our Navy has made and the honor that comes with service. The American and Japanese Navy engage in joint fleet exercises. Hopper and captain Yugi Nagata have choice words with each other and have some hatchets to bury. The Admiral doesn’t think much of Hopper and his brash ways, he’s also not a fan of him marrying his DAUGHTER SAM. Three destroyers and an aircraft carrier cinematically sail out of the harbor.

Ext. Space – under the cover of a meteor shower, six fireballs streak to earth. SATCOM picks them up. FIVE splash down in Hawaii and one DESTROYS Hong Kong, ALL of it. The Chinese, in their infinite wisdom, think the Americans did it and mobilize their army, creating a global threat. End of Act 1 (page 31).

The aliens are called REGENTS. They’ve come to suck up water and marine life samples. As a race they communicate via touching. From the samples they can tell we’ve been polluting our ocean but they really, really, like it. However, their DAMAGED REGENT COMMUNICATION TOWER is unable to unfurl properly, making phoning home difficult.

Samantha works in the Navel Robotics lab overseeing a marine, Mick, and the rehabilitation of his new bionic legs. She’s his physical therapist and to test his legs they hike to a sweeping vista over looking Pearl Harbor.

The Regents block all forms of communication with a jamming device that also creates a giant wall of water and inclement weather (dark clouds and lightning) to surround Hawaii, creating an impenetrable barrier. With the radar dead, Hopper’s destroyer, the John Paul Jones (not named after Lead Zeppelin), makes visual contact with the Regent ship and attempts to hail it, then attempt to board it, but is rebuffed.

Three monstrous regent war ships (STINGERS) rise from the depths. An EMT burst kills Hopper’s ship, now a floating paper weight. A Stinger battleship JUMPS in the air and lands between American ships.

The U.S. Navy engages in frantic action to get into battle ready condition. The US aircraft carrier shoots a warning across the Regent’s bow. The Regent ships return fire with PEGS that rip through the aircraft carrier. Americans exalt when it “misses” and are distraught when it “hits.” They are over matched however by alien technology and jumping boats. The aircraft carrier is breached; STONE’S Destroyer is destroyed. Hopper watches, his silent rage escalating with the death of his beloved adopted brother. Hopper is now in charge.

Alien vs Navy sortie and battle. Aliens launch flying SHREDDERS that attack Oahu, destroying active targets but not killing innocent bystanders. From the top of the mountain Sam can see the Shredders recreate the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Regent Air Transport lands at the top of the mountain and begins constructing a new communications satellite RIGHT NEXT TO MICK AND SAM! Regent Foot Soldiers are called THUGS and they have a LAND COMMANDER. We see “Thug Vision” which lets us know if a target is “green” (safe) or “red” (a threat to destroy). Everyone agrees it’s not the Chinese (really).

The Navy fishes out an alien from the water (from a crashed Shredder). Hopper touches it; thereby transmitting it’s thoughts (cause that’s how they communicate) and sees a glimpse of their waterless world they come from and the coming onslaught. The regent is alive (of course it is) and other thugs come to rescue him (no man left behind). There is hand to hand combat on the ship with our supporting cast. Hopper and Nagata join forces, the Japanese and Americans work side by side to get the John Paul Jones working again. They fire some torpedoes, essentially guessing the Stinger’s location, where they again, shout, “hit” and “miss” this time with more enthusiasm and I quote “Holy S**t! Hit! Big Hit!” and “Hit! Sink! Big Hit! Big Sink!” End of Act II.

There is more aquatic posturing that “escalates” the action and tense moments for sailors as Stingers and Navel ships trade blows, maneuvering, counter maneuvering and the sinking of battleships both regent and domestic ensues. The third act culminates in the final show down between the Regent Flagship and the US Navy. Somehow Sam and Mick are able to single handedly deal with the issue of the communications tower. While the US Navy gets it’s back against the wall, how could it not succeed against an advanced race of aliens that has traveled across space and time to get to the sunny shores of Oahu?

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

General:

Battleship is a CGI laden albatross of an idea that should have been aborted long ago. The script is quite literally a retelling of Pearl Harbor where the Japanese are our best friends and ally against the invading alien Regents. The pace is flat and suspenseless and it’s filled with lazy, uninventive writing that lacks any form of narrative ambition. This is a totally joyless exercise that paints with the broadest strokes imaginable.

Act I

The first act is a bid of mystery to me. Why take the time to show a back story of children growing up together if there’s no conflict or sense of history between them later in the movie? Seems like there should be a wealth of drama between these 3 people that could be exploited, but never is. Was there ever a love triangle? How did their love blossom? Was it strained or love at first sight?

Why bother making Alex adopted? What’s the point of this exactly? There are so many places you can go with brothers and they chose go nowhere with them. You make one of them a hot head and the other a cool customer? Where’s the conflict in that? It’s much better if they’re competing against each other, driving each other. I’d rather they be locked in constant conflict or Batman and Robin fighting side by side, than a generic wonder bread family. They kill off the brother far too soon (in act two) to make it meaningful anyways.

Act I is obviously a hat tip to a future movie with a “strange cloud” that causes a crash where nobody is hurt and the boy comes out unscathed. The assumption is that Hopper’s father has been abducted and that it will play out in a sequel. Instead of planning for the future they should be building a solid foundation in the first movie that isn’t here.

We could very easily just cut out the beginning of the movie and pick it up modern day, on the beach in Hawaii, watching Hopper surf his way into danger and feign love towards Sam. Their whole relationship is founded on a couple looks, kisses and a convenient pregnancy anyways.

Act II

Stupidest Aliens Since Signs:

It’s going to be hard to top the aliens that die if they get water on them, but the Regents are sure going to try. For all their advanced technology they’re still no match of an antiquated US Navy and ultimately destroyed by the most ridiculous turn of events. If their boats can “jump” in the air then I don’t see how any torpedoes can work on them. They’ve just flown through space and yet their space craft has no form of protection from our guns and ammo. They’re certainly not as menacing as the Independence Day aliens, as they were able to destroy much more than Hong Kong. The Regents never threaten the world at large again. Though superior in number and strength, they can’t even manage to defeat Brooklyn Decker (Sam) and a marine with bionic legs on top of an isolated mountain.

The alien “threat” is never threatening. What happened to global conflict going on outside of Hawaii? The Chinese are mobilizing, the Russians are menacing and everybody is blaming the US. Where is the President in all of this? What is our military doing? You’d think they’d at least try to send some aircraft over the storm or a submarine under it to help out their stranded battleships. They should at least ATTEMPT to circumvent this obstacle instead of waiting for it to pass. Shouldn’t the stakes go up in the second act with the threat of a world war breaking out? We would never know, because they never address it.

Act III

While all may seem lost to our navel officers it never really is. We have no character arcs to complete and our saving grace is a piece of American Naval History. Act III is as perfunctory as it gets. The only goal it succeeds in is posturing the ending for a sequel. Why invest 200 million in a property like this without the guarantee of multiple films? Each film in a series should stand on it’s own and it’s obvious they wanted to gloss over the details and didn’t want to put in the effort to make the characters and story interesting. Instead they invested in pixel pushers to wow audiences with the alien technology. A typical sleight of hand for a studio that wants to play games, not make real movies.

Characterization:

Isn’t the Navy supposed to build character? Well not on a battleship it would seem. All we’re given is assorted archetypal characters that are introduced, followed, saved or left for dead. Not a single secondary character has any type of back story or arc. They’re just random officers that I could care less about. If they have any personal issues, we’re never aware of them. If they have an emotional center, we’re never showed how they get to it. Characters are supposed to make choices and face consequences. War is a time for moral ambiguity and people showing their true nature. Moral choices are what define character and here we are left with hollow shells. Examples:

Rihanna: Plays Weapons officer Raikes: “No stranger to Mayhem, she’s got an Acerbic tongue, tats and has been pumping iron since her high school prom.” And yet I wish I knew more about her. She’s the most unlikely weapons officer around and speaks laughably comedic dialogue without a touch of her ‘acerbic’ wit. She has no goals or motivation, she has no past or future, she’s only able to say Mahalo and shoot an alien.

Brooklyn Decker: Plays Sam, the physical therapist, the admiral’s daughter that’s in love with a bad boy navel officer whom she’s trying to tame with passive threats. She helps the marine with bionic legs defeat the enemy THUGS and destroy the Regent Communication Tower atop a peak in Hawaii…….while pregnant. Her best line is when she asks if the aliens are Chinese.

When things get nasty, it’s the officers and enlisted men that are supposed to step up their game and answer the call. Where are the every day heroes in this script, the role models to look up to? The cook that saves a life, the medic that tries in vain…where are these moments, these great HUMAN moments, that exist in moments of great tragedy? They don’t exist and by this movie’s example, they especially don’t exist in the Navy.

What this story is missing is the human element. It’s missing the sacrifice, the determination of heroes on a battlefield. This should have been a Navy recruitment movie, about CHARACTER, but instead it’s about Aliens. This is inherent to the adaptation of a game that has no characters, no heroes, no villains and no conflict and a lazy studio that wanted to develop it accordingly.

The adaptation itself begs the question: Why?

Why bother? Why choose this game, that has no story, no plot, no characters, no visual correlatives, pictures, medallions or baubles? Why bother licensing the game at all? Hasbro essentially sold Universal a noun they’ve trademarked. The plot and story were conjured up in thin air and requires no loyalty to the game itself. Why pay for the privilege of making a Battleship movie when you could have just put any title on the cover page? Brand awareness? The brand itself isn’t very compelling, quite a boring game to be honest. This flick is entirely dependant of the visual wizardry they conjure up. Why does Universal think we want to see this? What insight or intelligence am I missing here?

Conclusion:

I really wanted this to have the sentimentality of Top Gun and overt characterizations of Star Trek, but on water. The opportunities are there. Space is the ocean, the John Paul Jones is perhaps the Enterprise, and the aliens could be as menacing as any of the numerous aliens they may encounter. Hopper is even described as “Kirk-Like” but he certainly doesn’t warrant the analogy. Take a look at what Star Trek did to establish it’s characters and give them context. There’s stuff going on all over the place, between main and supporting characters, villains and vice-a-versa. While we’re familiar with Star Trek characters, the reboot still managed to re-familiarize us with them and show them as people capable of independent action and the wherewithal to succeed against all odds. They were (fairly) well defined. We’re rooting for Kirk, we’re smiling at him and in love with him for his brazen recklessness. Hopper is the anti-Kirk, and the story is detrimental as a result.

Of all the generic summer tropes to choose from, Universal chose to sample the worst elements they could find (2012, Deep Impact, Pearl Harbor, Independence Day). They went the route where you pour money into special effects and draw attention to your mastery of pushing pixels not the mastery of story telling.

With an idea like Battleship you can construct anything around it. What they should have done, like you do when you start any tale, is define your characters, find a hero and build from it a solid foundation and franchise.

Does it Matter?

At 200 million plus, without any well known stars and drivel for plot and character, I find it hard to believe it can turn a profit. I would have said the same about the below films as well, and I would have been very, very, wrong. Ultimately it’s up to America. If this is released on Memorial or Independence Day (and seriously why WOULDN’T it be) I can sense a good amount of patriotic rebel rousing to get people in their seats. I can only hope, however, that there is a valid alternative.

Deep Impact: $314 million worldwide gross
Pearl Harbor: $449 million worldwide gross
2012: $769 million worldwide gross
Independence Day: $817 million worldwide gross

Genre: Science Fiction
Writer: Dante Harper
Details: 4/1/10 – first draft – 118 pages

About: Warner Bros paid low-7 figures against a purchase price near $3 million for a Dante Harper-scripted adaptation of All You Need is Kill, a Japanese novel by Hiroshi Sakurazaka. Warner’s execs Jon Berg and production president Greg Silverman moved preemptively for the property and made a deal with an aggressive progress to production clause that will likely get the film before the cameras within 12 months. This was a big sale in April and at 3 million a record price for the year.

Related Viewing: Starship Troopers, Groundhog Day, District 9, Full Metal Jacket, Doom.

Synopsis: We start “in medias res” on a United Defense force drop shop. These soldiers wear futuristic exo-jackets and acrylic like faceplates. We meet PVT BILLY CAGE and PVT YONABURU and other kids heading into certain death. These “soldiers” are no older than 20. They’re afraid, they’re nervous and they don’t want to jump out of a plane.

In a visual splendor the drop ships take fire, careening out of the sky as the kids fall out the back and hit the beach in “The Battle of Ruby Tuesday!” A Saving Private Ryan like storming of the beach ensues. Mass confusion, explosions and lot’s of shaky hand held camera most likely follows.

The kids are surprised to be alive, awkwardly move in their exo-jackets towards a large trench, where they await the onslaught of the enemy horde. A soldier is speared by a “projectile javelin” that is “other worldly” and “bio-mechanical’” in nature. The MIMIC HORDE swarms the trench; a glistening Bio-Mass of insect like creatures (Starship Troopers anyone?) lays waste to lots of people.

As all seems lost, DOG COMPANY SOLDIERS led by SERGEANT MAJOR RITA VRATASKI (AKA THE FULL METAL BITCH) spring into action. They’ve been to battle many times, their exo-jackets dented and splashed with graffiti. Rita is a God like entity that wields a large TUNGSTEN CARBIDE BATTLE AXE and she shreds the Mimics like a girl possessed, a natural killing machine with grace and skill unmatched on the battlefield. She is, at most, 23 years old.

As Rita fights, CAGE runs in the other direction, screaming like the child he is. Yonaburu chases after him. They run into a group of MIMIC scouts that send Javelins into both of them. Cage goes down fighting, but bleeds out. He wakes up later, a Mimic standing over him. Cage fires on this “special rainbow colored” Mimic, his bullets well placed between the Mimic’s amour, “SILVER BLACK TENDRILS” drizzle onto Cage’s exposed body at 600 degrees, it’s a horrible death. (12 pages in)

In a rush we’re in the barracks, Cage sits up in bed SCREAMING and everyone in the barracks wonders what the hell is going on. Cage is confused. That was one vivid nightmare, right? Cage finds himself the day before the battle, the morning before the night liquor raid and sluggishly going through an ordinary day as an infantryman. Each detail here is important because the audience is going to see this day play out over and over again.

SGT. Farell barges into the barracks catching everyone off guard. He gives everyone a hard time, playing the role Stephen Lang championed in Avatar and R. Lee Ermey championed in Full Metal Jacket. He’s a big hard on for protocol and this group of slackers is in for a world of s**t. It’s obstacle course time for them.

In the midst of the obstacle course Cage can’t shake his déjà vu. Cage tells Yonaburu that he knew everything that was going to happen and everything that Farell was going to say. Yonaburu is skeptical but Cage proceeds to list off everything that’s going to happen on the obstacle course before it does so, this is more than coincidence. Cage does not predict The Full Metal B***h showing up, we see her in plain cloths, a small delicate girl unlike the Amazonian killing machine we know her to be. Cage is in awe/love with her (how can he NOT be).

We’re in “battle readiness debriefing theater,” the calm before the storm. We finally see some STAKES (never really enough btw) and realize the Mimics have swarmed most of the known world and the upcoming Battle of Ruby Tuesday is really the WORLD’s last stand. Sgt Farell offers “in jacket training” that none of the kids want, they’re too busy planning a liquor raid, to get faded the night before battle. They succeed in getting wasted later.

Everybody gets ready for battle in the morning, CAGE is strapped with as much ammo as he can carry, we relive the Battle of Ruby Tuesday a second time, with the gift of hindsight. Everything is exactly as before, except the weather has changed. It will ALWAYS change. There are more Mimics than the last time, they seem to have LEARNED something. Cage saves Yonaburu, but get’s a 90mm round blown through his chest, immediately followed by Yonaburu’s head being blown off. End Scene.

And we’re back in the Barracks as CAGE wakes up in a cold sweat screaming, everybody staring, same as before. Cage goes a little nutty this time round, tries to explain this LOOP he’s in to medics and the sergeant. They think he’s section 8. Cage runs away, going AWOL towards the beach. A old man and girl are there, a MIMC AQUA SCOUT emerges from the water and kills them all.

Wake up again in the morning. He’s crying, but not out loud. Get’s up as normal, grabs a gun, and blows his head off. Wakes up again the morning. Leaves silently. Writes a “5” on the back of his hand and as he tracks his many lives. We go to the Holovid Library to get some much needed back story on the Mimics and the battle. Several pages of exposition in “Why we fight” style news reels and back-story on Rita. She’s really good because “she plays lots of video games.”

With every new life, Cage begins to learn and ask questions. He takes SGT FARELL up on his offer to teach “in jacket” fighting. Cage gets better. Cage begins to use his knowledge to affect the outcome of events. Cage gets better at sparring and more fearless in battle, dying each time but taking more and more mimics with him. Cage begins to play battle games, seeing how far he can go before dying. After intense fight training, Cage wants to know how Rita is so fast. Sgt Farell obliges by modifying his fighting suit, taking it off “auto balance” and allowing his mobility to equal that of Rita’s. He now has 187 on the back of his hand, that’s how many times he’s died.

Cage barters for a BATTLE AX. This is round 203 now. Cage is in battle and it’s no hold bard. Everybody is amazed at his grace and skill as he takes off the head of a 30 ft Mega Reever. Everybody cheers as this stage of the battle is finally clear. He dies at 4:19 each time however, never quite making it to 4:20 (insert joke here).

Cage with a 214 on his hand now. He’s pissed that he “times out” before finishing his mission. This time Cage get’s really drunk. Does some crazy stuff, stops caring about his task and goes through the motions. He CLEAVES mimics every where he goes, but there is no longer emotion in him. Rita joins him in a fight. Back to back they fight, a perfect team of Mimic destruction. Rita finally asks, “How many loops is this for you?” At which point a Mega Reever shows up as the clock turns 4:20, game over.

On the 329th time Cage figures this little game out. He finds a way to get back to Rita, to ask her questions and gets some answers. But Rita does not recall their conversation nor does she experience the same loop that Cage does. She did of course, but found a way out of the loop, after 411 cycles.

I’m not going to ruin the the 3rd act here or give away the ending. The 3rd act consists of Rita helping Cage and their love interest blossoming. There are many more “loops” for Cage but his purpose is now falling for Rita in addition to figuring a way out of the loop. In many respects he’d rather stay in the loop to be with Rita. The “rainbow colored Mimic” plays a crucial role and does Rita herself. In the end Cage is what you would expect him to be towards the end of a video game, after leveling up many times and having explored the battle field time and time again in this Sci-Fi RPG adventure. The “answer” to the narrative puzzle leaves much to be desired and the personal STAKES for Cage are always low. He get’s to go again if he fails.

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General Comments: The 3 million dollar spec script? Really?

First of all, I’d like to say there’s nothing inherently wrong with this script. It boils down to style and taste. It’s well written, at 118 pages it’s not too long, it’s filled with eye popping action, violence, special effects and it screams to be filmed and released in 3D (Thanks WB!). There’s a highly quotable “mentor” character in Sgt Farell that acts much like a Morpheus to Neo in The Matrix or the aforementioned Colonel Miles Quaritch from Avatar. This character, tough as nails, speaks in a philosophical prose that feeds the current military industrial complex. So this script is, in many ways, everything Hollywood is clamoring for. It’s based on source material (a heavily illustrated Novel) that’s grounded in anime/manga roots and acts as a vehicle for protagonists in their early 20’s. The fact that many elements, locations and events are repeated, will certainly help keep costs in check as well (less sets to build, repeating visual effects). And finally, the whole narrative mimics (pun!) a video game and as such, represents a potential franchise.

It’s the age old Hollywood battle between style and substance, the former at the expense of the latter, which seems par for the course in today’s market place. WB would like you to think that “All you need is Kill” but, personally, I need a plot with purpose and actual character development in addition to all the “kill.”

Analysis

Story: The Video Game Dilemma

This is NOT a video game adaptation but it’s sure as hell written like one. We go to battle, we die, we get to start over, we get better strategy and better in battle. We get farther and farther each time until we beat the level of the Battle of Ruby Tuesday.

I’m not a huge gamer but I did my fare share of RPG games. This script could easily be a Starcraft adaptation with the Mimic’s just being the Zerg Swarm. There’s really nothing more to the story than that: it’s a rambling episodic narrative puzzle that fails to relate (as a human interest story) to the characters. The point of the story is not the arc of the character but the violent destruction of it’s faceless, insect like antagonist and the constant “leveling up” of the main character into a well oiled fighting machine. There is certainly pleasure in playing that person in a game, but how much pleasure is there in watching it? Without that first hand involvement it has a boring and repetitive tonality to it that begins to get old around page 50.

The pitfalls of video game adaptations are in the shallow depth of character and overly simplistic plot. The “fun” is derived from the endless game play and multitudes of options that exist in exploring the “world” of the game and killing as many Mimics as possible in as many imaginative ways as possible. I’m not invested in the character when I’m not playing the game. The story of ‘All you need is Kill’ is just that, and lacks the sense of discovery you get while navigating the world for yourself.

The “narrative puzzle” that I mentioned earlier comes in the form of a temporal loop plot device that fails to deliver the requisite “understanding” as to why he’s stuck in the loop in the first place and doesn’t seem to learn anything about himself in the process. The whole story lives by this “narrative puzzle” and as such also dies by it.

Plot: The “Groundhog’s Day” Dilemma

This script utilizes the time loop narrative made popular in Groundhog Day. There are several other spec scripts from last year that did the same thing. The Days Before by Chad St. John and Ben Ripley’s Source Code (currently in production) are 2 such examples. Both were worthy of Black List mentions. There are others as well , Shadow 17 comes to mind. Ironically, WB has the rights to 2 of the 3.

A time loop or temporal loop is a common plot device dating back to Greek mythology. This situation resembles the mythological punishment of Sisyphus, condemned to repeatedly push a stone uphill only to have it roll back down once he reached the top, and Prometheus, condemned to have his liver torn out and eaten by an eagle each morning. The plot is advanced by having one or more central characters retain their memory or become aware of the loop through déjà vu. Stories with time loops commonly center on correcting past mistakes or on getting a character to recognize some key truth; thus allowing them to escape from the loop. That last point is crucial to the device (and missing from this story).

Groundhog Day is considered a tale of self-improvement that emphasizes the need to look inside oneself and realize that satisfaction in life comes from benefiting the lives of others rather than the selfishness of one’s own wants and desires. The phrase also has become a shorthand illustration for the concept of spiritual transcendence. Buddhists see such themes of selflessness and rebirth as a reflection of their spiritual messages. This concept plays out in Hindu faith as a form of reincarnation and also, in the Catholic tradition, seen as a representation of Purgatory. Groundhog Day found great success as an existentialist comedy in large part to Bill Murray as an actor and in large part to the message it gave.

This applies to All You Need is Kill because that final message of spiritual transcendence and self-improvement is somewhat misplaced. The only form of self-improvement Cage makes is how to become a better and more efficient killing machine. Only when you have nothing can you truly succeed as a soldier, only when you no longer care about life and risk everything can you succeed in overcoming the limitations of the self in war. This script reinforces the fight to win mentality of the military at all costs and offers no form of self-discovery or purpose in the end. There is no “key truth” to speak of.

The plot “thickens” here and there but essentially, All You Need is Kill utilizes this plot device to no end. This is why we find the ending so hollow and bereft of meaning. Once we’re clued in to WHY Cage is caught in the Loop, it doesn’t really make any sense. We just accept it as a ‘Fait Accompli’ that needs no logical explanation.

Post Script: The “tone” of this movie will be very, very important. The filmmakers and studios have the task of distancing themselves from Starship Troopers, which is quite similar in a lot of ways. Cage is the young Johnny Rico of the future!

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me

[X] worth the read

[ ] impressive

[ ] genius

Christmas in Chicago.

JACK PEARCE walks his German shepherd. As he’s crossing the street, a BMW comes around the corner and hits him. The man goes sprawling. Just as the onlookers rush to help, the BMW reverses and runs him over, breaking his leg.

MT. SINAI MEDICAL CENTER – overcrowded and understaffed. We meet DR. CLAIRE HASKINS – 30.

ELLIE FISHER – 30 – working her residency.

We learn about the Hanson case – there’s a review hearing. Something went wrong. Ellie has been called in for questioning. Claire was the treating physician.

DANIELLE PEARCE – 30′s – very pregnant – delivery due date is actually tomorrow. Her father is Jack Pearce. He’s here in this hospital and is Ellie’s patient.

Claire talks to her patient ALAN FOSTER – 60′s. He may have meningitis. He’s grumpy, wants to go home. Claire won’t release him. He states he was a cop for 37 years where they either charged them with a crime or turned them loose.

We meet WALTER – 60′s – security cop. He should’ve retired long ago.

We meet DR. PATRICE WATKINS – Chief of Medicine. She tells Claire not to worry about the Review Hearing. She states Claire did everything by the book. That just might be Claire’s problem though. She’s too by-the-book. Patrice tells her to learn to trust her instincts more. Sometimes the book needs to be thrown out.

Claire goes to a greasy spoon to have dinner with her father, ALDEN HASKINS – attorney. Alden’s reading the paper. We learn that Jack Pearce is a District Judge.

Claire’s on call at the Federal Prison. Alden doesn’t like the fact that his daughter has to treat hardened criminals. Claire does it to help pay off her student loans. Alden gets a text about a motorcycle he’s interested in buying and leaves.

We meet ERIK – late 20′s. Collapses at the counter. Claire gives assistance. Erik had a concussion two weeks ago and suffers from dizzy spells.

Claire has Erik join her in her booth so she can keep an eye on him while eating her dinner. They hit it off.

Erik’s demeanor abruptly changes. He states Claire will have a patient tonight at the Federal Prison. She will do exactly what Erik tells her. Erik then shows her his cellphone which has a photo of her now captured father. If she refuses, Erik will have her father killed.

They get into the BMW that ran over Jack Pearce. Erik states Claire will do a series of jobs for him. Routine, simple jobs that Claire does everyday.

Her patient is CLAUDE BARSTOW – he’s showing signs of appendicitis. Claire is to get Barstow transferred to the I.C.U. at Mt. Sinai.

Claire goes inside the Federal Prison. To ensure that she does not ask the police for help, Erik has pinned a small mic and camera to her coat. He sees and hears everything she does.

The Warden is apprehensive about releasing Barstow. Barstow is a high-risk prisoner. He’s escaped from prison twice before. Killed a fellow prisoner with his bare hands. Claire tells him this is a medical emergency – if Barstow isn’t operated on immediately, he’ll be dead in a couple of hours. That seals the deal.

Erik and Claire drive back to Mt. Sinai. Erik has a fake Doctor’s I.D. badge. He states Claire’s next job is to get Barstow out of prep and into a private room.

They go to get him transferred and find out Barstow’s already been taken into surgery. They quickly rush to E.R. Just as Barstow’s about to be cut open, he has an allergic reaction to the anesthesia.

Claire gets him stabilized. Barstow is taken out of surgery to be monitored in I.C.U. Close call.

We learn that Erik is Barstow’s son.

Patrice appears and wants Barstow treated as soon as possible and sent back to prison. Claire tells her she needs to monitor him for a couple of hours before she can proceed with the surgery.

Claire and Erik check on Barstow in his room. TWO BEEFY SECURITY GUARDS stand there.

Barstow kills one guard with a scalpel and Erik kills the other, choking him to death with a wire garrote. Erik then uncuffs his father. Freedom. Erik then makes a call.

We see ZEKE and SCULLY, two thugs dressed as Security Guards get off the elevator and head to I.C.U.

They provide Barstow with a set of scrubs and weapons.

Erik takes Claire down to the cafeteria to eat. Claire learns this isn’t about freeing Barstow. This is about revenge. We learn that Erik’s mother was gunned by a cop who turns out to be the patient Foster. And the Judge who exonerated Foster was Jack Pearce. Barstow and Erik are going to kill both men tonight.

Barstow, dressed as a doctor, walks into Foster’s room. Foster knows he’s about to die. Tries to plead for his life. Says it was all a mistake. Barstow chokes Foster to death.

With nothing else to do, Claire reads Barstow’s chart. Learns Barstow is going to die soon. He has a malignant tumor. Inoperable. He has nothing left to lose.

Patrice learns that Foster shouldn’t have been admitted to Mt. Sinai. The admitting Doctor was threatened by people. They had pictures of his family.

The hospital goes on alert. They find Foster dead in his bed. Claire examines him. Finds his eyes pink from burst blood vessels – realizes instantly that he was murdered. Patrice sees this as well.

Unable to stand it any longer, Claire rushes to Barstow’s room with Patrice in tow. She states Barstow is the murderer. When they get to the room, they find Barstow there, handcuffed to his bed. The two fake security guards – Zeke and Sully – stand watch.

Patrice orders Claire to go home. Erik stops Claire from leaving. Shows her his phone which shows her father getting beaten. Erik needs one more job done. He just needs to know which room Jack Pearce is in.

Claire takes Erik to the MRI room. She turns on the machine and locks Erik inside. Because Erik has buckshot in his body, the MRI wrecks havoc upon him. We can actually see the metal moving under his skin.

Claire takes Erik’s phone and dials the number. She tells them it’s over and to release her father.

Zeke answers. Realizes it’s Claire. Now Barstow knows something’s gone wrong. He leaves his room with Zeke and Sully in tow, searching for Jack Pearce.

Erik manages to get out of the MRI room. He searches for Claire.

Claire calls the Head of Security and states Jack Pearce is in immediate danger.

Barstow starts to tear the hospital apart as the search for Jack Pearce continues. Walter, the old security guard, appears, shooting Sully. Barstow shoots Walter in the head, killing him.

Barstow grabs Patrice. He then tells a Nurse, Patrice is going to die unless the Nurse tells him which room Jack Pearce is in. The Nurse tells him the room number.

Barstow enters Pearce’s room and is about to shoot Pearce when Claire enters with the defibrillator paddles. She hits him with the juice, knocking him clear across the room.

Claire now has Barstow’s gun. Barstow gets up and walks towards her. Just as she’s about to shoot him, a SWAT Unit bursts into the room.

Barstow jumps out the room, falling six floors to his death.

The SWAT Leader, CULLEN quickly assesses the situation. Claire tells him about Erik. Cullen is on the radio giving a physical description of Erik to his Unit.

That’s when Erik grabs Claire, holding his gun to her head, taking her hostage.

Erik gets Claire upstairs to the roof where a helicopter, piloting by Zeke, is waiting. Zeke refuses to leave without Sully. Erik shoots him dead and takes over the helicopter.

Claire’s father is inside the chopper.

Erik’s been shot. He tells Claire to fix him up as they fly away to safety.

Claire then learns her father was the third target. He was an assistant D.A, looking to make a name for himself by taking down Barstow.

Claire cleans the wound and injects him with a painkiller and a steroid.

Erik starts to feel better. Claire, gripping her surgical scissors, tells Erik to land the chopper now. She states she’s injected him with a sedative. It’s about to kick in now.

Erik has piloted them over an abandoned waterfront industrial park. There’s docks and an escape boat waiting for him.

Erik fights to stay conscious while landing the copter. He doesn’t make it. He loses control and the chopper kicks off the docks and hits the water.

Everyone inside is thrown about as water starts to stream inside.

Claire manages to cut her father loose as the copter rapidly fills with water. Just as she’s about to swim for safety though, Erik reaches out and grabs ahold of her.

Claire struggles against Erik as the helicopter sinks deeper and deeper. Finally, Erik’s lungs fill with water and he lets go.

Claire swims to safety. The police and paramedics are there. Her father’s fine. Claire’s saved the day.

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C’mon. Really?

This is a connect-the-dot, paint-by-numbers script. The plot twists are so run-of-the-mill that you see them coming miles before they reach you. So what should be tense, suspense-filled sequences instead become mundane, ho-hum scenes that play like a bad episode of CSI: LAS VEGAS.

And please! Being held hostage and forced to follow orders for 50 pages does not constitute character development! What makes a thriller great is great characters. Look at the difference between “SILENCE OF THE LAMBS” and “RED EYE.” One is an Academy Award winner while the other is strictly B-Movie material. Why? The characters are memorable instead of instantly forgettable.

The opening is preposterous. The Judge is run over by a car so he can land in a hospital so he can be killed later on. Why didn’t they just run him over and kill him then???

The backstory about Claire’s mother dying of cancer is a groaner and has no emotional impact whatsoever.

The final twist of having Claire’s father be partially responsible for the murder of Barstow’s wife actually makes me want him to die. You know your script is in trouble when your reader starts rooting for the villains.

Another draft is called for. Claire’s character has to be strengthened. It’s ironic that her character flaw is she’s too by-the-book – turns out, script holds the same flaw.

We open in Al-Basrah, Iraq. Ten MASKED GUNMEN lead by KHALED hijack two oil tankers. COLE DAUGHTRY – Army Staff Sergeant and his crew come to the rescue working with the Iraqi police.

Cole thwarts the hijacking and arrests Khaled. Fearing incarceration, Khaled tries to make a deal with Cole. Khaled knows where there’s 180 tons of oil worth more than $100 million dollars. It’s aboard a rusty cargo ship named EL DORADO. He shows Cole a photo of the ship. Khaled will give Cole El Dorado’s location in exchange for his freedom.

Cole gets the location from Khaled and then promptly turns Khaled over to the Iraqi Police. Khaled is livid; he thought they had a deal. Khaled swears he’ll kill Cole for this betrayal.

We CUT TO: Galveston, Texas

Cole’s there with his buddies ZANE, RANDY and EMMETT. No need distinguishing these three friends – the script doesn’t bother to. Just know, the economy has turned bad in Galveston and everyone here has lost their jobs.

Cole tells them about the El Dorado. He explains the Navy impounded the ship at Al-Basrah where it’s sitting, waiting to be sold off for scrap metal. The Navy doesn’t realize what the ship holds and the players that Saddam sold the oil to can’t get the ship because the Navy has possession of it.

It’s a foolproof plan and just like that, these four fools are off to steal the El Dorado. That ship is the answer to all their prayers.

Cole buys illegal official-looking documents that will release the ship to him. Cole and his buddies then load up with weaponry and head off to Iraq.

In Iraq, the boys go to a nightclub in search of YURI PETROV, a Russian oil dealer that knows the black market. Cole tells Yuri he has 180 tons of oil he needs to unload. Yuri is interested and states he’ll make some calls.

Meanwhile, it just so happens, Khaled is in the nightclub as well. Khaled was tortured by the Iraqi police before he escaped so you can imagine how pissed he is when he spots Cole. Khaled rounds up his men and points Cole out. Revenge will be his.

Yuri calls OMAR MAKGABO on Cole’s behalf. Makgabo is a ruthless Somalian pirate. The oil actually belongs to Makgabo. Makgabo tells Yuri to kill the Americans at once. However, Yuri is wise. He has a plan. Yuri states Makgabo cannot get the ship out of the Naval impound. Why not let the Americans steal the El Dorado and bring it directly to Makgabo? Makgabo’s oil is safely returned and then Makgabo can have the pleasure of killing the Americans.

Makgabo agrees.

Yuri tells Cole they have a deal, provided Cole can get the ship to Somalia. Cole agrees.

The guys go back to their hotel room. Khaled and a group of gunmen ambush them. The guys barely escape with their lives. Khaled gives chase. Before Khaled can kill Cole, Khaled is captured by Yuri. Yuri has to protect the Americans to get Makgabo’s oil back. Yuri kills Khaled.

Cole and his buddies go to the impound, sweating bullets as their papers are inspected. Everything looks proper and before you know it, Cole is sailing the El Dorado onto the seas, headed for Somalia. They are about to become instant millionaires. Life is grand!

Yuri calls NASSIR, a pirate. He tells Nassir to capture the four Americans and to take control of the El Dorado. Everything is to brought back to Makgabo.

We CUT TO: THE U.S.S.HALSEY – an American destroyer. Their job is to locate and destroy pirates.

The Captain of the U.S.S. Halsey learns that Nassir is after the El Dorado. They pull the file on the El Dorado and learn that Cole has stolen the ship out of the Naval impound and is on its way to Makgabo.

We learn the Navy wants Makgabo bad. They decide to allow Nassir to take the El Dorado. They will then follow Nassir to Makgabo and arrest everyone at once.

Back aboard the El Dorado, Cole and his buddies are living it up. Their dreams are about to come true.

Instead, Nassir’s men attack on speedboats. 15 pirates against 4 Americans. Cole and his group are outgunned. They can’t hold the El Dorado. Cole sizes up the situation, telling them their only chance is to grab one of the speedboats and escape.

Nassir’s men quickly gain control of the El Dorado.

Only Cole is able to reach the speedboat. The rest of his crew is captured by Nassir’s pirates.

Nassir then strafes the speedboat with gunfire, setting in aflame.

Cole’s men watch helplessly as the speedboat blows up. They’re taken prisoner. Nassir and his pirates set sail to deliver the ship to Makgabo. Nassir phones Makgabo and states he will be in Somalia in fifteen hours. Cole’s men are taken below deck in chains.

Meanwhile, Cole breaks the surface of the ocean. Looks around. The El Dorado is long gone. Cole manages to get to the remaining speedboat. He checks the boat’s GPS and finds it’s linked to the pirate’s cove where the pirates go to refuel. With no other choice, Cole heads for the cove.

The U.S.S. Halsey has silently observed the whole proceedings. The Captain sends a seahawk chopper to tail Cole’s speedboat.

Cole attacks the pirate’s cove with a vengeance. He desperately needs to know where the El Dorado’s been taken to. The pirates overwhelm Cole and are ready to kill him when the Marines land, bringing Hell with them. Huge firefight ensues. The Marine arrest everyone and bring Cole back to the U.S.S. Halsey.

The Captain has a talk with Cole. States his mission is to find Makgabo and eliminate his organization. Cole needs to rescue his friends. The Captain states that’s not his concern. With no other choice, Cole tells the Captain about the 180 tons of oil aboard the El Dorado.

The Captain briefs his crew. Makgabo has stolen over a billion dollars in ships and cargo and has over 500 trained fighters ready to defend him. He’s looked upon as a modern day Robin Hood.

The Captain states an amphibian team plus Cole will capture Makgabo and bring the El Dorado back to the U.S.S. Halsey.

Meanwhile, Nassir delivers the El Dorado to Makgabo. Makgabo boards the El Dorado. He’s going to torture the three Americans.

Cole and the Marines arrive. Makgabo and Nassir flee. Cole quickly frees his friends. Everybody then goes after Makgabo.

There’s too many pirates though. Our guys are the Marines are outmanned. That’s when the Seahawk chopper flies in, laying down gunfire. They have Makgabo and the pirates outflanked.

Nassir and his men lower their weapons in surrender.

Makgabo can’t believe it. He raises his gun to fire. The chopper blasts him into a thousand pieces.

All’s well that ends well. The Navy has the El Dorado back in possession and the threat of Makgabo has been eliminated. The Captain tells Cole’s group no charges will be filed.

Our guys are relieved yet, all of their money problems remain. That’s when a representative from Tri-Com Oil steps forth. Tri-Com is the oil’s proper owner and the rep states Cole and his group are entitled to a reward – twenty percent of the recovery. A cool $36 million bucks.

Our guys have been through Hell but they’re coming out winners.

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Okay, big question: WHO IS GOING TO GO SEE THIS?????? For an action movie, the action is strictly connect-the-dots. There’s not one action sequence in the entire script that’s memorable so the die-hard action crowd will sour on the film.

There really isn’t any kind of love interest to be found so that cuts off your female audience.

The film is R-Rated so that eliminates the 18-yr-and-under crowd.

It’s not based on an existing property so there’s not a built-in audience.

Most of the film is set in Iraq which has been box-office poison.

Really. I defy anyone to tell me how this script can possibly be a success at the box office. I don’t care if there’s quality writing to be found within its pages because, unlike a novel, a screenplay is not meant to be read, it’s meant to be seen. Very important distinction. The end-goal of a screenplay is to be made into a movie.

Lots of luck getting this one made.

About: Universal purchased David Guggenheim’s spec SAFE HOUSE for $600k against $900k, winning out against two other movie studios in a bidding war. He’s the brother of two other Hollywood players and would seem he’s making his own name for himself. He just sold PUZZLE PALACE to Summit for similar money and also has another project with McG titled, MEDALLION. Universal nabbed the spec after a multi-studio bidding war. Scott Stuber (THE WOLFMAN) will produce.

Genre: Espionage-Action-Thriller
Writer: David Guggenheim
Details: 117 pages (undated)
Reader: Matthew Klekner

Related Viewing: WANTED, SPY GAMES, MIDNIGHT RUN, EAGLE EYE, 3 DAYS OF THE CONDOR, ENEMY OF THE STATE, 16 BLOCKS.

Synopsis: We open on a bedroom and see MATT WESTON (an eager 25 year old) waking up in the best way imaginable – by making love to a 23 year old Brazilian Beauty (ANA). He’s got to go to work; she doesn’t want him to. She figures out a way to get him to stay a little bit longer and most people can relate to the situation (minus the Brazilian). They’ve been together 6 months and they are in the prime of their lives.

We see Matt go to work in the slum of Rio De Janeiro. On the way he calls his family back home: Mom is terminally sick, they need more money for her treatment and everybody wishes he’d come visit.

Matt arrives at a run down building, filled with run down people and uses a special key to enter a magical room: sound proofed, no windows, bare walls and floors, bottled water, red bull and packets of blood in the fridge. This is his ‘Safe House.’

Matt is an underling for the CIA, the lowest field position available. He’s a “housekeeper” who manages the place and makes sure it’s in order when CIA operatives come calling. We see him call into his “Landlord” to see if there are any bookings: No new company to speak of.

Matt works out, assembles his pistol and calls his recruiter BARLOW to chat about an intel paper he wrote. Matt is striving to be something other than a housekeeper but no opportunity has presented itself. Barlow reminds him of his place in the pecking order: at the bottom.

At a strip club on the other side of town is TOBIN FROST, a 55 year old ex-CIA field officer. He’s now a free agent but was one of the best (A Legend). He’s a great foil for Matt. He’s there to see MILAN MAXIM a 33 year old Serbian to buy some intel with some dirty names on it (you find that out a little later). Across the street a shady, ex-paramilitary – EMILE VARGAS waits to shoot Frost upon leaving the building. Frost inject himself with what will later be revealed to be the intel and pays a man to walk out the front door with the briefcase. As soon as he does, his head explodes.

Bullets fly, foot chase ensues into public, more bullets fly, Frost is shot, put between a tree and a hard place. Vargas has him pinned. Just a few blocks away is the American Embassy. Frost makes a dash for safety. Upon getting inside, facial recognition software picks him up with a match and Frost is brought into custody. The Americans send Frost over to Matt’s safe house with an interrogation team. End of Act 1.

The interrogation team wants information from Frost. In the only way it knows how, the CIA tries to electro shock it out of him. Matt is uncomfortable with this but his eyes are about to open even wider. The lights shut off and mercenaries compromise the Safe House. Everyone inside is killed, except for Matt, who escapes with Frost, through a hatch in the floor. Matt has a backpack with money, passports and gun and he throws Frost into the trunk of a Yugo. Frost breaks out of the trunk and attacks Matt with a seatbelt. They crash.

Matt hot wires another vehicle, handcuff’s Frost in the passenger seat and calls BARLOW. Barlow will hook him up with a key, let’s Matt know the CIA wants him to come in. Matt drags Frost to a soccer stadium next to pick up the key to the next “Safe House” (Why would the CIA put the key THERE of all places?) Frost escapes, Matt is captured by local police. We find out that Matt is now a wanted terror suspect. Matt breaks free, finds Frost and continues onward with Frost in tow. The CIA sends in a couple “freelancers” to take both of them out and Vargas has not stopped chasing them either. Frost tries to escape every opportunity he’s given but Frost and Matt are in a dog fight for their lives as they try to make it to the second Safe House several hours drive away. Frost is impressed with Matt’s resolve and Matt is secretly looking for Frost’s affirmation.

Money has been deposited into Matt’s account. He’s being set up by someone on the inside, someone that knows where the Safe Houses are and all the players involved. As we move from one action set piece to another, the banter between Frost and Matt centers on how wet behind the ears Matt is. This is his first rodeo and it shows. Frost argues with Matt on how idealistic he is, how the world of espionage isn’t cut and dry and how Matt needs to look at the bigger game going on, a game that he is just a pawn in. This begins to sink in over time. Frost might very well be cynical, but in many ways he’s also right. Matt has convictions and he sticks to them. That’s an admirable trait.

The 2nd act consists of action and more action. There’s nothing wrong with that but it does seem a little tedious. There are lots of great guns and hand to hand fighting, lot’s of carnage and stuff blowing up as well. Frost escapes and Matt follows in several trivial ways. Obviously action descriptions are very dependent on how it’s filmed, which allows a director to bring his own touch and feel to the movie. This could be either good or bad, just depends on the ability of the director. Is it Tony Scott or is it James McTeigue?

As the two of them make their way into the final act there a couple twists to find out who is pulling the strings. CIA operatives from Langley fly over night and the question remains: Are they friend or foe? The 3rd act begins when everyone reaches the 2nd Safe House and people’s loyalties are made known. It’s not very surprising however when it all does finally shake down and Matt’s choice in the end seems suspect to me. I was hoping for more of a ‘Mission Impossible’ (the 1st one) style ending that never comes.

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The point of this story is the character arc of Matt. He starts out naive and a perfect “Company Man,” but as the training wheels come off, we see him grow into a much more aware operative and realistic of both his employers and his job choices. His character is perfect for Hollywood which is clamoring for more roles for actors in their early 20’s. The role doesn’t require him to act much either, which is a bonus for the exact same reason. However his arc never comes to it’s fruition due to the very lame ‘cop out’ in the end. * SPOILER* Matt spends the whole movie proving he can be an agent and then….walks away in the end.

The secondary and supporting characters need a little work. This can come through added dialogue as well as character traits to flesh out their mannerisms. Vargas is a perfect example. While he isn’t the *true* villain in the story, he should represent a much purer evil and ruthlessness. He’s reduced to being a rogue element used to suddenly show up and complicate action. That’s OK, but it does diminish his potential a bit.

Frost’s character as well left me a little under satisfied. His dialogue is great but his actions do not prove to me that he is the badass he once was. Sure he can handle a weapon, but his “escapes” from Matt do not verge on the “Bond Like” person he should be. This man is supposed to be a legend but the script never treats him like one, especially when being held captive by a kid. I also feel like Frost represents a missed opportunity to teach and instruct Matt along the way. More information should be imparted to Matt, the tricks of the trade that can only come in the form of real world espionage experience. Matt knows all the stuff in the manual. What he lacks is the resourcefulness of what’s not. He KINDA gets that though.

Matt wrote his thesis paper on Frost. This comes into play only ONCE and it should come into play more. Matt wrote a SECOND paper on Key Surveillance Threats. It’s planted early but never pays off and it should. Matt can take apart and put together a pistol in 30 seconds. This also does not pay off.

The relationship between Frost and Matt should also resolve around WHY Frost turned into a rogue agent. Everyone makes Frost out to be a bad guy. We ultimately realize he’s not and I personally want to know what the straw was that broke the camel’s back. This should be a revelation for Matt. Matt thinks he knows everything about this man, only more proof of how naïve he is. This relationship needs to go both ways and Matt needs to impart or impress Frost enough to justify the events of the 3rd act when Frost saves his butt. Frost needs to get something or learn something about himself through Matt, if nothing more than redemption. Even secondary characters need an arc.

I also would’ve liked a few more twists before the final act. Specifically the issue of WHO is behind the scenes in the CIA. The script does a bait and switch over this, but the payoff is very easy to figure out. By the time we hit the 3rd act climax we already know who it is. We should find this info out at the very last minute, at the same moment our main character finds out. There’s no reason to show your hand to the audience. All in all, however, ‘Safe House’ is a pretty safe bet.

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me

[X] worth the read

[ ] impressive

[ ] genius

So why did it sell? – These aforementioned issues are easily addressed and are by no means deal breakers. The script is still fast-paced – balls to the wall action. There are several of these types of scripts making the rounds. ABDUCTION sold for a million with a similar but different take on how to turn a 20 year old into a future action star (Tayler Lautner.) It’s now going into production with John Singleton at the helm. This script is better than that, just without the star attachment.

The best thing to take away from reading this script is how lean and mean it is. The action isn’t wasted or bogged down by overly wordy exposition. Guggenheim is not a verbose writer. This is to his credit. Descriptions do not sell scripts (especially action scripts) characters, plot and structure do. This script is a fast read for fast action that has developed characters, raising stakes and complications that affect plot. There’s a clearly defined goal and moral choices along the way. It also helps that it’s a great vehicle for a burgeoning Hollywood stud and an aging Hollywood action hero coming in from the pastures. Given a good director and charismatic casting, this one could easily start a franchise.

About: McCarthy is that rare working actor, director, and screenwriter. He was nominated for the Best Original Screenplay Oscar for his work on Pixar’s UP. McCarthy also directed the indies THE STATION AGENT and THE VISITOR, the latter of which got Richard Jenkins a Best Actor Oscar nomination. McCarthy also starred in the final season of HBO’s THE WIRE, playing that overambitious Sun reporter who wins the Pulitzer by fabricating information for his stories. WIN WIN is set up at Fox Searchlight, set to star McCarthy, Amy Ryan and Paul Giamatti. It’s being produced by Mary Jane Skalski and Giamatti’s old SIDEWAYS producer, Michael London, and starts shooting in April.

Writer: Tom McCarthy
Details: 127 pages (10/22/09 draft)

We open in a typical suburban New Jersey home, in what would seem a typical American family. We see ABBY, an idiosyncratic 6 year old wander into her father’s room. MIKE FLAHERTY lays in bed next to his sleeping wife JACKIE. He’s already awake. Would appear he’s got things on his mind. The family wakes up and engages in good dialogue. We meet his other daughter STELLA.

Mike is a Lawyer at his own firm that specializes in Geriatric (old people) clients. From the get go the script makes comedy out of children and old people (rightfully so).

Mike has lot’s of problems. His client base is dwindling, his firm isn’t making much money and an ANCIENT HOT WATER BOILER is on it’s last legs. It could blow at any time. There is no money to replace it. It makes loud noises throughout multiple scenes (clever device).

We meet TERRY DELFINO – Mike’s best friend, confidant and former buddy on the high school wrestling team, the same rag tag team that Mike now coaches. Terry is going through a separation with his wife, who’s sleeping with the contractor. Terry is crass, loveable and very funny on the page (Giamatti will nail this role). As they work out together Mike drops to a knee, breaths heavily and requires medical attention. What’s going on? The stress is catching up with him: His firm may go under, he must provide for his family AND we find out that JACKIE IS PREGNANT. End of Act 1.

Act 2 begins with a plan that Mike sets into motion. He’s becomes a legal guardian for one of his wealthy 85 year old clients and in exchange he get a $1,500 a month custodial fee. This old man is LEO DROBNIK. Mike cannot find Leo’s daughter who is listed as the only member of Leo’s family. Mike gets custody and puts him straight into a convalescent home.

As Mike pulls into Leo’s old house (to turn off the water) we see a 16 year old boy, with a black eye, smoking a cigarette on the stoop. This is KYLE, Leo’s grandson. He’s from Ohio and he’s here to stay.

Kyle’s mother, Leo’s daughter and rightful guardian, is in rehab in Ohio. She’s got 5 weeks to go on a court ordered rehab. She’s not a great mother and Kyle doesn’t want to talk about it. Mike and Jackie have no choice but to take care of Kyle. Jackie isn’t happy with Mike and Mike isn’t happy cause he has another mouth to feed. Kyle bonds with Leo and becomes concerned for him. Kyle becomes a member of the family. Mike and Kyle lay a foundation of trust. A family dynamic is created.

So it turns out the Kyle knows how to wrestle. Not only does he know how, but he finished second in the state as a freshman. This makes Mike and new assistant coach Terry very very happy. Mike enrolls Kyle at the school. Kyle plays for the team. Wrestling turns Kyle’s life around. He begins to smile, work out and have a positive effect on the team. When Kyle wrestles for the first time we see a ton of tattoos on his back. He’s such a cool bad boy. There is an interesting teammate STEMLER who seems to have Aspergers or some other form of comedic retardation.

The second act get’s bogged down here with lots and lots of wrestling. The plot shift to ‘wrestling centric’ and as you can surmise, the wrestling team starts to win and gets closer and closer to a championship. Kyle’s surrogate family supports him and they’re one big happy family. More wrestling!

Suddenly CINDY shows up, Kyle’s Mom is out of rehab. She wants Kyle and Leo and all of Leo’s money to go back to Ohio with her. She jeopardizes the wrestling matches and the teams shot at State. Her presence has an adverse effect on Kyle who turns rebellious, threatening the dichotomy of the family and the well being of everyone involved. Mike’s stress level goes back up and the third act then plays out in a fairly un-original fashion to restore balance.

The 3rd act is not nearly as rewarding or uplifting as it should be, nor is it insightful or symbolic. This really wants to be “Blind Side” for the indie crowd but it’s not even close to that (which is sad).

I gotta say the first 60 pages are great. The characters jump off the page and scenes are constructed very well towards a comedic payout. Through the first 60 pages I thought I was reading the next ‘Little Miss Sunshine.’ It’s filled with cute and quirky moments with great character introductions. There is a swearing child and old people to make fun of. There are several ‘laugh out loud’ moments that are just damn good writing. The stakes in the first act continue to rise into the second and the plot continues to complicate and then……

Wrestling happens. Lot’s of it. All that Act 1 goodness goes away. We’re not in ‘Little Miss Sunshine’ any more. We’re watching high school boys wrestle in montage form as we see glimpses of ‘Life as a House’ meets ‘Hoosiers.’ This is not a compliment. All the great secondary characters and tension fall by the wayside and I’m not exactly sure why. The second act is a failure as the stakes fall and complications disappear. There is a complete lack of conflict going on here until Cindy shows up.

The first act does such a good job of introducing sub-plots and complications into Mike’s life and the rest of the movie does a good job of forgetting them. McCarthy does a good job making me understand and feel for the plight of upper middle class Mike. Everybody can understand his struggles in raising a family. But in the end this struggle and these sub-plots are all abandoned. The issue of Terry and his wife are no longer an issue. Jackie’s pregnancy doesn’t develop into an issue. Mike’s Law Firm is no longer an issue. We never see any other clients or concern about cash. The story only focuses on Kyle and Greco Roman Wrestling.

Even if I were to believe that Kyle was some how a wrestling prodigy it does little help to the story. He makes such easy work of his competition and faces no obstacles in his way. The tropes and conventions of a sports movie should apply here and they are left out. There is no tension with Kyle as the new guy on the team, there is no tension with Kyle as the new guy in the school. There is no tension between Kyle and Mike as a coach because there is nothing Mike can teach the kid that he doesn’t already know.

Leo as a character is under developed and under utilized for comedic effect. Leo is set up to have some real zingers, like that old guy in “S**t my dad says,” but he never develops as such. He’s simply waiting in his convalescent hospital for visitors. This is a missed opportunity. When Mike “adopts” Leo he needs to complicate things more than he does to simplify them.

After a great setup, everything in ‘Win Win’ is a ‘Lose Lose.’

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[X] wasn’t for me

[ ] worth the read

[ ] impressive

[ ] genius

What I learned:
There is much to appreciate in the early parts of this script. His scene construction is certainly one of them. There is great comedy in the repetition of words and phrases by different people and at different times. Having kids swear and making fun of old people is funny. If that’s part of your set up, you should really continue it throughout the script. McCarthy does a great job planting early but not such a good job of paying off in the end. A perfect example of this is the Hot Water Boiler that should act as a ticking time bomb. It plays well early on, is largely forgotten, and then makes cursory appearance in the end as if to justify its existence in the first place (which it doesn’t do). Bottom line is don’t let your plot be bogged down by a single element (wrestling) at the expense of the sub plots that give depth to secondary characters (Terry, Leo, The law firm). If you start a sub-plot make sure you develop it and bring it to an end. I’m surprised I had to say that about such a professional writer.

JIM SEAVER, 30′s. Corporate finance director of OMNICORP. He’s gotten the nickname “Seaver the Cleaver” because he slashes and burns companies to boost Omnicorp’s bottom line.

Everything’s going for Jim. He’s rich, has a gorgeous fiancee (PENNY) and obtains all the perks life has to offer.

In his office, we watch Jim on the phone, shutting down a factory in Mars, Pennsylvania. He could care less about the workers there.

After an expensive lunch, Jim and his Boss (TED) go back to Omnicorp only to find it being raided by the FBI. The Chief Operations Officer is led away in handcuffs. Mortified, Ted hurriedly begins burning discs and files. The company is going down in flames.

Jim is quickly convicted on one count of Fraud and two counts of Conspiracy. Jim is sentenced to restitution which effectively wipes out all his net worth. He is then ordered to hold down a minimum wage job for an entire year. Worse, he has to find work in Mars, Pennsylvania.

The U.S. Marshals take away all of Jim’s possessions. Worse, Penny leaves Jim. She can’t be with someone who’s broke.

Jim settles down in Mars, Pennsylvania. He meets with SGT. JONES who gives Jim a new identity – JAMAL JEFFERSON. The Sgt explains that if this town realizes he was Seaver the Cleaver, they’d murder him.

Jim finds a dingy motel to stay in and is promptly robbed and beat up.

Jim requires stitches. While at the hospital, he meets DR. JEN. She patches Jim up. There’s a spark here. Jim is charged $2,486 for this ER visit.

Jim takes up resident with LOU and MARYLOU. They live in a double-wide trailer. They let Jim stay in their shed.

Jim accidentally causes the shed to blow up.

Lou and Marylou let Jim bunk with their 11-yr old son HANK.

Jim tries to find a job. Works at an espresso bar, hardware store, donut shop. He can’t handle any of them. He finally finds work at Flippy’s burgers. He’s hired by HELEN, 50′s – tough biker chick. Jim realizes Mars is full of losers.

Jim accidentally causes a fire at Flippy’s and has to return to the hospital. We learn that Dr. Jen is actually a nurse. She’s going to leave for medical school. Jim asks Dr. Jen out but gets turned down.

Jim doesn’t have the $1.35 needed to ride the bus back home.

Jim gets his first Flippy’s paycheck – $278.42 for two weeks of work. Jim quickly calculates that after rent, bus fare and living expenses, he’ll actually owe $2,186 at the end of the year.

Jim learns that all of his co-workers at Flippy’s used to work at the factory that Jim shut down. Jim also learns that all of his co-workers now hold multiple jobs to make ends meet.

Jim learns that Lou and Marylou live in this trailer because they lost their jobs as well.

Jim sees Dr. Jen at the grocery store and asks her out again. She relents and they set up a date to go to the movies on friday. She warns him though that it’s not a date and that she is not looking for a relationship whatsoever.

Jim is excited but depressed at the same time since he can’t afford to take Dr. Jen anywhere.

Jim sells blood and receives $30.

Instead of going to the movies, Dr. Jen has Jim climb up the water tower so they can see the view of the Allegheny Valley. It’s actually beautiful. Jim realizes there’s a lot more to this town that he thought.

Jim learns that Dr. Jen’s father also worked for the factory but when he got laid off, he got real sick. Dr. Jen stayed in town to take care of him. He passed away and even though Dr. Jen wants to move on, this town needs her medical services badly. She’s all they’ve got. Dr. Jen blames Omnicorp for Mars’ problems.

Jim doesn’t understand Dr. Jen’s plight. He says you have to think of yourself sometimes. Dr. Jen doesn’t understand that viewpoint. She’s a self-less person.

Jim realizes that Dr. Jen will hate him if he reveals who he really is so he lies, stating he’s in Food Industry Consultant.

Jim takes a second job at a warehouse.

Jim and Dr. Jen spend more time together. She confronts him one night about how he never reveals anything about himself. He won’t give her his phone number or take her back to his place. Jim could tell her the truth but knows it’ll ruin whatever chance he has with her so he lies. He states he was on the fast track but decided to take a year off and get in touch with what’s real.

Dr. Jen likes that.

Jim’s working the Flippy’s drive-in counter when Jen pulls up. She’s shocked to see Jim working here. She drives off, angry.

Desperate to apologize, Jim places a whole bunch of flowers up on the watertower spelling out the words “I’M SORRY.” He then pleads with Jen to give him another chance. She’s touched by his act and relents.

Jim brings Dr. Jen to the trailer for dinner. They kiss and Jim starts to realize that even though he’s flat broke, he’s never been happier in life. Mars is looking better and better.

Jim learns that Lou and Marylou didn’t always live in a trailer. They once had a house that’s now in foreclosure.

Jim takes a third job bagging groceries.

Jim’s old boss Ted comes to Flippy’s. Jim can’t believe it’s him. Ted only had to do nine months on a two-yr sentence. Ted comes bearing good news. He’s gotten Jim a job at Pharmatek. As soon as he’s done paying off his debt to society, Jim’s old life is waiting.

Dr. Jen finds Jim’s engagement ring to Penny. She’s blown away. Thinking it’s for her, Dr. Jen states she’s not ready to get married but when Jim leaves Mars at the end of the year, she’s willing to go with him. She’s been stuck in a holding pattern and she’s now ready to move on with her life.

It’s Christmas. Jim settles in the trailer with all his new friends. Jen’s there. After dinner, Jim tells her the whole truth. How he worked for Omnicorp. How he’s been sentenced to do a year here. He explains he never expected to meet her and that she would change his entire life.

Dr. Jen can’t believe it. Jim is Seaver the Cleaver. She is outraged and rushes out. Everyone turns their backs on him.

Jim has nowhere to go. Helen takes him in, revealing she lives in a storage unit. She says after she lost her job at the factory, her husband got sick and all the bills piled up. She’s been living in this storage unit ever since. Jim realizes the results of his actions.

Everyone in town now knows Jim’s secret. They want nothing to do with him at all. He loses all his jobs and his friends.

The year is up. A limo arrives for Jim. A suit is hanging inside the vehicle. Jim just wants to get the hell out of Mars and go back to doing what he does best. Pharmatek awaits.

At Pharmatek, during his first meeting, Jim learns that Pharmatek needs a factory to start producing generic drugs. China is suggested. As is Bangladesh. Jim sees his opportunity and takes his shot: he proposes Mars, Pennsylvania. He states the factory already exists and there’s a willing workforce. GRIMSHAW, the head of Pharmatek is intrigued. He tells Jim to make this work or he’s fired.

Jim rushes back to Mars and gathers the whole town. They’re leery of him. He tells them they have 24 hours to repurpose the factory and prove to Pharmatek that they can manufacture their latest drug.

The town takes a vote. They’re in. Everybody’s on the same page now. They are going to make this happen.

That’s when they realize they have a huge problem. The main belt on the machine is broken. They don’t have much time left and it’ll cost big bucks to fix. Jim takes his engagement ring over to the pawn shop. He’s going to risk everything he has to get this done.

Grimshaw and Ted are on their way to inspect the factory. Jim and the town have to put the pedal to the metal now.

Grimshaw is happy. He’ll give the contract to them on one condition: they all have to work for minimum wage. Grimshaw knows beggars can’t be choosers.

The town is devastated. Still, at least it’s work. They are willing to agree…until Jim tells Grimshaw no deal.

Grimshaw laughs at Jim. Jim then pulls out his ace in the hole. He has other companies lined up in need of a factory.

Jim gets a serious bidding war going. He gets insurance, vacations, benefits and raises for the town. Everyone’s happy.

Jim takes Lou and Marylou to their foreclosed house. There’s a “sold” sign out front. Lou and Marylou are sad. Jim then hands over the keys. He’s bought the house back for them. It’s a selfless act. Jim has grown from this experience and become a better person.

Jim and Dr. Jen get back together and kiss ontop of the watertower.

**************************************************************************

Okay, the script can open some doors but it’s not strong enough to close the deal. First things first. It’s supposed to be a comedy yet the laughs are thin here. The script is crying out for more visual humor, more funny lines, more comedic situations.

Take Jim’s plight for example. THE DANGER NEEDS TO BUILD. The comedy should come out of his situation growing worse and more dire. Instead, Jim’s situation has a start-stop effect in this draft. A problem crops up and is then quickly resolved.

Jim needs to get a job – Jim quickly finds a job.

Jim can’t afford to take Dr. Jen out on a date – Jim quickly sells blood and collects the cash to go on a date.

See where I’m going here? The danger never escalates thus, the tension doesn’t build. The writers need to continually elevate the conflict which will strengthen the comedic aspects.

Next, the script needs more “heart.” Take “THE PROPOSAL.” That could’ve easily been a standard run-of-the-mill chick flick but what separated it from the pack was “heart.” It had strong emotional moments that really made you care for the characters and root for them. This script needs more emotional moments.

Do we really care for Jim? Does he have that defining humanizing moment where his situation becomes real for us? I think that’s definitely lacking in this draft.

Finally, strengthen the supporting characters. Make them stand out and then they’ll pay off better in the end. Make them quirkier, funnier. Give them defining scenes. We should be laughing at them. And then when we learn their past and the hardships they’ve faced, we’ll be hit with an “ohhhhhhhhh” moment and we’ll see them differently. Instead of laughing at them, we’ll be feeling for them. Do that and you will win over the audience every single time.

All in all, a good draft which is on the right path but a strong rewrite can make it an outstanding script.

The world is at war and staring down the barrel of a long nuclear winter with jobs, food and money all hard to come by. Fashion, with it’s obvious ostentation and sexual freedom, are frowned upon, even punished, and clothes are being torn from peoples bodies on the streets and burned for fear of radiation poisoning. With conscription about to be brought in society is crumbling and folk’ll do whatever it takes to get by.

DOLL, who everyone believes is a transvestite, works at a nightclub as a coat-check girl. It’s not much but it’s something and she’s good at her job because she doesn’t know where the next one will come from. JONNI is a dresser for CELESTINE the acknowledged world’s best fashion designer. He has a good job but he feels the designs are outdated, out of touch with the real world and with what’s happening on the street and while he’s there he works on his own designs and dreams of going it alone. Celestine is a recluse, believed to be hideously disfigured he hides himself away and conducts business using tarot cards and voicing instructions through MADAME D and MADAME S, the public faces of the fashion house.

One night Doll is working as usual and Jonni shows up, cocky and smart-mouthed, and verbally abuses Doll so she contrives to have him miss out on getting into the club. Later, while her back is turned, Jonni throws all the carefully organised coats on the floor, removes all the ticket stubs and in the resulting chaos Doll is fired from her job. Walking home she hears that Celestine is holding an open call for mannequins for his new fashion line. Doll goes for a job and during the audition a rap on the smoked glass overlooking the catwalk marks her out as chosen by Celestine himself. Doll is sent to get a new outfit by Madame S and Madame D where she again meets Jonni and again he abuses her so when his back is turned she high-tails out of the building wearing thousands of dollars worth of high-fashion gown hoping to get Jonni sacked in retaliation for for doing it to her. She doesn’t get very far before she is accosted by a picket-line of women protesting the whole fashion industry charade of waste and wealth and they beat her and tear the dress to pieces.

She is found by Jonni who is running through the streets desperate to find the dress and save his job. With the tattered garment barely covering her anymore, Jonni realises that Doll is, in fact, a girl but berates her about the state of the dress, the recriminations that Celestine will exact and how their lives could be in danger. Heedless of his warnings, Doll goes back to the fashion house and in a strange twist he makes her his principal model on a huge salary and benefits. Madame S, Madame D and Jonni are all aghast but Celestine rules with an iron fist so they have to obey. As Celestine’s new muse Doll spends more time with him although he always stays in the shadows, not showing his face. One day she plucks up the courage and asks to see his face and when he relents she realises that he is actually a beautiful man but she cannot tell him. She speaks to Madame S and Madame D and they tell her that his mother gave him doctored mirrors when he was young and he has grown up believing he is ugly but they – nor she – cannot tell him because this quest for beauty is what makes him the success he is. Thereafter Doll’s rise to fame is fast and relentless. She appears on magazines and billboards and her attitude slowly changes to match her new found status. She steals ideas from Jonni which leads to a huge fight and starts talking down to people trying to force their respect until she is picked up on it one day and decides to take a time out and visit her old home and the club where she worked.

While out she meets Jonni and agrees to take a tour of the old neighbourhood with him. he points out the vibrancy and sexual tension in the street fashions, telling her that Celestines layered, tailored, covered-up look of austerity is out-dated and needs to go and he is the man to change things. She argues with him, she has a new-found fondness for Celestine and doesn’t want things to change. She leaves Jonni and returns to the fashion house but finds Celestine in the last death throws of suicide. He has had enough of his gilded cage and his ugliness and he cannot think of another way out. He leaves the fashion house to Jonni, happy in the knowledge that Jonni will destroy Celestine’s legacy and create his own new era of open and free-thinking fashion. Madame S and Madame D contrive to have Jonni conscripted after the funeral and carry on as they were but Doll engineers his demob and he returns to take up his inheritance. His first fashion collection is a huge shock to the industry, ending in the kind of riot not seen since Celestine’s first show many years ago. Jonni and Doll go upstairs to celebrate, but when Jonni takes a look at himself in Celestine’s old mirror, echoes of the man Celestine became start to manifest themselves in Jonni.

I’m not sure where to start with this script, but basically it’s pretty dreadful. At 177 pages it’s a monster and given that it’s full of spelling and grammatical errors, it’s not formatted properly and it has pages and pages of camera direction and story notes – including a huge spoiler part way through – it must be a first draft, but I don’t think it could be rescued by any number of re-writes. Based very obviously on the old Beauty and the Beast fairytale and by all accounts from a story by Robert Boykin, an NYC nightclub impresario (apparently) and Malcolm McLaren, infamous manager of punk band the Sex Pistols, it’s a not very interesting idea that’s just poorly thought through and badly written. Now my understanding is that it was written sometime in the early 1980′s when Moore still thought that putting his ideas on the big screen might be a good idea and the project was instigated by McLaren who persuaded Moore to write the screenplay. Moore agreed, partly as a way of mastering the form, and partly because McLaren was a self-made man and Moore felt some kind of empathy with him, but this is not close to Moore’s best work and you have to wonder how much actually cam from him and how much came from that itinerant tinkerer, McLaren.

It does contain some Moore influence, most obviously the questions about identity, the use of masks, the the eulogising of youth culture and urban art and of course the threat of nuclear war and the fascist state but the 1980′s were a lot different to the world we live in now and, in all honesty, I can’t remember them being as bad as all that anyway. There are some nice touches, the reveal of the masculine ‘Beauty’ Doll as a woman rather than a transvestite man is a nice (albeit earlier) reversal on the Crying Game and the presentation of the Jonni as very feminine make the two opposites attract on several levels. Celestine as the reclusive ‘Beast’, driven to hide himself away by his mother who brainwashed him into believing he we too hideous to be seen by other humans, is not so convincing. His adherence to tarot (seen as inserts throughout the script) in running his empire and the use of only a single, distorting mirror doesn’t ring true for someone as supposedly in control as he is and in fact the use of his ‘hideousness’ would have been a better tool to enact tyranny over the workers. Of course that would ruin the reveal of his actual beauty but still, it’s too ‘clever clever’ to work.

I liked the idea of Celestine covering his models in more and more layers of clothing, restricting actual physical contact and repressing sexuality as a way of coping with his own perceived ugliness. There is a decent scene where Doll undresses in a totally unsexy way in front of him and then as he dresses her the gradual covering-up builds enormous sexual tension between them in a nice twist on the idea of the sex scene.

But it’s not enough. The backdrop of war, the threat of conscription and a nuclear winter are never fully realised and I can’t help thinking that Moore’s own obsession with these themes put them in there rather than any real need to drive the story. What he does do is present the fashion world in reasonably realistic terms with high gloss polish at the front and worker bees hidden at the back but the banner-waving political messages are like a hammer over the head and while you can skip over them in a comic book you can’t do that as easily with a screenplay which makes the reading very hard work indeed. Finally, it has to be said that while some visual flair could see this world work on the big screen, finding actors to bring it to life – or who would even want to – would be hard work, none of the players are particularly sympathetic and the work as a whole just lacks depth.

My rating?
[X] PASS
[ ] CONSIDER
[ ] RECOMMEND

I don’t know about you but lately it seems every other script I read has a time-travel plot. SOURCE CODE, THE DAYS BEFORE, YEAR 12.

And why not? I mean don’t we all stare at our miserable pathetic lives and wish every single day for a chance to go back in time to undo all the godforsaken choices we’ve made……….or is that just me???

Okay, so the scripts opens and we meet NICK QUINN, 30 and his pretty wife JULIA. They’re happily married and successful. Life is good.

Julia’s flying out on business today. Nick works at home in a converted garage.

Julia’s plane is hit by a Cessna. The crash is horrific.

Oblivious to the plane crash, Nick walks into his kitchen and finds Julia laying dead on the floor. She’s been shot in the head.

???????????

Now that’s what I call a hook! We see Julia’s plane explode in a crash and then we find her body laying dead on her kitchen floor. How can this be? This is how you capture your audience. No one knows what’s going on at this point. The audience is compelled to watch now.

Nick is questioned by TWO DETECTIVES – DANCE and SHANNON. They have the murder weapon – an antique gun found in Nick’s garage. They also have a 911 call from Julia. They arrest Nick for the murder of his wife and take him in for questioning. It’s 10pm.

An OLD MAN comes to see Nick. The Detectives assume this is Nick’s lawyer and give them privacy. This Old Man gives Nick a watch. If you push on the crown, it’ll send you an hour back in time.

The Detectives burst into the room and tackle Nick. Nick presses the crown and is sent back in time.

Nick looks around. The watch really works. Nick realizes he’s about to be arrested for murder by Dance and Shannon. The Detectives put Nick in the back of their car to take him in. (Why they don’t handcuff him is beyond me.) Nick presses the watch and is sent back in time.

Nick finds himself at home. It’s now 7pm. Julia’s alive. Nick kisses her over and over. There’s a knock at their front door. Nick realizes this is the killer. Nick grabs a weapon and heads over to the front door. Julia makes the 911 call.

However, there are two gunmen. While Nick’s at the front door, a gunshot goes off in the kitchen. Nick rushes back to find Julia dead. Blood pours out of her head.

The gunman wears a mask. He’s startled to see Nick and flees, carrying a red computer drive.

The gunmen get into a black van. Nick gives chase in his Audi, smashing into the van.

The masked gunman flees into a Best Buy. Nick tackles him. The gunman wears a St. Christopher’s medallion.

Before Nick can rip off the gunman’s mask, he disappears and finds himself an hour back in time – 6pm.

Nick calls Julia. She’s at a client’s building where a lot of artifacts have been robbed. Nick hurriedly drives over there. Asks Julia if she knows anyone that wears a St. Christopher’s medallion. She doesn’t.

Julia states her client SEAMUS HENNICOTT has been robbed. He collects antiques. Nick freezes. This is where the murder weapon – the antique gun – has come from.

Julia installed the security system in the building. A secondary system sends surveillance tapes directly to her hard drive at home. If there’s a break-in, Julia will receive a message.

This explains the plane crash. Julia was on the plane but received a message about the robbery. She got off the plane before it took off and immediately drove over to the Hennicott building. She then went home where she was murdered.

This also explains why she was murdered. The gunmen came to her house for the red computer drive which holds the incriminating evidence.

Nick realizes he’s got to get the computer drive to learn who the killers are. Julia tells Nick she’s pregnant just as Nick disappears and ends up an hour back in time – 5pm.

Nick’s at home. He quickly removes the red drive from Julia’s computer.

Nick then drives back to the Hennicott building, picks up Julia and states they have to scan the tapes immediately to learn who committed the robbery.

They go to Julia’s office and plug in the drive. The two gunmen are there along with a third man. Julia recognizes the third man. Before she can state who it is, she’s shot dead. The gunmen are here at Julia’s office. Enraged, Nick tackles a gunman but again disappears and finds himself back at home – 4pm.

This time Nick goes to his neighbor’s house – HANK. Hank knows people in the FBI. Nick gives Hank the license plate number of the black van. He needs to know who owns it.

Hank makes some calls. The FBI sends the info via fax. Just as the fax machine spits out the paper, it jams. Nick’s hour is almost up. He hurriedly fixes the machine and rips the fax out just as he disappears.

Nick finds himself in a grocery store – 3pm. He’s holding on the fax from the FBI.

Nick learns the man’s name is PAUL DREYFUS – Paul Dreyfus is the third man on the security tape – he’s head of Gold Standard Security. Nick googles him and learns that Dreyfus has just lost a government contract.

Nick calls Julia. Learns that Paul actually designed the security system for Seamus. It’s an inside job.

Nick goes to the police station and asks to speak to Detective Dance. Dance isn’t there though. Every available officer has been dispatched to the plane crash.

Nick disappears and reappears at 2pm – eating lunch. Nick rushes to the crash site. Shannon and Dance are there. So is the black van.

Dance is one of the gunmen. He gets Nick alone and weighs him down before dumping him into the river. Nick struggles but starts sinking to the bottom. Before he can run out of air, Nick disappears.

It’s 1pm. Nick drives back to the crash site and waits for the van to appear. We learn the second gunman is a man named BRINEHART. With the help of a security officer, Nick tries to get Dance and Brinehart arrested. Instead, Dance and Brinehart kill the security officer. Huge fight breaks out. Nick manages to shoot both Dance and Brinehart. They’re dead. Nick realizes he’s gotten the innocent security officer murdered.

Even though Dance and Brinehart are now dead, Nick cannot have innocent blood on his hands. He goes back in time to 12:00pm, searching for another way out of this mess.

Nick finds Julia and tells her she has to run. They have to escape this future. Nick manages to get her on a train to New York. She’s safe. He then throws the watch away in the trash. Whatever happens this time, he’ll have to live with it.

However Dance and Brinehart are at the train station. They stop Nick and question him about Julia.

A mad scramble ensues. Nick has to get the watch back. Dance tackles him. Nick sees Dance’s Saint Christopher’s medallion. The trash can is knocked over. Nick is able to grab the watch and disappear.

We see Julia on the plane, oblivious to the fact that it’s going to crash.

Dance, Brinehart and Dreyfus are at a Denny’s, firming up their plans.

Nick reappears at a Starbuck’s. It’s 11am. Nick goes to Detective Shannon and states Detective Dance is about to commit a robbery. Shannon believes Nick. Turns out Dance is in deep to the Armenian mafia – owing over $100,000.

Nick and Shannon drive to the soon-to-be robbery site. Dance is there. Shannon confronts Dance. Dance shoots Shannon dead and takes Nick hostage.

The robbery goes off as planned…only it’s been delayed due to Nick’s meddling. Dreyfus sees the backup security system. Realizes that Julia can implicate them all.

This time Julia doesn’t get the page in time. She’s still on the plane as it takes off.

The robbery now complete, Dreyfus takes off in a small Cessna – it’s his plane that’ll cause the crash. By trying to stop all this, Nick has caused Julia to remain on the plane.

Helpless, Nick watches as the Cessna crashes into Julia’s plane, killing her.

Nick disappears. It’s now 10am. He’s at the gym, running on a treadmill.

Nick finds Julia at the airport terminal and stops her from getting on the plane.

Nick then finds out Seamus Hennicott is the old man who’s given him the watch.

Nick, Julia and detective Shannon converge at Seamus Hennicott’s building. They stop the robbery.

This time Dance shoots Dreyfus, killing him. Shannon manages to kill Brinehart and wound Dance.

Dance tackles Nick and is about to kill him when the Armenian mafia show up, wanting their money from Dance. Nick has called them. The mafia take Dance away.

Julia and Nick kiss and embrace. Nick returns the watch to Seamus Hennicott and all the wrongs have now been righted.

Okay, the two greatest time-traveling films in my book are BACK TO THE FUTURE and THE TERMINATOR. What sets these two apart from anything else in the genre??? The characters. You have to feel for them. You have to get involved in their predicaments. You have to root for them. I’m sure if I say the names Marty McFly and Sarah Connor, every movie lover will immediately recognize them. Why? Because we’ve gotten EMOTIONALLY involved with them and their plights.

Sadly, this is not the case here. Why? No emotional involvement with the characters. I doubt anyone is going to recognize the names Nick and Julia Quinn a week after seeing this film. Their fates don’t entwine us. We don’t feel enough for them. When Nick saves Julia, the emotional payoff is minimal because the writers haven’t brought them to life. We’re simply not rooting for them like we did for Marty and Sarah.

Quick example. DEJA VU contains this very problem. Can anyone honestly name Paula Patton’s character from that film???

Without an emotional involvement, the audience is simply watching the heroes instead of rooting for them.

OPENING – we meet TYLER KIRKLAND, 35. Wakes up next to KRISTEN. They don’t know each other’s names. Just a casual one-night stand.

Tyler and Kristen look out the window of his apartment and we see New York City has been utterly destroyed a long time ago.

And that’s exactly how you grab your audience. WHAM! It’s startling. It’s sudden. It’s totally unexpected. Here, we’re thinking we might be in the beginning of a romantic comedy and BAM! The horror of the situation hits and we’re only on Page 3.

The beauty of the scene is, we still don’t know what’s going on. We just know we’re in the aftermath of an attack on NYC.

This is how a script should read. The story is ahead of the reader, making the pages compelling. Do you know how many scripts I’ve read where I’m way ahead of the story, making the pages a chore? Too many!

Okay, we’re onto the day. Tyler meets his friend DEXTER – we learn that everyone now works for meal cards and day passes.

They walk to work. Everyone wears the same outfit. There at a stoplight, a woman accidentally steps off the curb against a red light. The stop light fires an autocannon and the woman is immediately killed. Her body falls into the street. The other commuters ignore her and walk across the street when the light turns green.

And again, it’s shocking. What the heck is going on here? What has happened to our world? And we’re only on Page 5!

We then witness a worker stopped by AN INSPECTOR. These Inspectors wear hoods and stand watch over the commuters.

The worker is belligerent. He’s mad as hell and he’s not going to take it anymore. He pulls out a gun and shoots the Inspector.

The Inspector’s hood falls off and we see he’s inhuman. Immediately, drones fly out of a mothership that floats above them. The Inspector tears into the worker’s body and then dumps him in the river which is overflowing with dead bodies.

We realize here aliens have taken over the world. The surviving humans have submitted to their rule. We’re now just slave labor.

Tyler and Dexter ride the ferry. A dome forms over the ferry and it actually submerges. Underwater, we see the fallen Statue of Liberty laying on the ground floor.

Tyler and Dexter go to work, digging up the ocean floor, searching for uranium. They are monitored at all times by the aliens.

Talk about a hook! That’s Page 10. That’s my rule, people. If the script doesn’t hook me by the first ten pages, it’s going straight into the trash. I’d say 80% of the stuff that comes in fails at this. “YEAR 12″ succeeds……so far.

Okay, we see Tyler starts off each morning, watching various DVDs of his son Kevin. Kevin’s first day at school, Kevin at the school play, etc, etc.

Tyler goes to work the next day. We meet his neighbor MR. LUTZ. Mr. Lutz has a suitcase with him. He explains he has to report – he’s turned 65 today. We realize he’s going to be killed. Aliens have no use for anybody old. (THIS WAS AN INTERESTING SUBPLOT THAT UNFORTUNATELY IS NEVER MENTIONED AGAIN IN THE SCRIPT, MAKING ME WONDER WHAT’S THE POINT )

Tyler wakes up in his apartment and finds ANDREAS MIKRA and MALIK EVANS there. They’re terrorists. Malik killed 14 aliens two years ago.

They quickly tranquilize Tyler and take him outside in a bodybag. They take him underground where Kristen is waiting. She injects him with a fluid that brings him back to consciousness.

Tyler finds himself in an abandoned subway system. This is where the resistence’s headquarters are located. We meet MAYOR GADDEN, 50′s and ERWIN KANDEL, 60.

They are going to strike at the mothership – they need uranium. With it, they can blow the ships out of the sky. All they need is 11 ounces of uranium. They want Tyler to swallow it and they will extract it later.

We learn that Tyler was a soldier – he found in the war against these aliens – they need him to be a soldier again.

The next day at work, Tyler downs the necessary liquid uranium. However Dexter sees him and rats him out to the aliens. WHAT A DICK!

Tyler is dragged away. Happily, the aliens then kill Dexter and dump him into the water. It just never pays to snitch on your friends.

Tyler is taken to the United Nations building which is now just a holding pen for prisoners. (THIS IS A NICE TOUCH.) However, all is not lost. The terrorists strike the building with a rocket launcher. Malik and Kristen get Tyler to safely.

Safely underground, they start the process to extract the uranium…only they are attacked by the aliens. Explosions rock the tunnel, destroying the extraction machine. Mayor Gadden is killed.

Our resistence group flees with the aliens in hot pursuit.

The group makes it to Penn station which is deserted. Alien dogs attack them. The group shoots at the dogs and escape via a diesel locomotive.

They’re headed to the Westmoreland Airforce Base. The base contains nuclear weapons. With the uranium, they will be able to launch the nuclear weapons.

However, Tyler learns the group hasn’t had contact with Westmoreland Airforce Base in seven years. No one knows if there’s anyone even there. (HERE’S WHERE THE SCRIPT STOPS BEING OUT IN FRONT OF US. NO MORE SURPRISES ARE IN STORE FOR US, NO MORE STARTLING PLOT TWISTS THAT SHOCK US. EVEN THOUGH IT WON’T HAPPEN FOR ANOTHER 40 PAGES, WE KNOW THE AIRFORCE BASE WILL BE ACTIVE AND TYLER WILL SAVE THE DAY. THE SCRIPT NOW IS BECOMING INCREASINGLY A CONNECT-THE-DOTS-TYPE OF PLOT )

The aliens send alien lions after them. These things knock the train off the tracks, tipping it over.

Everyone is killed except Kristen and Tyler. They have to walk on foot now to their destination.

They’re attacked by refugees desperately in need of food and medical supplies. Tyler is forced to kill several refugees. This is a nice touch here. Here, in the face of complete alien occupation, we’re still willing to kill each other like savages.

Tyler leads them to his sister’s house. She’s died there long ago. Tyler buries her. The effects of the uranium are starting to take its toll. Tyler doesn’t have much longer to live.

Tyler and Kristen bunk up in this house. They make love. When Kristen awakes, Tyler is gone. Somebody else is here. Kristen is quickly snatched.

BEATRICE and WARREN HEWITT, 40′s – two daughters – they’re cannibals. They plan on eating the both of them……until Malik comes to the rescue. Turns out he didn’t die.

Tyler, Kristen and Malik are on the run again. This time alien lions attack. Tyler is badly injured. Fades in and out of consciousness as Malik and Kristen struggle to get him to safety.

Tyler has a fever dream. His son Kevin is there with his wife Samantha. Samantha tells him that everything’s okay and that he should go with Kristen. He wants to stay there with them. But the landscape changes and his son and wife are gone.

Tyler wakes up. Malik and Kristen are there. They’re only half-a-mile from the base. However, they’re out of ammo and it’s only a matter of time until the aliens track them down.

They make it to the base only to find everything’s been destroyed. There’s nobody there. Making matters worse, the alien warships rise up behind them, ready to deliver the deathblow.

That’s when missiles shoot out of the sky, obliterating the warships.

The ground opens up and we realize the base has gone underground. Soldiers quickly load them into a humvee and drive underground. They hurriedly get Tyler to an operating table.

The aliens begin to drill the ground, trying to find a way in.

They begin the extraction process. The aliens attack. The whole is base is on the verge of being destroyed.

The extraction is completed in time. The missiles are launched, bringing the mothership down.

It’s a joyous celebration. The humans now have the upper hand. Everybody cheers. Everyone except Tyler. He didn’t survive the extraction process. He dies.

We see the aliens are captured now.

Repairs are underway.

The Statue of Liberty is brought up from the ocean.

And the final scene shows Kristen at home, pregnant with Tyler’s child.

Okay, I don’t know about you guys but I’m finding this year’s Black List extremely lacking. What did you guys think about “YEAR 12?” Is this something you’d make? I mean if we’re going to make an alien invasion film, I’d definitely go with the far superior “THE DAYS BEFORE” before I’d film this.

Don’t get me wrong. “YEAR 12″ starts off like a house on fire. It’s worth an honorable mention just for its First Act. However, everything after that is run-of-the-mill. We’re definitely going to need more plot twists to keep us guessing and on the edge of our seats. The way Act II and III play out, the film becomes a bad television chase movie. Sure, the special effects might blow us away ala “AVATAR” but isn’t it time for the actual story to be the headliner instead of the supporting act?

Background: The script’s writers met while both attended Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Despite making the Black List, a list of ‘hot’ screenplays (not necessarily a best-of list), this film doesn’t look to be in any imminent danger of being produced. Although this project doesn’t have any recent news on it, the script was hot and the buzz had gotten the scribes work over at Warner Brothers. In August the scribes had been signed to pen an updated version of “Brewster’s Millions”, the 1902 novel had been last on screen in Richard Pryor’s 1985 take on it.

Script Review: Seriously? This script is a Black List script?

I guess it was more or less well written in terms of progression of action with fairly good character arcs and the inclusion of San Diego Comic Con would probably make this script hot in-and-of-itself, it’s a very clever the way that Comic Con fit into the story in this script, but for the most part this screenplay doesn’t really do it for me.

While I thought the tension was maintained and the stakes constantly rose for the lead character, Parker, I found myself bored at times during the long script and then I actually got offended at times with the extremely vulgar humor. There were also a ton of typos and grammatical errors to boot. So, I’m perplexed at this making the Black List.

I suppose it’s a bold script that probably would have some appeal if you’re a guy, which I’m not. I don’t know what audience the writers were writing for, but it doesn’t seem that I’m in it. Yes, I am a comic book fan and I love a good exciting story, and there were parts of this script that were very exciting. Both heists were well written and very suspenseful and I did love the comic-centric parts of the story. Although I’m not sure how a real comic fanboy would feel about this story.

It makes the comic book loving characters’ lives to be sad and pathetic. Parker, for example, spends a great deal of time thinking about (and talking crudely about) women and the fact that he’s yet to lose his virginity.

A good example of that type of conversation in this script is when Parker discusses his continuing virginity with his friend Larry, whom he just picked up from the airport. Larry went off to college and managed to get laid, which becomes a bit of a sore point for Parker:

I think that snippet speaks for itself about the level of humor in this script.

But this scene brings up one thing I had a problem with: a character’s quest to lose his virginity, along with the comic book based storyline, is probably the kind of story that teen boys would find appealing. Yet the extremely course language and sexual content would guarantee this movie an R rating, if filmed as is, so only 17 year old boys and older could see it. (Although, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a film with so much crude language…) It’s a confusing mix, to be honest.

The story sort of wanders around a bit, going off on different tangents, which is probably one reason it’s so long. I think most of the tangents were supposed to be for comedic effect since they have little point otherwise.

For example, the scene with Parker’s mother and sister seems to be only important because it is where we learn Parker’s college money had been spent on his skanky sister’s boob job. While I suppose it gives Parker’s character some context, why he hates living at home, why he never went to college like Larry, but it is useless information in terms of the main story and probably should be completely cut. It has no point, especially since we never see either Parker’s sister or mother again.

The joke is sort of funny, I guess. His sister is so trashy, and her mother so enabling of it at Parker’s expense, but it just wastes time. The first act is far too long anyway and that scene just delayed reaching the turning point, Parker’s decision to steal the first Superman comic, Action Comics #1, to try and bail his boss out of his financial problems.

Also the jokes dealing with Bosley’s fascination with the size of other men’s genitalia got a bit tired. I suppose it’s funny, especially the shock that the more virginal characters display…

For example, in this scene Parker comes back into his hotel room, where the others men are consuming the contents of the mini bar, to tell them that Lauren has decided to join them in his crazy plan to steal Action Comics Issue #1:

That’s funny, I laughed despite myself, but Bosley’s fascination with the size of other guy’s equipment isn’t exactly what I want to see happen in a film. It just seemed to come up too often and several scenes that dealt with this plot point were too long.

Then there is a problem with the length, probably a contributing factor is that a lot of the scenes with Parker’s nemesis, Terrance Watanabi, the head of the conglomerate that plans on tearing down the comic shop and putting up a condo complex, go on for far too long. I’m not sure they’re extraneous and should be cut entirely, but getting those scenes tightened and shortened would help keep the script from lagging. It’s many of those scenes that tended to bore me.

Though, I do like Terrance as the villain. He’s a despicable, money grubbing opportunist who only trades comics because they hold their value. He doesn’t prize them the way Parker and the other characters do. He’s a good foil for Parker who loves comics so much he wants to write for them.

Yet, there is a problem with that character: the other characters call Terrance ‘T-Wat’, a lame joke that is goes beyond being tasteless like some of the other jokes and goes into the realm of being offensive. That probably should be cut, although from how it’s spelled it might be intended to be pronounced like ‘Tee-Watt’, but still… Like a lot of the other humor, it’s not exactly PC and would be offensive to a great many people.

There is a lot of very crude humor, in scene after scene, the characters talk about women in terms of their genitalia or talk rather graphically about their own. I’m no prude, I like a good sexy movie as much as the next red-blooded American, but the way they had the characters talk about genitalia almost in every scene was just too much. It’s crude and just too over-the-top. It was a huge turnoff for me in terms of the writing. A little bit of stuff like this would have gone a long way, it’s just used too often.

Okay, again it’s probably funny to a comic geek, but would anyone else think so? Is it even necessary? I don’t think so. Would it turn off more people than it appealed to? Probably.

Added to all this, as a comic book fan, I can see some problems with the script in regards to the comic references in the script. Warner Brothers owns the feature film rights for DC Comics characters, like Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. DC Comics is actually a unit of Time Warner, so the depiction of Superman and Wonder Woman images would be problematic (if not impossible) for any other studio. As a spec script, that is very limiting to the writers’ potential market.

That would also mean that editing needs to be done to remove any reference to Marvel properties (Wolverine, Spider-Man) since the feature film rights to those franchises belong to Disney (thanks to their recent acquisition of Marvel Entertainment). There are a lot of references to Wolverine (Duke has that Wolverine tattoo and at one point even wields a pair of Wolverine’s claws to fend off Terrance’s thugs. Later, at Comic Con, a character holds a Spider-Man comic.)
Marvel and DC Comics companies don’t currently have a business relationship. They’ve also rarely worked together, so I doubt their corporate parents cooperating in a joint project like this would be likely. This no “Who Framed Roger Rabbit”.

Bottom Line: Without a good sense of potential audience, both in terms of who would want to see this and who would be willing to buy it, I think it’s far clearer why this Black List script is in no imminent danger of being produced. It’s like the scribes didn’t know who they were writing for. Is this a coming-of-age story with a strong comic book (a kid friendly) storyline? Or is this a far more adult coming-of-age R-rated comedy with raunchy jokes and heavy sexual content?
I’m not sure I’d say pass on this, the crude R-rated humor might be appealing to some demos, but the script is messy rights-wise. The typos and length are probably minor problems in comparison to that.
The idea is a solid one, if not completely well-implemented. I am a Superman fan and I have been to a couple of conventions, although not to Comic Con, so I like those aspects of the story immensely. The heists, both of them, were well written and exciting. This would have been a page turner if I hadn’t dreaded reading more vulgarity. If the language was cleaned up, the story was tightened up with a more comedy-friendly length (90 pages instead of 120), and the romance between Parker and Lauren was beefed up some, I think this could probably end up being a pretty good movie.

Fresh on the heels of “THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT,” “CLOVERFIELD” and “PARANORMAL ACTIVITY,” we get a look at “actual” tapes of demonic possession.

We open in Poland. FATHER ANTONIO, 50′s has traveled here to investigate a case. He brings with him FATHER MATT, African-American, 30′s. Father Matt videotapes the proceedings.

They are met at the airport by FATHER KARL JAWORSKI , Polish, 20′s. There is a demon here.

Father Matt and Father Antonio have come on behalf of the Vatican. Father Antonio is the skeptic – he states all these cases are usually some form of mental illness.

Father Karl takes them to meet FATHER JANUSZ OSTROWSKI – 70′s. Father Janusz is the one who asked the Church for help. He states a demon lives within a girl. Father Antonio states this might be a matter of mental illness. Father Janusz is insulted – he knows what mental illness is and this is definitely not mental illness. Angry, he leaves, telling them to go see the girl for themselves.

They go to a slum. Farmland and shanties. Most of the dwellings are deserted. This is hard living out here.

Used to be a mining town but the gas ran out.

They meet LESLAW – 40′s – 300lb farmer. He has a 4-YR OLD SON.

Leslaw’s 16-yr old daughter is possessed. Leslaw states that whatever is inside his daughter is no longer his daughter.

They keep her under the ground now, chained to a bed. Leslaw opens the trap door for them.

They find the girl catatonic in the basement. Antonio is outraged. He goes back upstairs and reprimands Leslaw, stating they’ll contact the police. Leslaw states it’s the police who told him to put his daughter down there.

And I’ve got to tell you, we’re only 10pgs in and the mood has effectively been set. The pages drip with horror, making me regret not going to church this past Sunday!

Antonio states there isn’t any demon in this house. He would have felt its presence upon entering.

Antonio accused Leslaw of molesting his daughter. Leslaw vehemently denies this.

Pacified, Antonio tells Leslaw that he has seen many recover from this catatonic state. Leslaw laughs, stating his daughter is not catatonic. They will soon see the truth.

They take the girl upstairs to her bedroom. She doesn’t speak. They get her cleaned up.

Karl comes to the room. Tries to get the daughter to talk by showing her a photo of his young sister. His sister was molested by a school teacher. The teacher was put away and his sister is doing fine now.

The girl responds. She takes the photo of Karl’s sister and licks it leaving behind a trail of blood. Karl and Matt realize the girl has bit her tongue and her mouth is full of blood.

They tell Father Antonio. Antonio enters the bedroom but finds it empty. The girl is gone. They find the girl back down in the cellar, listening to a broken radio.

And I’m telling you, my skin is crawling. The pages are written in a way that you dread turning the pages because you just know this situation is going to get a whole lot worse. It makes me want to run out and purchase holy water.

Father Antonio performs a blessing. Gives the Eucharist to the girl. She just stares at it. Father Antonio gently tells her to take it and be blessed. Everyone watches. The girl finally opens her mouth. Everyone breathes a sigh of relief. When they’re not looking, she spits it back out.

See, it’s little things like this. Spitting the bread back out. It makes us realize that this little girl is in complete control and that the priests are just pawns to her. And I’m wondering why I didn’t choose a comedy to review instead because it’s getting dark outside now and of course, I’m all alone in the house….damnit!

The priests watch a monitor – they have secretly set up a camera to record the girl while she sleeps. She suddenly gets down on all fours like an animal. She then turns and stares directly into the camera and screams, blowing out the microphone.

Antonio goes to investigate. And I’m mentally screaming at them NOT TO GO BACK DOWN INTO THAT CELLAR!!! You guys know that feeling. The one in the theater where you can’t tear your eyes from the screen yet you fear what you’re about to see.

Antonio finds holes in the ground along with bloody fingernails. She’s been digging. The girl appears and promptly bites Antonio’s finger. She then throws Antonio down and begins to strangle him with inhuman strength. Karl and Matt struggle to pull her off.

Antonio quickly injects her with a needle. She falls unconscious. Leslaw enters, holding up the chain. They nod and chain her up.

Karl’s back is badly scratched from the struggle. Antonio cleans the wounds.

The Priests then talk to NIKA – the girl’s best-friend. Nika states the girl started to change after their trip to the catacombs. Nika says the girl was floating off the ground in the catacombs.

Antonio has a theory. They’re in an old mining town. There are methane leaks. If the gas comes up from the ground and they breath it in, it could lead to hallucinations. Antonio needs to see the catacombs.

Into town the Priests go. They pull up a manhole cover and enter the sewer system. They travel down the sewer to the catacombs.

At the spot of the possession, they find coins all over the ground. There’s also an image of a shadow man on the wall. Antonio states this is witchcraft. You come down here, offer a coin and make a wish to the shadow man.

Back in the basement, the lone lightbulb explodes. Karl’s been left there to stand watch over the girl. He enters the basement to change the bulb. It explodes in his hand. That’s when the girl opens her eyes. The trap door slams shut. And now we hear something scurrying around in the dark.

Come on! Why in Hell did I start reading this script at night? Every sound makes me jump now. I’m no longer reading the pages, I’m seeing the film unspool in my head. The pages are that good!

Time passes. Antonio and Matt enter the basement, finding Karl huddled in the corner. He says he had a dream about his sister. Karl is shaken badly. They tell him to go upstairs and get rest.

Antonio tells Matt there is a demon here. He must now fast to prepare for the exorcism.

Antonio has only been involved in one other case of true demonic possession. It was in the 1950′s. Matt knows about this case. It happened in Norway. Matt is confused though, how could Antonio have been involved in that exorcism. Antonio states he was the boy that was possessed.

That was flat out creepy. Revealing that Antonio was possessed when he was little. Stroke of genius there. I’m definitely going to church this Sunday…twice!

Matt and Antonio go back into the cellar. Replace the bulb. The light comes on, revealing graffiti all over the walls.

Antonio performs the exorcism. The girl is howling.

Meanwhile, two police officers have come to the house. They take Karl with them, stating they have something to show him.

The girl begins to cough badly now, hacking. Matt goes to clear her throat. Finds her teeth stained with blood. He pulls an object from her mouth. She coughs up more, spitting out volumes of black goo.

Matt cleans off the object in his hand – it’s a coin. She is inexplicably spitting up more coins.

And I’m telling you, I’m flying through the pages now. They are that compelling.

The police take Karl to a crime scene. Mika is dead.

Karl comes back to the house, freaked. He states that somehow the girl killed Mika. He fears they are next.

Antonio finds Leslaw’s 4-yr old son dead in the basement. The girl just giggles with glee. Leslaw throws himself ontop his daughter, strangling her. He’s going to kill her. Antonio injects him with a needle. Leslaw lapses into unconsciousness.

And I’m just cringing inside. The horror is becoming so much more powerful. The girl is just toying with them!

Karl wants to kill the girl. Antonio states if the girl dies, her soul will be damned. They have to finish the exorcism to save the girl.

Karl leaves them, fearing for the safety of his sister. He thinks the girl will kill his sister next. He will get to her sister and immediately have her baptized. I myself am thinking of getting baptized again just to be sure.

Antonio and Matt go back down to the basement to continue the exorcism. This time they bring the camera lights, illuminating the entire room.

The girl begins to climb up the wall like a spider. Antonio pulls on the chain, knocking her back down. She’s weakened. Antonio tells Matt to get the bread and wine. Matt goes upstairs. A shadow appears on the floor. Matt turns and is attacked.

Why did Matt go upstairs, leaving Antonio alone in the cellar with this devil girl? I’m reading in enough fear as is!

Antonio calls out to Matt. It is time. He needs the bread and wine now. A figure comes down the stairs. Antonio turns. It’s Karl. He’s returned with a gun. He says he tried to drive off but the girl was floating in the air, ahead of him. She won’t let him leave.

Karl turns the gun on Antonio and tells him to go upstairs. Antonio has no choice but to comply, begging

Karl not to kill the child.

Karl locks himself away in the cellar with the girl.

Karl is about to shoot the girl. But now, she’s his sister. Karl stops, in a trance. He begins to disassemble the gun.

Antonio finds Matt unconscious upstairs. He helps him to his feet. They see what’s happening in the cellar on their monitor.

The girl smashes all the lights, plunging the cellar into darkness.

Matt gets the cellar door opened. He rushes into the dark and finds Karl, pulling him up the stairs to safety. The girl grabs ahold of Karl and with inhuman strength smashes him against the wall, killing him.

Antonio manages to get Matt to safety. They lock the trap door.

Antonio tells Matt to drive back to the Church to get help.

Now alone, Antonio goes back down into the cellar, preparing for the final confrontation.

The girl is there. Antonio tells the girl to fight against the demon that is possessing her. The girl just laughs.

And Antonio finally realizes what this demon wants. It wants him. It’s the same demon that possessed him when he was little. It has come back for him.

Antonio then injects the girl with the needle. The girl turns sluggish. He then fills a second needle and injects her again. The girl dies?

Antonio then looks into the camera and begins to give a confession. He never sees the girl float into the air behind him. The girl then attacks Antonio with a vengeance.

We cut to Matt driving to the church. Suddenly, the girl floats in the air above him. His car crashes. Matt’s badly hurt. A shadow then falls over him. Matt begins screaming and the film ends.

The script is extremely effective at making you feel the horror. Your skin crawls as you read the pages. Christopher Borrelli is definitely a writer to keep an eye out for. Unlike “CLOVERFIELD” or “QUARANTINE,” this story actually delivers the scares. The dread mounts with each page as terror builds to a race-to-the-finish ending.

And here’s the thing. In “THE EXORCIST,” the child Regan was actually outmatched by the Priests. Oh sure, she could spin her head around and vomit on you but it was mostly her playing mind games with us. She had to rely on lies. She didn’t really have much power.

That’s not the case here. This demon is so much stronger than us which makes the film scarier. We cannot hope to beat this thing and we realize our faith means nothing at all. That’s a terrifying statement.

OPENING – We’re in a crime scene. A Texas Ranger named DANIEL HENSLEY is found murdered/tortured in a house. He’s tied to a chair and is practically decapitated.

Onto the scene comes SAM LEE HENSLEY – Daniel’s brother. Sam is the baddest of the bad. Martin Riggs, the Terminator and Clint Eastwood all rolled into one. Let’s just say he doesn’t take the news gladly.

Sam finds out the house belongs to BILLY FLIP. Sam tracks Billy down in a bar. Sam’s not above using excessive force to obtain information. Billy states the house really belongs to a guy named DIEGO DELA.

Sam goes in search of Diego Dela. Finds him in a house with four other Hispanic gangbangers. Shockingly, Sam shoots them all dead.

PHIL ELCO, Sam’s boss is called into the morgue by SPECIAL AGENT STEVE KENNEDY. Diego and his buddies are laying on tables. Kennedy informs Phil that Diego Dela worked as an enforcer for the Taro Cartel. No big loss. However, one of the dead bodies was a confidential informant working for the DEA. Kennedy is livid. Two years on undercover work has just been blown. Kennedy wants Sam Lee Hensley brought in for these five murders.

CUT TO: 7 YRS LATER

Sam Lee is released from a state Penitentiary. He’s served his time and is now free. This is where the first warning bell went off in my head. How you only get 7 years for committing five cold-blooded murders is beyond me.

Sam goes home. He’s visited by ESTELLA DOMINGUEZ. She states the cartel has taken her son,

CARLITO. Carlito is also Daniel’s son. She and Daniel were having an affair. Carlito is Sam Lee’s nephew. If she doesn’t come up with $10,000, Carlito will be killed.

Sam comes to see Phil Elco who’s retired and now owns a gas station/repair shop. Sam inquires about the cartel that’s taken Estella’s son.

Sam meets with Estella. He’s going to help her. They set up a meet.

The kidnapper is EMILIO RIVERA. They meet at a bar. It’s a trap. Estella’s in on it. They capture Sam and shoot Estella dead stating she only got pregnant to blackmail Daniel.

Sam is taken to a hacienda, home of FRANCISCO MORELES. Francisco runs the largest drug cartel in Northern Mexico. Francisco Moreles states he’s the one that killed Daniel. Francisco also tells Sam that one of the five men Sam killed was Francisco’s nephew.

Francisco begins torturing Sam. Brings a hammer down on his hand. Cuts his left eye. They then shoot Sam up with antibiotics to keep Sam alive so they can prolong the torture. This is the same way Daniel was murdered.

We then get a flashback. Sam and his brother Daniel, now kids, are shooting out in a canyon. Sam spots a squirrel and tells Daniel to shoot it. Daniel refuses. I’m not exactly sure what we’re supposed to take from this flashback. I just found it tacked on and out of place.

Sam wakes up. He’s in horrible pain. His hand is useless. He can’t see out of his left eye. Yet, he manages to overcome a guard and escape the hacienda. It’s at this point that the script loses me. What kind of cartel is this? How in the world could Sam escape so easily? It strains credibility.

Okay, Sam seeks refuge at Daniel’s wife’s (DEBORAH) home. She cleans his wounds and contacts Phil Elco.

It’s here that Sam reveals his plan. He’s going to pretend he’s dead. Phil Elco arranges a funeral. Sam actually wanted to get kidnapped so that he could find his brother’s murderer. Allowed himself to be kidnapped??? Again, this just defies logic. I guess Sam knew he could single-handedly beat the entire Mexican cartel while in their custody.

As Sam recovers from his wounds, we learn he’s full of regret over his brother’s death. He feels he should’ve protected him. Now, he’s going to make things right by getting Daniel’s son Carlito back.

Y’know, it’s here that I realize, the writer has never explained why the cartel killed Daniel. Guess that’s a minor point that can’t be trifled with since we’ve got a whole mess of killing to get to!

Now Sam is out practicing his shooting and we get another flashback. This one shows Sam and Danny in the middle of a hostage situation. A gunman has his wife and daughter. Danny is trying to negotiate their release. Danny gives up his gun and tells the gunman he will be his hostage.

Sam shoots Danny in the ass. Danny goes down. Sam now has a clear shot. The Gunman tries to fire. Sam shoots him dead. Sam then chews up Danny for giving up his gun.

Again, the flashback is intended to show that Sam has always had to protect Danny. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we get the point already. Rule of thumb, unless done skillfully, flashbacks slow your film down.

Okay, Sam has everything worked out. Writes Deborah a letter. He’s got money stored away for her. He tells Phil to get Deborah to safety once the fireworks start.

Sam then heads back to the hacienda. He rigs a truck and has it drive straight for the hacienda. The guards open fire. The truck is knocked on its side. The guards find it empty. That’s when Sam comes out and shoots them all dead.

Sam enters the hacienda. Guards watch over Carlito. Sam shoots them all. He takes Carlito and escapes.

Six guards? That’s the entire security force, guarding the whole hacienda. You can always tell how bad an action script is by how stupid the film’s badguys are. Test out my theory. The smarter the villain, the smarter the script. Whenever you see dumb villains, you know the story’s in trouble. This scene makes me wonder how Francisco Moreles ever got to the top of the cartel.

So Francisco Moreles comes home and is told the guards are all dead and the boy has been taken. Burning with anger, Moreles orders a hit on Phil and Deborah. He’s going to smoke Sam out.

I’m sure you can figure out the rest of the plot since you’ve since it a hundred times before.

Phil and Deborah are on the run. Phil stops at a diner for coffee to go. Billy Flip CONVENIENTLY works there. What a coincidence! Flip recognizes Phil and contacts Francisco’s men.

Phil calls Sam and tells him they’ve been spotted. Two black SUVs roll into the motel parking lot….because these bad guys ARE THAT FAST!

Sam hides Carlito out at his house. He’s built a safe room out of steel. Nothing’s getting in. He locks Carlito inside the room.

Back at the motel room, Phil starts shooting. The SUVs return fire. Phil is killed.

But have no fear, here comes Sam Lee to the rescue. He comes roaring up – a one-man army. Of course, he kills everybody. Again, what kind of villains are these? Reading these pages, I probably could’ve taken out a dozen of these henchmen myself with a nail file and some paper-clips.

Needless to say, Sam gets Deborah to safety and it’s back to Sam’s house we go.

However, Francisco Moreles has found Sam’s house. They go in. Find the safe room. Being made of steel, they can’t break inside the room. Of course though, they have C-4 laying around. Francisco tells his men to blow the room.

All this for a 7-yr old kid??? You would think Moreles would have better things to do. Or at the very least, he would simply send his henchmen to do the job instead of being the point-man on this mission. Moreles is acting more like an underpaid underling.

Sam’s waiting outside. Sees Moreles inside his house. Sam tells Deborah to go get the sheriff – because of course, you want to wait to this very moment before you call in the police.

Needless to say, Sam kills all the henchmen. And then he kills Moreles. The cops arrive. The house is blown, providing perfect cover for Sam to escape any type of police questioning regarding all the dead bodies laying about.

Deborah and Carlito then drive away – because every woman wants to keep custody of a child who’s the offspring of their husband’s affair!

And then we get this final shot of Sam watching at a safe distance as Deborah and Carlito drive off. And, I kid you not, he actually tips his hat! AS IF TO SAY, “Well, my work here is done. Guess I’ll just mosey on back to the ranch and call it a day.”

Contrived and implausible are the first two words to come to mind. However, the script could be great with a rewrite because the lead character is strong. Sam just needs a villain to combat that’s just as strong and a plot that throws more obstacles in his path. The hero’s journey should always turn more treacherous. Here, once Sam escapes the torture chamber in the middle of the story, his road is relatively easy.

However, sad to say, the script does not live up to the greatness the trailer hints at. In fact, the script is so bad, I now look at the trailer as I look at all my past relationships….FULL OF EMPTY PROMISES AND BOLD-FACED LIES!

The scripts opens with the angel MICHAEL landing in an alley. He immediately cuts off his wings, breaks into a gun store and loads up for some serious hunting.

So far, so good. I’m stuffing my face full of popcorn here.

We then cut to the desert where a truck stop diner called the Gas N Grub is located. We meet BOB HANSON, the diner’s owner. His son JEEP HANSON works with him along with a 20-year-old pregnant waitress named CHARLIE and the diner’s cook PERCY WALKER.

A family of three are there eating a meal. A bad boy named KYLE WILLIAMS also pulls in.

Just another day out in nowheresville. Until an OLD LADY walks in with flies buzzing all around her. She’s kind and frail at first but then states that Charlie’s unborn child is going to die. The Old Lady turns demonic and attacks. Kyle Williams shoots her dead.

The problem is, all of this should take about 10-pages. Instead, it takes us 30-pages to get to this point.

That’s half-an-hour of screen time. A half-hour of set-up! People, if it takes you half-an-hour to set up your story, you don’t have enough story to tell. It’s at this point that I’m starting to realize just how many calories are in this tub of popcorn.

Ok, moving on.

The patrons hop into a car and try to get the Hell out of Dodge but a thick cloud of flies swoops down and blocks their retreat. They have no choice but to return to the diner.

They try to make sense of what’s going on. Seizing upon an idea, they decide to check out the old lady’s car and find a trunk full of dead, maggot-infested cats in there. I have no idea why the cats are there and apparently neither do the writers since they are never mentioned again.

Finally Michael arrives on Pg. 37. He gathers everyone inside the diner, barricades it and passes out heavy artillery, stating they’re going to need it. Turns out, God has lost faith in humanity and has sent down Angels to exterminate them.

Michael has disobeyed God and has come to save Charlie’s unborn child. If the child lives, humanity has hope.

So Michael and this ragtag group are our last chance at survival.

And onto our lonely diner, evil descends in the form of……ice cream truck men, football players, businessmen, construction workers. All intent on killing the unborn child.

It is at this point that I contemplated throwing this script right out the window. I mean we’re a good 50 pages into the script here and the writers are giving me……….construction workers???? What the hell????

I plowed onward though because of the trailer. After all, the trailer was jam-packed with action which could only mean that the second half of the script really delivers.

Sadder to say, the first half is the best half. I realize now that my popcorn is stale and that the oil they pass off as butter is making me nauseous.

Turns out, our diner patrons are able to mow down the evil forces (whom we learn are actually possessed by…angels) with their guns. Sure, some of our people get killed but by this point, do we really care?

Okay, after repelling this first attack, our patrons (I kid you not)………sit around and chat. Oh we now learn about their lives now, their pasts, their hopes, their dreams while they wait for another attack.

I don’t know about you but I was under the impression that this was an action film not an episode of Oprah.

A terrified family (MOTHER, FATHER, YOUNG BOY) now pull up and hurriedly try to fill gas at the diner. That’s when the hordes start attacking again. Our group is able to save the boy though, pulling him into the diner. And then, surprise, surprise, the boy turns out to be possessed and attacks them.

Now if you didn’t see this coming, you’re only six years old…and retarded!

Michael is able to get rid of the boy. Charlie gives birth to her son. A horn then sounds out announcing the arrival of GABRIEL. He’s the bad-ass angel that will do God’s bidding and kill the child. The fight is on now.

The biggest problem is, we’re already on Pg.86!!! That’s practically an hour-and-a-half of screen time. An hour-and-a-half BEFORE THE MAIN VILLAIN APPEARS!!!!! You don’t see Darth Vader showing up three-quarters of the way into the movie! It’s here that I swear off popcorn forever.

Gabriel and Michael square off. The action here is substandard at best. Nothing to write home about.

Needless to say, Charlie and Jeep escape with her baby.

Gabriel kills Michael but not before Michael tells Jeep that Jeep’s the true protector.

Charlie and Jeep then blow Gabriel up with a grenade (guess Angels aren’t as smart as humans)

and ride off into the sunset with the brand new baby, ready to take on all challenges, knowing the fate of humanity now rests in their hands.

Here’s a good example of a script that’s “all show and no go.” The premise rocks. The execution sucks which is all the more maddening because the hook is extremely effective. I would guarantee that the film would bomb but I practically fell asleep during “NEW MOON” and look at their box office.

Here’s hoping this script went through about three more drafts before hitting the big screen. I’ll wait for the DVD to find out. You should, too.

SYNOPISIS
________________________________________
We are in rural France in the year 1324. ISABELLE’S, 17, boyfriend, PETER, 21, confronts her about being engaged to be married to HENRI SMITH, 18. She thinks he is joking but her father told him the news; it’s an arrangement to settle a debt. Peter ends up breaking-up with Isabelle.

Isabelle’s mother SUZETTE, late 30’s, explains to Isabelle: “…you have adult responsibilities now. That means putting your family’s interests ahead of your own…there’s more to marriage than being in love. Love doesn’t always last and it certainly doesn’t fill your children’s bellies in the winter.”

One night LUCIE, 18, Isabelle’s sister, heads to a grassy meadow. She strips naked and is later found dead apparently killed by an animal. Her GRANDMOTHER finds human hair clutched in Lucie’s hand. A conclusion is drawn that a man and, perhaps, a wolf, maybe one in the same, a werewolf may be the culprit.

CESAIRE, Isabelle’s father, leads a drunken group to find and kill this werewolf. They find a wolf and kill it.

Isabelle and her mother argue that perhaps Lucie was committing some type of suicide, because she was in love with Henri. Isabelle’s mother tells her that they could have never married because Lucie was Henri’s half-sister.

FATHER SOLOMAN arrives and explains that “when a werewolf dies, it returns to its human form. If what you killed was a werewolf, then you would have a human head skewered atop that pole.” Also, that “the werewolf does not live in the forest as you have rather naïvely assumed; it lives here in the village. Among you.” Moreover, “A man can inherit the curse. Or he can be turned simply by being bitten. But women…” NO SPOILERS HERE!

Peter and Isabelle make-up, get back together and make-out.

The WOLF attacks during a festival. Isabelle and ROXANNE, Isabelle’s friend, are cornered by the Wolf. The wolf speaks! The wolf tells Isabelle: “We are the same, you and I. We are both wild things. You show one face to the world, but there is another face that you hide. A fire burning inside you, waiting to be released. What about your fat friend here? Do you think she would rather die? Come away with me. Or I will kill her. And I will keep killing until you agree to leave with me.” The Wolf gets distracted as Isabelle and Roxanne escape.

Isabelle tells her Grandmother what the Wolf said. The Grandmother implores Isabelle to leave the village, before the Wolf returns.

Father Solomon is going to hang Roxanne’s little brother, thinking he is of the devil. In exchange for his release Roxanne tells Father Solomon about the Wolf talking to Isabelle. Solomon’s knights arrest Isabelle.

The Grandmother suspects that Henri is the Wolf; however, Henri turns the table on her and says that she is the Wolf.

Night falls and Isabelle is placed in the stocks.

Henri comes to Isabelle’s aid. Henri releases her and begins to run as the Wolf appears and chases after them. The Wolf catches them and asks Isabelle what her decision is, will she take her place with him. Henri and the villagers surround the Wolf throwing rocks at him, he flees. The villagers take chase but lose him in the forest.

The next day Isabelle heads to her Grandmother’s, walking through the village wearing Lucie’s red riding hood and carrying a basket of food.

Isabelle arrives and finds Grandmother in bed and tells Isabelle to feeds herself some soup (a thick broth with chunks of white meat) in the kitchen. As she is eating she pours herself a cup of supposedly wine, but it turns out to be blood.

It’s not Grandmother in bed it’s… NO SPOLIERS! Isabelle startled asks where Grandmother is. The intruder ate most of her and Isabelle apparently just ate the rest. Grandmother was killed because she learned the identity of the Wolf.

Who and how the werewolf came to be. Why Lucie was killed (a great twist right here) and how they stayed under the radar are explained to Isabelle. What ensues after will not be spoiled here. Though, someone dies, someone leaves, someone weds.

I did not want to spoil the story for anyone, it’s just that great of an ending.

COMMENTS
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What makes the script unique is the merging of the two tales of Red Riding Hood and the Werewolf. The script does need some revision work to give it a marketable directorial vision. I cannot say that this is a must be made story but it does make for a compelling read.

The story is quite original given the Red Riding Hood twist. I did not find it all that predictable and found it quite believable. There were no big plot holes to be found; however there are some unanswered questions that were not explained. With the right directorial direction the visual potential can be quite stunning.

The inciting incident and midpoint came in about ten pages later than it should have, but the latter half of the script had no structural problems. Some descriptions sound like they should be dialogue. The format is fair, given that there were numerous pages with blocks of descriptions and no dialogue. Furthermore, would a grandmother in 1300’s France say “s**t?” Some character names do not fit the time period nor local.

In the first act there was a few pieces of dialogue and descriptions that gave the impression that there would be a Catholic undertone in the theme but as the story went on that was not prevalent. That might be something to look at to see if it was forgotten or is not well integrated into the rest of the story.

The story is not necessarily a mystery in terms of genre, however if the script took that direction with a storyline, it could make for an even better read. As it stands the revelation in the script, which can be construed as a mystery plot point, can be better written to keep it from being a plot hole that it nearly is.

It would also be nice to give some of the scenes more suspenseful tension/fear and/or excitement. Also, comedy of manners and/or romantic comedy elements into the dialogue would be a nice touch.

Overall, the premise, story and theme are all quite good. The characterizations and pacing keeps the reader interested. The dialogue and writing style is not bad. The descriptions are done well. The high concept ability is what made this a script worth picking-up.

The writer is creative with what he came up with to make this unique concept. Therefore I would not necessarily pass on him.

I recommend this script as a “consider” and not as a pass because of the potential that it can garner with the right talent attached to it, to revise it and direct it. But this story really excited me to the point that I hope that my comments are taken under consideration, because I really do want to see this movie.

COMMERCIAL POTENTIAL
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This can be a theatrical film. The audience is for teenagers and young adults. The MPAA rating would be an R. A director that would do the script justice would be Tim Burton, Guillermo Del Toro or someone like-minded.

BUDGET: High. Referring to The-Numbers.com, I looked at Werewolf and costumed dramas such as, Van Helsing, Wolf and Underworld: Evolution are the only movies to gross over $50 million domestically. However, worldwide the numbers are better. The budget, in all probability, can be under $40 million.

Script Recommendation: [ ] Recommended, [X] Consider, [ ] Pass.

Of Note: In thinking about how this script could be made and I thought of Enchanted. Now if the script was revised and produced like an Enchantedesque feature, the film can really pop. It would be an instant blockbuster, in my opinion. You can almost envision the poster and the trailer with this in mind. Also, think about this: what would Enchanted had looked like if Tim Burton had directed it? The licensing possibilities would be endless and this would make for an everlasting feature. Just a thought here!

SYNOPISIS COMMENTARY
________________________________________
In lieu of the synopsis I have some commentary.

The logline that caught my attention and made me want to read this was:

“In a highly secured vault deep within the walls of Vatican City, the Catholic Church holds thousands of old films and video footage documenting exorcisms/supposed exorcisms and other unexplained religious phenomena they feel the world is not ready to see. This is the first tape – Case 83-G – stolen from these archives and exposed to the public by an anonymous source.”

It was the first tape I will give it that much, but I was thinking this was going to be some kind of DaVinci Code story. WRONG. The logline talks about unexplained religious phenomena, since exorcisms are so overrated, okay so maybe an X-Files type story. WRONG. The logline mentions the tape is stolen, so maybe a heist type flick. WRONG.

If you like Blair Witch but less excitement or you like watching Discovery channel specials on Exorcisms, you will like this. I, for one, am not into exorcisms. I am not even a fan of any of the Exorcist features.

The audience would be anyone up at 1:00 AM looking for something to watch. The dialogue is so boring and dry this makes Clerks look like a Blockbuster Oscar film. The script after page 7 is in one location and reads more like one long monologue.

The logline was misleading and I wasted 40 minutes of my time reading this awful script. The logline should read like this: A documented account of an exorcism. A priest flies into a rural American town to do an exorcism. After a long a trial-some effort, the girl/exorcist wins, killing the priest. That, folks, is what the story is about, logline and synopsis, in a nut shell.

COMMENTS
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The script is not compelling in the least; it is long in the tooth and dry, very dry. If anything worked well is that the writer was writing a Blair Witch-esque script, and it did work in that respect.

The good: Descriptions were adequate and the visual potential is there, given that the writer is going for a documentary style. Kudos for no story holes.

The bad: For starters the concept is old and unoriginal. The uniqueness and the high concept ability are only in the false original logline. The script opens and closes in a mocumentary style feature with no mention of any break-in to the Vatican. The theme is tiresome from the get-go. The script is 79 pages.

Otherwise the characterizations, dialogue, format and writing style is fair.
The writer would not be recommended.

COMMERCIAL POTENTIAL
________________________________________
The best window for this would be as a SyFy channel movie. The directorial attachment would be any mocumentary director. The MPAA rating would come in at an R.

BUDGET: Low.

Script Recommendation: [ ] Recommended, [ ] Consider, [X] Pass.

Background: Originally produced by Universal, along with Danny Devito’s Jersey Films, the project was going to star Harrison Ford with Joe Carnahan directing and a probable start of production set to have begun sometime early in 2003. Harrison Ford pulled out before that could happen, so Ford’s quitting the project seemed to have killed it since not only did the film never get made, but there’s been little news about it since.

Script Review: The thing is, I can’t understand why this project has been languishing for six years. The script (despite some nitpicks) is good, I mean really good, and the lead character is flawed, yet complex and sympathetic.

So much so, that I would think that any actor old enough to play Matt Scudder (a man in his fifties with decades of law enforcement experience) would want to play the part, but maybe Harrison Ford didn’t want to play a character with dubious morals in such a dark story. That’s a shame. He probably would have been terrific, but it would have been a very different sort of role for him.

I hadn’t heard a thing about this project before Sheridan gave me a list of scripts to select from. Although I think I had previously heard the name of the novel’s author, Lawrence Block, I hadn’t heard of this book or its hero, Matthew Scudder. The only thing I knew was that this was written by Scott Frank, whose previous works I had liked, so I wanted to read this as my first review My PDF Scripts.

When I first got the file, I opened it, thinking I’d just skim a bit before really reading it later (I had other things to do) and liked it so much that once I got started I couldn’t stop. It’s a real page turner. Even though there were a few small problems, I was hooked. So, then I got a copy of the original book to compare and I’m glad I did. The script is terrific, but so is the novel it’s based on.

Yet, I’m not sure I would have liked to have been given the task of turning the book into a movie. It’s very talky and there’s a lot of Matt walking around and, silently, contemplating the case and life. As crime novels go, it’s probably one of the better ones I’ve read, but it took some time to build up some steam and engage me as a reader. The answers that Matt finds as he investigates the kidnapping and murder are unraveled in an ever increasing pace, but it takes some time to build up to its climax. It makes sense that it would happen that way since Matt’s a bit of a plodder and has to work out a lot of the case in his head before he can solve the case. It works well in a book that is told in first person, since we get a front row seat to Matt’s inner dialogues. His thought processes are important, but that would be a deadly dull way to tell the same story in a movie.

The way that Scott Frank handled this story as a film is probably pretty close to perfect. Like the book, there are a lot of flashbacks, the novel was filled with witnesses describing past events, but in the script they’re very well handled and beautifully presented in a visual way.

Also, I like the lead character. A lot. Despite a tough exterior, he cares deeply about other people. Added to that, he’s intriguing.

Matt is a straight shooter, very exacting, to the point, and very smart. Yet, he’s a bit on the plodding side. He doesn’t get there fast, but he does get there. Matt’s tenacious and stubborn so he sticks with it and solves the case and manages to outthink the bad guys in order to save an innocent girl. He’s a wonderful character.

The film opens on a flashback, but as the reader you don’t realize that until several pages in. Normally, I don’t like this kind of start. Mostly because opening flashbacks don’t usually work out as well as this one does. The sequence starts a bit enigmatically showing Matt at the tail end of an argument with someone in an unmarked police car; he’s a cop having an argument with his partner. At the end of the first page, we don’t know a thing about what’s going on except that Matt’s a detective and that he likes two shots of bourbon with his morning (or evening) coffee.

Things get exciting right after that as a pair of guys come in to shoot up the bar. The bartender is killed and they try to kill Matt for just being there.

It’s quite a good way to start, even if a bit shocking. Less than two pages in and the hero (or anti-hero) of the story has just barely managed to avoid getting blown to bits by a gang banger with a shotgun. It’s a great way to start the script, but I do have a problem with this script almost right away: the action blocks tend to have really long run-on sentences.

Although, those two paragraphs are terrific (the tension is high and I like the descriptions), that’s two very long run-on sentences in paragraphs right next to each other. That stands out. It pulled me out of the script, but that was probably the only time. The script has this problem throughout, with long action blocks (some three or four lines) being all one long sentence, but later instances weren’t as bothersome.

After the shocking bar scene, the script takes us out onto the street with Matt where he shoots two perps, including waiting the driver, in the car as the third takes off, firing shots back at Matt over his shoulder. There are screams off-screen as Matt cuffs the guy he’d just coldly pursued and shot, even with some bourbon in him, but we don’t see why there were people screaming because the scene washes out and cuts to Matt explaining that was when he stopped drinking. He’s at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting explaining that awful day to a room full of strangers. It ends with a bit of levity even, despite the horrors of the events we’d just seen.

The opening flashback along with Matt’s violent and fatal confrontation with the guys who shot up the bar was a wonderful introduction to the character. It goes from Matt enjoying a peaceful morning (or was it afternoon) coffee, with a side of two shots of bourbon, to him killing some killers, showing his skill and coolness under fire even as it shows off his temper. It ends with Matt arresting the one left living. It was violent and shocking and it completely grabbed me.
As the story unfolds after that, Scott Frank more or less follows the same story in the novel: after being convinced to work for a drug dealer (against his better judgment, he doesn’t want to work for a criminal) to try and find the men who’d brutalized and murdered his wife, sending her back to him in pieces, Matt investigates.

I think aside from movies and TV, investigating crimes is probably pretty boring and likely requires a lot of patience and a lot of resolve to stick with the case long enough find the bad guy. And this investigation was probably no different. Matt talks to a lot of different people and there are a lot of flashbacks that show what they’d done, or what they’d seen, but the script didn’t come off as dry or boring at all.

What I probably liked about this script most was the fluidity of the flashback sequences. They come in underneath someone recounting past events in what would have normally have been deadly dull talking heads, probably using some sort of master scene shots. Yet, the flashbacks aren’t a crutch and they don’t cover up holes in the plot. They do what they should: enhance and visualize the characters describing past events. They show us what they had done or seen, instead of the writer simply using his skill to wow us with perfectly crafted dialogue and telling us.

I don’t know, maybe it seems a bit obvious after the fact, the way he had two people talking about something then showing us in a flashback what had actually occurred, but I found with how he switched between the two that the ebb and flow of the scenes was engaging and not at all boring. I could easily visualize how he’d intended the scene be shot. I thought he had a good balance of visual combined with snappy and to the point (yet not on the nose) dialogue.

Yet as good of an adaption this script is, not all the details match, Kenny Kristo was called Kenan Khouri in the novel, his wife was Francine instead of Carrie (so now I guess they’re Greek instead of Lebanese), and the bad guys buy it in a different way. Still, the flavor of the movie matches the novel. While the scenes in the novel were talky, with very long very dense (even if terrifically written) blocks of dialog, the film is anything but talky.

Where Lawrence Block used sharply written dialog to reveal his characters and weave his plot, Scott Frank makes visual choices that do the exact same thing. Yet he did it more quickly, creating a dynamic and a visual story that manages to maintain the heart of the novel without being slavishly faithful to it.

Frank made a lot of smart choices, he contained the locations, and he compressed time, the events in the script took only a few days to transpire while in the novel they had taken weeks. He also turned things around a bit and fleshed out Matt’s back story to give his character more depth, likely mining scenes from previous novels since this book didn’t deal with a lot of Matt’s origin, his kid, his ex-wife, the reasons he went sober and why he left the force.

In this script, Frank shows Matt’s 17 year old son (who hadn’t made an appearance in the novel), a recovering alcoholic like his father (interesting counterpoint to Matt’s story). Although TJ, a street kid Matt befriended and hires to do errands sometimes, was shown in the novel, he was already a friend of Matt’s, but here he got an origin story.

I liked TJ’s interactions with Matt, he’s smart, passionate and yet more vulnerable than a hard edged street kid would otherwise seem to be. Also, TJ is computer literate which contrasts nicely with Matt’s technophobia. He is a good foil for the exacting detective since TJ can be unpredictable, which challenges and pushes Matt.

Another thing I really liked was how Frank changed up the killer’s MO a bit. In the novel, they were largely opportunistic serial killers, turning a killing spree into a money-making venture by adding kidnapping for ransom into the mix. In the novel, they mostly just killed before becoming serial killer entrepreneurs by also hitting up their victim’s families for ransom before killing them anyway. The tie-in to the DEA, and the revelation that stolen files were used to find the victims, was a terrific decision. It ramped up the stakes a great deal, especially when it turned out that one of the previous victims was a DEA undercover agent and the police were also looking for her killers.

The pace really picked up after the mid-point, when Matt finds new reasons to doubt he’d done the right thing to take Kristo’s money. When a new younger victim (a 14 year old girl) gets kidnapped it pulls Matt back into trying to find the bad guys. He doesn’t want her dying the same end Kenny’s wife did. The twists and turns in this story were terrific. I liked how the truths of the case are gradually revealed, keeping my interest. I also like how the flashbacks were handled with that stick up at the bar that went so badly and why what happened there had forced Matt to retire. Matt tells the story to different AA meetings, and to TJ, each time a little bit more is revealed through flashbacks as different parts of the original events were shown.

I loved the ransom/victim exchange in the graveyard, where the title of the novel comes from. It was terrifically played out, ratcheting up the tension and the stakes for everyone involved. But probably my favorite part was how the AA meetings interwove into the story and helped give Matt an anchor. When the world has become s**t and threatens his sobriety, he goes to a meeting to help center himself. It also helps center the script. It was nicely done.

The final solemn and peaceful AA meeting with a young woman speaking the 12 steps aloud as Matt moved to confront the bad guy reminded me a bit of the baptism scene at the end of the first Godfather film. It wasn’t quite the same, not quite as elegant, but it reminded me of it in a good way.

There were a few (albeit minor) problems I had: the run-on sentences and the facts of the hold-up getting changed from the beginning to the end. The initial scene slug at the bar says its morning, the descriptions inside the scene all indicate its early in the day, but Matt later says the botched hold-up as happening at night when talking to TJ about it. It’s a minor thing, probably an error introduced when something changed and this draft didn’t get that fixed, but it made me scratch my head and pulled me out of the read.

However, if that relatively minor problem was the biggest one I had with a script, it’s probably pretty much better than okay, otherwise.

Bottom Line: In the end: this was an excellent script. It read like a dream and I think Matthew Scudder, a fiftyish former cop with some serious personal demons, would make for a great, complicated character for an actor to play. The terrifically well-developed supporting characters, the plots’ twists and turns, and the tight dialogue were all great. A dark film like this might be a tough sell, but I really hope someone decides to make it someday. I would love to see it.

KEY BACKGROUND INFO: Screenwriting team Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber (500 Days of Summer (their first spec script!) and The Pink Panther 2) have already sold Underage to Ivan Reitman’s Montecito Pictures (I Love You, Man). Named by Variety as one of 2008’s “10 Screenwriters to Watch.”

PLOT SYNOPSIS:

Act I:
When ANDY, a callous, directionless 20-something ladies man meets a mysterious girl, BRADEN, at a bar his string of uncomplicated one-night stands comes to a sudden halt when he finds out the next day that she is actually an underage high school student. Terrified at first, Andy is then sucker-punched when Braden reveals that unless he agrees to be her boyfriend until her graduation in June, she will report him to the police.

Cut to a long flashback where we learn that Braden has concocted this entire scheme as a way to get back at her ex-boyfriend, TIM, who cheated on her and that Andy has been chosen specifically because he’s a former graduate of her high school.

After getting further threatened by Braden at work and then being advised by his father, an attorney, that he should do whatever Braden asks because legally, her word is enough to prosecute, Andy reluctantly agrees to Braden’s scheme.

Act II:
Andy and Braden go on their first date and he admits he’s never gone on a real date before – only one-night stands. Braden begins tutoring him on a woman’s basic romantic needs (lots of calls, text messages and flowers).

Complications develop at a high school party, when Andy and Tim meet face-to-face and we find out that they’re cousins and that Braden picked out Andy specifically to get back at Tim. Andy is shocked at how cunning Braden has been, but realizes he still has to go along with her plan. Meanwhile, at school, Braden has regained her status with her friends due to her attractive older boyfriend and a jealous Tim warns Andy to stop seeing Braden.

Andy and Braden continue “dating” and gradually begin developing feelings for each other, which Andy confesses to his best friend, BRUCE. Andy and Bruce double-date with Braden and a female friend to their senior prom. Tim confronts Andy at the prom and beats up Andy for refusing to break up with Braden. Despite this, Andy and Braden continue dating (no quotes, but still no sex either) and growing closer until two key developments happen: 1) Andy is fired when the couple runs into his boss who discovers that Andy is dating an underage high school student and 2) Braden apologizes to Andy for costing him his job and confesses that she lied about having slept with Andy – he had been so drunk he passed out immediately after going home with Braden. When Andy realizes he’s been lied to and manipulated all this time, he immediately breaks up with Braden.

Act III:
While Braden attends her graduation alone and broken-hearted, Andy drowns his sorrows by resuming his one-night stands. Realizing that he needs more romantic fulfillment, he also seeks to recreate some of the adventures he had with Braden with his new dating partners (a la Annie Hall), but with little success. He takes a menial job at his father’s law firm and is generally depressed.

Later in the summer, Andy receives a letter informing him that he has an interview with an admissions officer at a local state college. Since he didn’t submit an application, an intrigued Andy goes to the interview. Asked by the admissions officer to reflect on his life, Andy realizes for the first time how much he’s grown through his relationship with Braden and how grateful he is for the experience.

Suddenly realizing that Braden is moving away any day to begin college, Andy immediately leaves the interview and actually chases her down to the airport. Andy catches her at the gate (surprise) and confesses his feelings for Braden. Braden thanks him and boards the plane, satisfied that her love was reciprocated, Andy is going to be OK and that she’s ready to begin her new college experience.

WHAT WORKS:

Premise: This is an interesting premise for a movie – with potential for good conflict since pretending to date an underage girl could have many farcical opportunities and obstacles (from friends, family, society) while avoiding the actual queasy reality of having sex with an underage girl.

Character: The character of Braden is dynamic and has a fresh, confident voice that you can easily imagine a young actress having a fun time portraying. Despite the heavy screentime however, she is a supporting character with little character growth here: she starts off as precocious and cunning on page 1 and certainly grows no dimmer as the story advances. While the character of Andy isn’t very interesting he does have a pronounced character arc (callous, superficial>romantic, introspective).

Theme: As the theme of your story is expressed in how your main character changes from the first page to the final page of your screenplay, Underage’s themes of “To learn how to love is to learn how to live” and perhaps even “It’s better to have loved and lost then to never have lost at all” are clearly expressed through several on-the-nose exchanges between Andy and Braden. If this wasn’t clear enough, we also get the dubious sequence with the college admissions officer at the state college in Act III in which Andy declares his love for Braden during his pre-admittance interview. (Since when did state colleges require in-person interviews?)

Genre: Since this screenplay is targeted for a mainstream audience, it’s important to include the elements of high school and romantic comedies that the audience is expecting. The script’s biggest genre calling card is its unique premise. Beyond this, the script includes a steady diet of genre staples and set pieces including a raucous high school house party, a meta dissection of romantic comedies, a romantic food fight, pop culture references, a prom sequence and even a chase and tearful finale at the airport.

WHAT NEEDS MORE WORK:

STRUCTURE/DRIVES:
Several of the screenplay’s drives have significant issues:

Objective: First off, due to the choices made the writers in Act I, it’s difficult to establish the main character and a compelling objective which significantly slows the momentum of Act I and brings it to crawl in Act II. Since we open on Andy on page 1, this is the key opportunity for the writers to introduce us to the drive (objective, story, character, theme, genre, entertainment) structure of this script. Although it’s logical to meet Andy on page 1 and establish that we’re in a romantic comedy (albeit a dark one), the decision to flash back on page 16 to explain Braden’s motivations is misguided. Braden is a secondary character of this screenplay, so her motivations should be secondary to Andy’s. Furthermore, a flashback literally stops your story cold and prevents your main character from pursuing his objective (which should be the sole purpose of your screenplay) so doing this for six pages is extremely ill-advised. Once we realize how much Braden has been pulling the strings, it makes Andy a very weak main character with a weak objective (to pretend to date Braden or risk going to jail). Since Andy simply has to date Braden until she graduates in June, there is really nothing to build to – the audience is simply waiting for the pages of the calendar to turn. The other problem is that Andy’s objective is to avoid a negative (going to jail) and that he doesn’t have a reward for which to strive.

Character: There are two fundamental types of elements that comprise a plot – events and decisions. The more events that happen to your main character and the less decisions he/she makes, the weaker your main character is. After Andy woos Braden on page 9, the next 20 pages of plot in Act I are all events happening to Andy or decisions Braden is making (e.g., Braden calling Andy at work and blackmailing him to date her, Braden deciding to seek revenge on her ex-boyfriend, Andy’s father telling him he has no choice but to go along with Braden’s scheme). Beyond being a weak main character, Andy is an uninteresting two-dimensional (He’s good-looking, a ladies man and a personal trainer? How unique and unexpected!) character who speaks in typical bro patter. Although the character arc requires him to start off as a cad, it takes until almost the end of Act II for Andy to exhibit human-like feelings of empathy and affection. Moreover, Andy has no contradictory qualities and no “dream” objectives. A fundamental part of all humans is that we dream about something better – beyond his next conquest at the bar, what’s Andy dreaming about? Who knows? The writers didn’t foreshadow that college is a dream of Andy’s – so the sequence late in Act III at the state college is unearned.

Story: Creating a satisfying, emotionally-involving story is not a mysterious process – it’s simply about having a sharply defined main character pursuing a compelling objective in spite of conflict — significant opposition and constantly rising stakes. Having already discussed the shortcomings of the objective and main character, let’s also note that this screenplay’s identified opposition, Tim, doesn’t declare himself to be Andy’s opposition until page 50 and they don’t interact again until their brief one-sided fistfight on page 83 – after which, despite winning the fight, Tim is dispensed with as an oppositional character (sorry, Tim). Other possible oppositional characters are non-factors since Andy’s parents are in on Braden’s scheme and the writers have blessed Braden’s father with a supernatural amount of trust in the dating habits of his high school daughter. With virtually no opposition and stakes that remain static (yes, she can call the cops, but that seems less and less likely as the story progresses), Act II suffers from endless conflict-free scenes of Andy and Braden getting to know each other such as a sequence of her forcing him to watch her favorite chick flicks, a driving montage set to an overly specific music reference (you can tell us the genre, but leave the band/song to the music rights exec) and getting into a foodfight at an apple orchard.

STRAY OBSERVATIONS:

• Character contrasts, catalyst characters: Since supporting characters exist solely to define and support your main character, this is typically done by surrounding your MC with characters that are different from them. The core relationship between Andy and Braden is compelling at times because these characters are opposites in many ways – Andy is older, callous, dim while Braden is young, romantic and wiser than her years. Braden is also an effective “catalyst” character – a character your story needs to help affect change in the main character (Andy). Secondary characters should not just be sounding-board buddies or exposition-messengers. As much as possible give your supporting characters interesting things to do.
• Visual motifs: The writers use monthly titles as visual motifs to indicate the story progression in Act II and III. Since Act II begins in March (according to the title) and we’ve established on page 15 that Braden’s high school graduation on June 10, we should expect that by the time we see the “May” title, we’re more than half way to Andy accomplishing his objective and resolving his story, right? Would you believe that the writers forgot/ignore this and actually have Braden’s graduation occurring in July? (More suspicious chronology: Braden doesn’t find out that she’s been accepted to Stanford until June.) Visual motifs can be a great way to mark progress toward your objective, but you can’t illogically bend them to suit your plot.
• Pre-page 1 inscriptions: In case there are any doubts about what the theme of this screenplay is, the writers helpfully include two extended quotations on love from Woody Allen on page 2. Show, don’t tell, please, and pre-pro writers should definitely not try this at home.
• Dialogue parantheticals, pointers: The writers have a bad habit of using parentheticals and underlined words in their dialogue to give guidance to the actor on line readings or to explain blocking. Don’t do it –- actors strongly resent this kind of help and character actions belongs in action lines. Make your dialogue as strong and specific as you can – and then leave it in the actor’s hands.

My rating?
[X] PASS

[ ] CONSIDER

[ ] RECOMMEND

Check out more:
HitFix Interview: ’500 Days of Summer’ screenwriters Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber

SYNOPISIS

ZOE FISCHER, 26, an attorney, after work, is getting ice cream and meets CYRUS, they chat and he tosses a Bomb Pop to Zoe, but she looks away for a split second and it hits her in the face. She goes down. Cyrus rushes to her side, taking the Bomb Pop and gently putting it on her bruised check. Zoe looks up at him. He returns her gaze.

Three months later. Zoe and Cyrus are driving-up to ELAINE FISCHER, 58, a judgmental judge and Zoe’s mother, in Cyrus’s tricked out 70’s ice cream truck/van on steroids, to introduce Cyrus in-person for the first time. They all head-out to an upscale restaurant in the ice cream truck, much to Elaine’s embarrassment.

Cyrus, over dinner, tells Elaine that he has named over 400 stars after himself, and no longer fears death because he know his galactic legacy will live on forever. Also, he has been enrolled at City College for 10 years now, has over 320 credits and one of these days he will pick a major, “it’s just so hard when you love everything.”

Zoe surprises Elaine that Cyrus and her are getting married. Elaine is mortified and rebuts with “No, you’re not.” Zoe tells her mom that Cyrus has even called dad, JOHN FISHER, 50’s, a pediatrician, and got his permission.

After dinner Elaine calls John, who trusts his smart capable daughter to make the right choice, and yells at him that “we might need to perform and exorcism to get this beast out of her.” That she found a “one-eyed-half-retarded-three-legged-puppy-and-took-pitty-on-it-love.”

Cyrus after promising that he won’t try to warm Zoe’s mother up to the idea of them getting married, he makes a visit to Elaine. Zoe gets furious that he broke a promise to her about going to see her mother and tells him that it was a big mistake. Cyrus tells Zoe that “She’s like some evil lawyer genius who got me all twisted up. Good news is I didn’t let her see me cry.”

Zoe’s and Cyrus’s parents meet-up at a restaurant. Cyrus’s mother, TANGIE, loves anything the color of her name. LEE, Cyrus’s father tells the story that right before he left for NASA city that Tangie and him had sex all night. Nine months later Tangie calls him up in space on his cell phone that she is in labor. Lee was “supposed to be up there for like five years. But I said to my commanding officer, Patrick Stewart, I had to be back in Pound Ridge. …nothing is more important than your children. So, put the thing in full throttle and I was there the moment Cyrus popped out.”

After Cyrus’s bachelor party John goes to Elaine’s house and states that Zoe can’t marry that retard. This, after he sees Cyrus drive away with his big breasted ex-girlfriend.

Wedding day Elaine locks Zoe in her bedroom closet. Elaine tells John “we let this wedding happen and you’ll be spending every birthday, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter and New Years with that awful family.” So John goes to the church to address the crowd, “Zoe has decided to call off the wedding.”

Soon after John arrives back to Elaine’s, Cyrus’s clan arrives. John afraid to lie about what’s going on is threatened by Elaine with “You know that isn’t my only closet that locks. Keep your mouth shut…”

John accidentally drugs Zoe. As John and Elaine carry her out the back door, Cyrus sees them loading Zoe into Elaine’s car. A car chase between Elaine’s Mercedes and Cyrus’s ice cream truck ensues. Elaine gets away and Cyrus goes back to the house to call the police.

John sees a man on the ground off the road, having fallen of his motorcycle, John yells to Elaine to stop so he can help, but the man was just waiting for someone to stop so he can rob them and take their car. So now John, Elaine and Zoe are stranded.

John decides to walk down to a gas station he saw some miles back, Elaine and Zoe, still drowsy, sit and wait. Elaine has to go pee and while squatting she sees Zoe walking down the road, she tries to move, but she’s still peeing. She tries to squat-walk, but falls. John, sitting down outside of a closed gas station, sees Zoe run by him in a wedding dress and hundred yards behind her Elaine.

Zoe runs down a camping trail and comes across some Girl Scouts. Zoe asks the Girl Scouts if one of them has a cell phone. One says she has one but it’s for emergencies only. Zoe tells the Girl Scout “I’m a lawyer in a wedding dress in the middle of the woods asking desperately to use your phone. Unless R. Kelly shows up here tonight with a bottle of wine, I’m guessing this is going to be your biggest emergency.” Zoe calls Cyrus and tells him that she is sorry and that her parents locked her in a closet and drugged her.

John catches up to Zoe and takes the phone away from Zoe before she tells him her location. The Girl Scouts begin to beat him up. Elaine comes to Johns rescue by grabbing a branch and lighting it up in the campfire and yelling to the Girl Scouts “Give us our daughter or I’ll burn this long horse to the ground and won’t get your merit badges for it.” The girls step aside. Elaine ties Zoe’s hand to her hand and all three of them walk-off.

The three are hitchhiking to an old family cabin and picked up by a passing motorist, TAM. Tam agrees to take them to the cabin but need to stop off at home first. As they arrive to his home he introduces Zoe to his mother, having some fun at Zoe’s expense, in Vietnamese, “Mama, this is my new wife.” A relative asks why are Zoe and Elaine tied together, Tam replies “Tradition, She’s a virgin and so she must be tied to her mother until the wedding night when she is cut loose.” Tam and the three then leave and are dropped off at their cabin.

Cyrus had called back the Girl Scouts for their location and figured out that they were headed to the family cabin and soon arrives, finding Zoe, “It’s only a matter of time before a great investigator finds his investigate.”

An argument ensues between Cyrus and Elaine about how he left his bachelor party with his ex. Cyrus goes on to say that he left because he needed his ex-girlfriend, a jewelry designer, to make him a new wedding band, because he had lost her antique grandmother’s engraved wedding band. Zoe erupts with anger, saying that it’s not just a ring but a symbol of their love and trust and why did he not tell her about the ring, why did only his double-D ex only know about it, that he had promised to always be honest with her. She feels betrayed and tells Cyrus to leave.

John and Elaine are now worried about going to jail over kidnapping Zoe, let alone drugging her. Cyrus also realizing that Zoe’s parents may go to jail, for the kidnapping, and that Zoe will be all alone, comes up with a plan to prevent that. He calls Elaine’s Mercedes TeleAid to get a fix on where the car is, he knows it was hijacked. He then goes and kidnaps, gagging, John, Elaine and Zoe and throws them in back of his ice cream truck, all while saying sorry profusely.

The cops have gotten a fix on John and Elaine and are headed down the dirt road to the cabin. Cyrus drives off as the police arrive. The police take pursuit. In the back of the ice cream truck John afraid that this is it, professes his love for Elaine as does Elaine, back to John.

Cyrus stops in front of a dilapidated house; with men taking apart Elaine’s Mercedes in the garage, takes Zoe, Elaine and John and takes them into the house. The police are about to arrive when Cyrus quickly drives his ice cream truck into the pond, so the police do not see the truck. As the police arrive and bust in, they find that the house is a chop-shop.

The police un-gag the Fishers and they explain, in hopes to place blame on the guy who had hijacked Elaine’s car was Zoe’s old boyfriend. He kidnapped them, made John go to the church to call of the wedding, then brought them there.

Cyrus is walking down the dirt road as the police car with Zoe, Elaine and John are in, passes him but then stops, Zoe with a change of heart runs out and throws herself into his arms, kissing him.

“We are gathered here by this beautiful lake, to join these two people in the sacred bond of marriage,” a justice of the peace speaking next to the family cabin. John and Elaine are getting married. Zoe and Cyrus are going to take their time and make sure their ready, and until after Cyrus graduates from college next year.

COMMENTS

The script was a grabbing comedic read. Cyrus’s character and dialogue was hilarious. Everything in the script worked so well. This should be made, it is absolutely a must be made story.

There is nearly nothing to say negatively. The script deserves nothing but excellent praise from premise to format. Especially the dialogue: John to Elaine “If you were a man, you’d have invaded Poland by now.”

There are only three little things that need some addressing. One, being when did Zoe and Cyrus get engaged and set the wedding date? Two, on page 11 Cyrus is stating that he is basing his life on “nine – no seventeen,” what? Three, the title is a bit on the poor side. Aside from this, it was the best read I have had in months.

The screenwriting team is absolutely recommended for any future comedy assignments.

COMMERCIAL POTENTIAL

This is defiantly a PG-13 motions picture for couples of all ages. A plan ‘B’ to a theatrical release would be a Hallmark movie-of-the-week; add a Christmas time period and perhaps an ABC Family holiday feature. Either way this script deserves to be made and enjoyed by audiences everywhere.

BUDGET: High. Though return on investment with the right cast and this near flawless script is a no-brainer. Meet the Parents and The Runaway Bride are two movies that come to mind that were great success in vein of this concept and both films were made in the high $50’s. With casts likes Robin Williams for John, Wendie Malick or Cheryl Hines for Elaine, Amanda Michelle Seyfried or Mandy Moore for Zoe, and talents of James Roday for Cyrus, Kristen Chenoweth for Tangie and, an aged, Mike O’Malley for Lee, would draw a wide audience and with a Valentines or winter holiday release this film ought to do triple numbers. Touchstone Pictures would be foolish not to see this movie through development-hell and into production as soon as possible.

Script Recommendation: [X] Recommended, [ ] Consider, [ ] Pass. (12/3/09)

Of note: Thanks Sheridan at MyPDFScripts.com for the best script I have read in months. I for one will be the first person in line on opening day when it’s released. Also, I defiantly look forward to reading any comedies Jack Amiel & Michael Begler write in the future.

I hope the review was a joy, until next time, happy reading.

Note: Due to the production status of this film, the screenplay is currently unavailable here.

This is what it’s come down to. Charlie Kenton is dragging his boxer, SUPERNOVA, off to some out-of-the-way fair to fight a…200lb steer! Worse, when Charlie arrives he finds out they’re actually fighting a 2,000lb bull.

Times are hard for Charlie. He lives in his truck. His future is non-existent. He’s barely hanging on. That’s why he agrees to fight the 2,000lb bull and even bets $10,000 that Supernova will win.

RICKY, the boxing promoter, warns Charlie that he will beat Charlie to within an inch of his life if Charlie loses and doesn’t pay up.

The fight is on. And it’s over quickly. The bull tears off Supernova’s left leg and it all goes downhill from there. The bull stomps Supernova into pieces. Charlie’s out $10,000…which he doesn’t have!

With no intentions of paying, Charlie beats a hasty retreat when he’s confronted by TWO GENTLEMEN, stating that Charlie’s ex-wife has died and he now has custody of his 11-yr old son, MAX KENTON.

So, we’re off to Court where we meet young MAX and his AUNT HELEN who has temporary custody. Aunt Helen is wealthy beyond belief (having married three times). Her current husband MARVIN is the one paying all the bills.

It’s here we learn what kind of man Charlie is. He has no interest whatsoever in his son. Doesn’t even want to meet him. He’s perfectly willing to sign some paperwork that will relieve him of custody…until he sees an angle.

He makes a deal with Marvin. He will sign over custody of Max to Aunt Helen in exchange for $100,000. The only hitch is, Marvin and Helen are leaving for a prearranged trip to Italy and won’t return for two months. Charlie gets $50,000 now and retains custody for two months. When the aunt returns, Charlie will turn over custody and get an additional $50,000.

With the newfound money, Charlie is off to the races, buying a new robot – NOISY BOY, with Max in tow.

Max learns Charlie sold him for money. He’s upset. We see though that this isn’t an ordinary 11-year old kid. He’s street smart like this father. Tough as nails. Also, Max knows everything about robot boxing. He’s a rabid fan of the sport.

Charlie takes Noisy Boy to their first fight. Max tags along. However, Noisy Boy loses badly. Max and Charlie cart away the pile of robot parts that used to be Noisy Boy.

They don’t have a robot now. Max knows everything about Charlie. Middleweight. Once had a title shot but got knocked out in the 11th round.

Charlie goes to a scrap metal yard to scrounge for parts so he can build a robot. Max questions how

Charlie can win with a junker robot. Charlie states he doesn’t have to win, he just needs a robot in order to get paid for fights. It’s here that Max realizes Charlie is nothing but a loser and that’s all he will ever be.

Max almost falls down a ravine in the scrap metal yard. His life is saved by a left-for-dead robot who grabs ahold of him, preventing Max’s fall. This is Atom. Grateful, Max vows to save Atom from the scrap heap and lugs him out of the junkyard.

Charlie advises against this. States Atom is just a pile of junk. Max insists. That’s when two robot guard dogs attack. Charlie and Max are separated. The dogs go after Max. Max is able to outmanuever the dogs. The scene is very important because it’s here that Max realizes Charlie ran away and didn’t do a thing to save him. All Charlie cared about was himself.

Charlie inspects the broken down robot that saved Max’ life. It’s the only robot he has left. Worse, Charlie realizes Atom was built to be a sparring robot. Atom is not meant for real boxing.

Max and Atom’s relationship grows as Max teaches Atom how to play hide and seek. It’s like a kid and a dog.

Charlie takes Max to a real boxing match. We see COLOSSUS, the world champion. Colossus doesn’t beat his opponents, he demolishes them. Unbeatable.

Charlie and Max take Atom to his first fight. It’s in a bowling alley. The opponent is METRO. Bigger, stronger, faster than Atom. The payoff is $250 for the first round. An extra $1000 if Atom can make it to the second round.

The first round is brutal. Atom is almost knocked out but barely hangs on to survive the first round. Charlie is ecstatic, they’ve just made $1,250. Metro’s owner states he’ll double the $1,000 if Atom can survive round two. Charlie knows this is impossible but Max takes the bet. Charlie is angry – Max has just thrown away their prize money. Round two starts and Atom, mimicking moves that Max has taught him, actually knocks out Metro. The crowd is stunned.

Max goes to work. Using old parts from Supernova and Noisy Boy, Max enhances Atom. Now he needs Charlie to teach Atom all of his boxing skills.

Atom wins his next fight with Charlie barking out vocal commands. Charlie is in his moment, reliving his glory days through Atom. They are paid $15,000. For the first time in a long time, Charlie is a winner.

That’s when Ricky and his goons reappear. They beat Charlie to within an inch of his life. However, when they attack Max, we see Charlie rise to the occasion. Charlie fights with a wild abandon, protecting his son at all costs. In the end though, there’s too many goons and Charlie goes down. Ricky takes off with all of their prize money.

Broken and battered, Charlie and Max take stock. Their money is gone. All they have left is Atom.

That’s when Colossus’ handlers call. They watched Atom’s fight and offer $50,000 to buy Atom. Max refuses to sell. Instead, they will fight Colossus. A shot at the title will earn them $25,000. If Atom somehow manages to win, the purse is a million bucks. The handlers up their offer to buy Atom to $65,000. Max refuses and the fight is set.

Charlie and Max arrive at Madison Square Garden for the fight. Aunt Helen is there. She states after the fight, she will take Max home with her.

Atom gets the holy hell beat out of him but manages to survive the first round. It’s the first time any robot has managed to get to the second round against Colossus.

Max knows sending Atom out for the second round is suicide – until Atom signals to Max that he wants to go again.

Atom survives the second round and we now see that Colossus is starting to run out of steam.

Charlie calls out commands in a frenzy as Atom actually starts to hurt Colossus, landing punch after punch.

Atom makes it through rounds three and four but suffers heavy damage.

In the 5th, Atom actually knocks Colossus down. The crowd is going crazy.

Colossus gets up and the two robots savagely attack each other with everything they have left. The bell rings. Atom has survived the entire fight against Colossus.

Max and Charlie go to Atom who slumps to the ground. His lights go out. He’s dying.

The judges score the fight a unanimous victory for Colossus.

In despair, Max states he’s a loser. With conviction, Charlie puts Max on his shoulders and parades him in front of the crowd who rise in unison, giving Max a standing ovation.

Max is ontop of the world. He talks to reporters afterwards.

Charlie meets with Aunt Helen. Takes his $50,000 she owes him and slips out the back door without saying goodbye to Max. Once a loser, always a loser.

Charlie’s in his truck with Atom. Along again…until Max shows up with his duffel bag. Father and son are together and ready to take on all challengers

*****************************************************

The script is good. I can see why this is a high priority at DreamWorks. Very well-written and with robots being all the rage at the boxoffice (IRON MAN, TRANSFORMERS, etc,), I can see this film doing very well.

However, with another polish, the script can be great. It’s never explained why human boxing has been outlawed. That’s where they can really elevate Charlie’s character. He could be the reason. He could’ve been involved in the most brutal boxing match ever, coming to within an inch of dying in the ring. His iron-will and his heart kept him from going down. He’s just a bloody pulp at the end of the fight. Afterwards, with the media endlessly replaying the brutal rounds, the lawmakers step in and ban the sport forever.

This way, when the story opens, we see his Charlie’s will has been shattered. His life is meaningless. Yet, boxing is the only thing he knows so he desperately clutches onto it even though it means finding himself in the most-degrading situations, lugging around broken robots, fighting for a paltry $200.

And through Max and Atom, Charlie will rediscover his iron-will and his heart as they climb back up the ranks together, ending in a title shot that has long been denied him.

Also, the polish should work at strengthening Max and Charlie’s relationship. Charlie should see what he once was in Max. Full of love, hope, optimism and sheer blind faith. That anything can be accomplished in only you just believe hard enough. These qualities need to be hit much harder in the script. That way, the scenes will be much more emotionally fulfilling when they succeed in the end.

All in all though, a definite green-light for this script….with just a few provisional tweeks :)

Note: Due to the production status of this film, the screenplay is currently unavailable here.

SYNOPISIS
________________________________________
Present Day Suburbia, USA, BRYNN, 15, CASE, 9, and MELANIE HAYES, mom, are all asleep in their perspective bedrooms. Moving boxes are around the rooms, while SOPHIE, 6, is downstairs playing in the dark. Melanie wakes up and takes Sophie back to her bedroom. Sophie doesn’t want to go and tells her mom “If you wait and be real quiet you can see them.”

GREG HAYES, 40s, dad, arrives from a business trip. That night Sophie is again downstairs playing in the dark. This time dad goes to get her and she tells him that she is playing with the “TV people.” As the security alarm goes off Greg sees something crouching under the dining room table, a figure. He can’t believe his eyes, but as he tries to get a closer look through the strobing alarm lights, he sees nothing there.

Melanie is attacked in the night, her cries muffled. She tries to break free from a shadowy figure, falling off the bed. Greg awakes from the couch downstairs where he had fallen asleep. He runs up stairs to find a frantic wife. They search the house to see if the children are all ok. Sophie’s bed is empty. They call the police and Detective O’NEILL investigates.

The next night Sophie, through a toy walkie-talkie, is calling for “Mommy.” The family starts looking for her. A chat-cam is activated and hooked up to the living room TV. Case sees something, calls for dad and points at the TV screen. He sees a movement behind them by the piano at the back of the room. A faint shadowy figure, Sophie, barely there, reaching out, her face terrified. Greg whips around but Sophie’s not in the room.

The next day Greg pays DR. PATRICIA VANDERHILL, 50s, a paranormal psychologist, a visit to enlist her help to find Sophie.

That night Sophie is heard again calling for mommy, ANTON and RUIZ, Dr. Patricia’s assistants, start taking readings with their electronic equipment. They see a shadowy figure that literally slips into the wall. Later, Melanie sees Sophie in the hallway and runs after her, as she starts to embrace, Sophie moves right through her then disappears.

Dr. Vanderhill explains to the Hayes’ that “there’s another world. Can’t see it. But it’s literally right on top of ours.” Ruiz adds “some scientist believe there are places where boundaries between our set of dimensions and unknown dimensions are thin enough for objects, or people to pass through.”

A night later the Hayes’ are sharing memories of Sophie; one in particular is that Sophie had opened all the presents under the tree since she thought they were all for her, she looked so adorable and she had just opened Greg’s electric razor and goes “I didn’t ask Santa for this.”

A portal to the other side is found in Sophie’s closet and later the exit is discovered on the ceiling over the dining room table. While gathered around the dining room table a shadowy figure grabs Case and drags him upstairs. Greg quickly reacts running after chase and wrestles his son away from the shadowy figures in Sophie’s room. Detective O’Neill had come over to talk to the Hayes’ and witnesses the horror.

It is discovered that the Hayes house is right on top of a ley line. Dr. Vanderhill describes it as “tribes and clans would encounter each other at places were lines intersected. They’d build stone circles, making it a gathering spot. …these were spots of mystical and spiritual power. They’re often sisters of pagan temples and then churches were built on top of those.”

A little while later Anton comes out of the bathroom looking gruesome, watery eyes, pronounced veins, pale skin, he runs his hands through his hair and clumps fall out. 911 is dialed, Anton is taken to the hospital with Ruiz in tow.

Detective O’Neill had uncovered a case that was similar to the Hayes case and tracked down the girl that was abducted, at 14, in hopes that she can help the family. TRACEY DREXEL, 20, enters the house and she starts heading up the stairs as if something were beckoning her. She starts to unplug all the electronics in Sophie’s room stating that “All of this… it makes them angry.” Greg takes all that in and concurs in shutting the house down.

An executive decision is made by Melanie that she must go into the portal and go get Sophie. Melanie is on the other side and finds the other dimension like an aberrant mirror image of Sophie’s room. She hears “Mommy” and starts running after the sound when she comes face to face with one of the shadowy figures, his face inhuman, glints in dark sockets where the eyes should be, no ears, a thin mouth. She runs again toward the sound of mommy. In the kitchen a shadowy figure is holding a child; Melanie grabs her and runs to the dining room to exit this dimension. As she leaps she hears “Mommy,” a trick of the winds. Melanie and Sophie land on a mattress, safely out of the other side.

Later on that night Greg, Melanie and Sophie are staying in a hotel, while Brynn and Case are at grandma’s home. While in the bathroom bathing Sophie, Melanie discovers that this is not Sophie. She whisks her into the car and drives off back to the home, leaving Greg behind. She gets back to the home and enters the portal to return the girl to the lady, the lady is now holding Sophie, and they make the exchange. Greg took a cab back to the house and chases Melanie into the portal. When Melanie is running for the dining room she runs into Greg. Her eyes fill with deep amazement at seeing her husband. She doesn’t say it very loud, “You came for me.” As Melanie and Sophie go through the exit, Greg is grabbed by several shadowy figures and barely escapes.

The house around them starts to decay, crumble and slowly implodes. As they make it out of the house Tracy is there waiting for them. She was making sure that this was one of the ley lines, so that she can return home. The girl recovered from the abduction all those years ago was not Tracy but an inhabitant, which is now returning home. As the house continues to disintegrate there is a flicker of the shadow worlds, inhabitants standing amid the wreckage, Tracy joins the figures as they all flicker away. The last remnant of the house is pulled up into a singular point.

The Hayes’ are back at the home they had moved away from, together as a family.

COMMENTS
________________________________________
What makes this script a compelling read is the writer’s absolutely superb craft of writing. I became engrossed into the story, thus making it a grabbing read. What worked well in the script is the climax. This is a must be made story for the mere fact that this can become an instant classic in vein of the original.

The writing was absolutely superb in that the structure, plot points, pacing, descriptions and the writing style is what made this high concept story an enjoyable read. The writer’s next project according to IMDB.com is The Birds; I cannot wait to read their draft. The writers are definitely recommended for future assignments.

A few notes: It would be nice to see the dialogue and characterization tweaked in-order to give the leads a stronger pronounced character depth and arc. Also, perhaps, a strengthening of the theme geared toward ‘family’ could make all the difference in making this film-to-be a wide demographical flick. Lastly, granted the story is a remake and does detract from being an original and thus being predictable, however heightening the suspense and making it more of a light-hearted thriller may be what the remake could use to draw in the audiences.

The only criticisms might be that the first thirty pages, aside from the inciting incident, could use more drama and character drawing power. One story hole might be: when did Greg go about finding out about Dr. Patricia? Moreover, screenwriting 101: there were many pages with blocks of description and no dialogue to be seen; and, as much as I love the descriptions, how does one go about filming “her mind is swimming with a million thoughts?”

Never-the-less the story does make for a unique remake and the premise is good enough to see this project through development hell. Especially since it does lend itself to a great visual potential since special effects capabilities have advanced since 1982. The scene when we enter the other side (the other dimension) would be a great cinematic scene for the audiences to enjoy.

COMMERCIAL POTENTIAL
________________________________________
This would make for a great Halloween theatrical release. If the script is filmed without any gruesome graphics and filmed in vein of classic horror it could make for a good PG-13 four-quadrant film.

BUDGET: Medium. Considering the first film was budgeted at approximately $10 million in 1982, with inflation that would be around $25 million today (give or take), and Stephen King’s “1408” was produced for $22.5 million in 2007.

Of note: The first draft is dated December of 2008 and IMDB.com still has it listed as a pre-production for 2011. I do wonder if it will be made now, especially since this is an MGM owned property and MGM is being sold off. A plan ‘B’ for this script, is that it would be nice to see it make its way to ABC (not SyFy) and be produced as a Halloween special movie-of-the-week; the budget then can be “low” and be produced for way under $12.5 million. It may be wishful thinking on my part but a suggestion never-the-less for the powers that be.

Script Recommendation:
[ ] Recommended
[X] Consider
[ ] Pass

I hope you enjoyed the review. Personally, I enjoy the movie and television entertainment industry and look forward to sharing reviews with you. My passion is quality entertainment; film’s golden years, and television’s age of something on for everybody.

Until next time, happy reading.

Note: Due to the production status of this film, the screenplay is currently unavailable here.

To me, the rule of thumb regarding remakes is: If you can’t improve upon the original, leave it alone. Unfortunately, the writers chose to disregard my rule. Not only does this script falls woefully short of the original, it doesn’t even come close to the terrible sequels that film spawned.

We’re in a brand new neighborhood. A designed community. The HAYES family lives here.

MELANIE HAYES – designer/matriarch

BRYNN – 15 – teenager with all the angst that accompanies that age.

CASE – 9 – kid that sits around playing videogames because he doesn’t really have any friends

SOPHIE – 6 – precocious

It’s late at night. Melanie goes to check on her children. She’s startled to find Sophie’s bed empty. Sophie is downstairs playing with invisible friends. The television is on.

Melanie puts Sophie to bed, not giving this incident another thought.

GREG HAYES – businessman/patriarch – comes home from a business trip

That night, Melanie is awakened by the television downstairs. Greg investigates and finds Sophie playing a hide and seek game with the “TV people.” The home security alarm goes off. For just a second, Greg thinks he sees a figure hiding under the dining table.

Next night, Melanie wakes up. There’s a figure on her bed, pushing her down. Greg has fallen asleep downstairs. He runs upstairs to check on her. Panicked, Melanie states someone’s in the house. Greg goes to check on the children. SOPHIE IS MISSING.

The police are called in. An Amber Alert is posted. That’s when they hear Sophie’s voice. They realize it’s coming from the wall. They tear the wall down but there’s nothing there.

That’s when Case shows them the Chat-Cam. They can see a faint image of Sophie right here in the house. They also see shadowy figures. But only on the television.

CUT TO: 32HRS AFTER DISAPPEARANCE

With no other choice, Greg goes to see DR. PATRICIA VANDERHILL – parapsychologist. She brings her two associates ANTON and RUIZ.

The parapsychologists set up camp inside the house. Greg has recorded the chat-cam. They watch the playback and see the faint images of Sophie as well as several figures.

The parapsychologists huddle – Anton fears this is Fairfield,Ohio all over again. That’s a past incident which involved malevolent forces.

That night, a hovering light appears downstairs. Crystalline formations grow on every glass surface. Then all the lights in the house blow out.

Dr. Vanderhill theorizes that there are other dimensions and somehow Sophie has slipped through. She states they can find Sophie, they just have to find the way in.

Anton inspects Sophie’s closet – finds a hole in the wall. Anton places a marble on the floor. Everyone watches as the marble slowly rolls towards the wall and then gets sucked into the hole, disappearing from sight.

Anton starts to get sick.

The family dog, OTTO, then gets sucked into the hole in the closet.

Anton looks in the mirror and finds tufts of hair coming out of his head. He sees his fingernail has turned black and is peeling off.

We then see a TALL STONE behind the house.

The Police come in – they don’t trust the parapsychologists at all. The police are about to take everyone in for questioning when Sophie’s voice calls out and the marble that disappeared into the hole falls out of the ceiling. They realize they’ve just found the exit to the other dimension.

Otto the dog then falls out of the ceiling.

The dark figures then come out of the wall and grab Case. Greg pulls Case away and the figures disappear into the hole in the closet.

Anton and Ruiz examine the tall stone. Realize it’s Indian. And it’s ancient.

The police find a similar case that occurred in Kansas City six years ago. 14-year old Tracy Drexel simply disappeared in her bathroom. Five days later, she reappeared in the basement.

Ruiz and Anton solve the mystery of the tall stone. Earth has veins of magnetic currents called “ley lines.” They’re positive and negative ley lines. Indians used to mark the intersection of negative ley lines with tall stones. They realize the stone is a warning to stay away.

Anton is very sick now. Pale skin. Red eyes. An ambulance comes and takes him away. Ruiz goes with him. There goes the help.

The police bring Tracy Drexel to the house. She states they have to unplug everything — anything with an electrical frequency pisses the figures off.

Melanie and Greg send Case and Brynn to stay with a friend.

Okay, now we gear up for the final act. By god, they are going into the hole and they are bringing their little girl back.

Tracy Drexel states Melanie has to go into the hole.

Melanie walks into the closet and disappears into the hole. Finds herself in a mirror dimension. It’s an exact replica of their house yet everything is decaying.

She realizes that the figures are this dimension’s version of Greg, Dr. Vanderhill, etc.

Melanie finds a female figure holding onto Sophie. Melanie grabs Sophie and runs off. They find the exit and —

—fall through the ceiling of their house. They’ve made it!

Greg, Melanie and Sophie go to a motel to spend the night. Sophie has been eerily quiet. Now, in the motel room, Sophie begins to shake. And her skin cracks away. She’s actually a child from the otherworld.

Melanie wraps the child up in a blanket and drives back to their house. She goes to the closet with the otherworld child in tow.

Greg chases after them. Goes into the hole himself.

Melanie finds the female figure. She switches children.

Greg, Melanie and the real Sophie now try to exit the dimension. The dark figures attack. The female figure stops the dark figures from attacking.

Greg, Melanie and Sophie make it back into our world safely. They rush outside and the entire house implodes.

Tracy Drexel is there. She states she has to go back now. Her skin flakes away and we realize she’s from the other dimension. She disappears along with the house.

THE END

Oh boy. Where do I start? The script is unsatisfying on so many levels.

Why are the figures attacking? Since they seem to be the villains in the plot, what is their goal? Don’t ask me, I have no idea.

The story is stillborn. The writing is bad. Little things like Brynn’s homosexuality, the homogenization of the neighborhoods and American life, the complete reliance upon modern technology, being able to pick up the ghosts on a webcam, marital strife – Greg’s always away on business (all interesting subplots) are brought up and then discarded – adding nothing whatsoever to the plot.

The poltergeists in the original had a purpose. Their bodies are buried underneath the newly built tract homes – they are not at peace. In this version, they’re from another dimension and they’re pissed at us for some reason. Maybe it’s because Tracy Drexel is here in our world but if that’s the case, why didn’t they attack Tracy Drexel’s house???

The script has maddening questions like this that go unanswered.

Note: Due to the production status of this film, the screenplay is currently unavailable here.

@STYDNews:
Read the HACK/SLASH screenplay. True to the spirit of slasher films and the comic.

Which pretty much made it a must read for me.  Slasher films?  Comics?  I had to check it out.  The title alone was enough of a hook.  A slasher film with the word slash in its title, it could be as post-modern as the title promises it to be.  Plus, I’m all about creative punctuation in titles, something I was hoping we’d see more of after “FACE/OFF.”

Up for review is the 7.11.08 dated draft of HACK/SLASH – by Martin Schenk & Todd Lincoln, based on the comic by Tim Seeley and Stefano Caselli.  7.15.07 draft revisions by Ben Magid, 9.21.07 draft revisions by Todd Lincoln, 7.11.08 draft revisions by Justin Marks.

LOGLINE:  When slasher hunter Cassie Hack realizes the very first slasher she ever took on is about to come back for the one year anniversary of the Lunch Lady Massacre, she needs to go back and take down the Lunch Lady once and for all.

We open up on a keg party in the woods.  Teens, 70’s rock music, skinny dipping, right off the bat we know that if this is a slasher film, we’re in the pre-title “first kill” sequence.  And we would be right.  The “first girl,” the polar opposite of the slasher movie staple, the “final girl,” lives up to her title as the terrifying Slasher, who looks like he’s straight out of The Burning, stalks her and her friends in the woods.  Among the teens running for their lives is CASSIE HACK, 18.  Having already cast her investigative glance towards the woods before the massacre commenced and showing reservation in going skinny dipping with the others, Cassie clearly casts herself as the “Final Girl,” even though we’re still pretty early into the story.  The Slasher ends up chasing her through the woods where she ends up seeking shelter in a log cabin.  And well, here, take a look…

Upon entering the cabin, not only is the slasher met with a wide assortment of traps and weapons at Cassie’s disposal, but he ends up becoming the true “first kill,” falling victim to the structure of the slasher sub-genre himself in this pre-title sequence.  Cassie uses these weapons to torture, mutilate and dismember him with such a fierce level of expertise, this establishes a very different kind of movie.  What would normally constitute a fairly well written climax in a standard slasher film doesn’t even make up the whole first act of this one, but only the pre-title sequence.  It’s clear this isn’t the first time she’s done this.  Turning the tables on her slasher, it becomes clear that Cassie is the ultimate Final Girl and this is the Final Girl’s movie.  Buffy, the Slasher Slayer.

The opening sequence offers some very descriptive kills, sure to satisfy the film’s horror audience and despite the post-modern take on slasher films, it’s shaping up to still fit into the sub-genre that it’s commenting on, at least in terms of genre and structure.  Just like Kevin Williamson’s self-aware “Scream” was a post-modern slasher film, so is this, not so much in its self-awareness but more in terms of its respect for the slasher structure and it’s new take on the sub-genre.

It’s visual as hell, too.  As I read through the script, I couldn’t help but think what an awesome video game it would make, what with the various weapons Cassie uses and the slashers themselves, each slasher virtually the boss of his or her own level in the potential video game.  Needless to say, the writing is very visual.  Lots of white space on the page yet lots of story and action, all in a tight 97 pages.  It’s a quick read, a real page-scroller.

After the pre-title sequence, Cassie meets up with Vlad, 40s, and gets in their van.  He’s scarred, dons an industrial fllter mask and speaks with a thick Eastern European accent.  He could very well be a slasher himself, perhaps from the Hostel franchise and actually was mistaken for one in the backstory, but in this film, he’s Cassie’s partner and protector.  As Cassie and Vlad stake out the morgue where their most recent victim was taken, they wait around for his obligatory revival…

The script then takes an unusual turn as the dark backstory that haunts the heroine throughout the film is fully shown in flashback.  It’s pretty cool too and makes for a good origin story, but compressed into its own sequence in act I.  Normally such a backstory would be alluded too but we get to see all of it here.  It’s practically a slasher film on it’s own squeezed into a couple of pages and features the Lunch Lady of the Lunch Lady Massacre, the first slasher Cassie ever dealt with and a pretty intimate villain.  We get to see Cassie make the leap from ordinary girl to Final Girl to the Super Final Girl that she is in this film.  Although told in flashback, as a dream sequence nonetheless, it’s too interesting an origin to leave out so it works well here, despite its questionable placement.  In essence, we get an origin story and its sequel all rolled into one.

This ”opening sequence then backstory” structure of the first act is actually very reminisenct of Iron Man’s first act where we start out with an action sequence that sets up the hero’s problem, followed up with a flashback spelling out his entire backstory up until the present.  It may not be sloppy writing at all but done out of necessity, to begin a film with a running start and then take a time out to establish a couple of things.

Within the backstory-dream sequence, we see Cassie as she lived before she became a slasher hunter.  Just another high school kid that gets ridiculed under embarrassing circumstances.  We get to meet her friends and frienemies:

• MEGAN, 18, bff
• DARREN, 17, nerd
• PATRICK, 17, Cassie’s crush
• KYLE, 18, bully
• LUCY, 16, b***h

Throughout the script, as Cassie and Vlad talk shop, we get a sense of this world and its rules.  It seems to be a composite of all the slasher universes.  Imagine that Halloween, Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street and dozens of other slasher films all took place in the same reality…and I suppose Friday and Elm Street actually did thanks to the cross over “Freddy Vs. Jason.”  In fact, the film alludes to a Jason like slasher if not Jason himself when Cassie pawns a few slasher mementos for money…

Despite its knowingly post-modern take on the sub-genre, the script sometimes does fall victim to cliché.  For instance, you know that cliché where one character refers to another by their full name only for the sake of the audience learning their names, but under the guise of creative speech patterns?

As Cassie and Vlad move on to the next slasher, they check out the crime blotters and run across a suspicious death that reeks of the work of a slasher.  It’s almost the one year anniversary of the Lunch Lady Massacre and one of it’s original survivors, Darren, has been killed.  This may be the return of the Lunch Lady.

Act II.

This next slasher isn’t just an ordinary slasher, not just another notch on Cassie’s baseball bat, it’s possibly the first slasher she ever dealt with, the Lunch Lady.  Cassie and Vlad head back to her hometown, but not before seeking out Megan, who now lives in the city.  Visiting Megan, they both get stalked by a new slasher, RAZOR, with thousands of scars on his body and razor blades melded in to his fingers.  He could very well be the one responsible for the Lunch Lady Massacre anniversary murders.

Back in her hometown of Chippewa Falls, Cassie catches up with the remaining survivors to warn them about the anniversary and its consequences.  As the exposition rolls out, we learn more and more about this reality that further seems to encapsulate all the slasher film staples into one…

Not only do we re-learn the rules of the genre, we get some knowing commentary on it as well…

It’s the slasher film commentary that elevates this script to the level of Scream.  This time, the slasher victim clichés don’t really get made fun of as much as they get excused…

This speaks to the theme.  Vlad doesn’t dismiss them as ordinary, he points out that Cassie is anything but, something she struggles with throughout the script.  The story keeps unfolding until we’re at the final battle as Cassie and Vlad fight off the Lunch Lady and Razor, her co-slasher.  It is in this battle that we learn that Vlad is a serious force to be reckoned with, one hell of a partner Cassie is very fortunate to have.  Hopefully we’ll see some of his backstory explored in a sequel, although it does get a few brief mentions here.

My rating?
[ ] PASS
[ ] CONSIDER
[X] RECOMMEND

This was the July ’08 draft of HACK/SLASH when Rogue, the production company, owned this property.  In January, Relativity Media acquired Rogue from Universal and since then, writer Stephen Susco has been hired to rewrite it.

Note: Due to the production status of this film, the screenplay is currently unavailable here.

Akira is one of those anime that truly polarises people. On the one hand there are those that see it as a masterpiece of the genre and couldn’t countenance the idea of a remake, and on the other hand there are those, like me, who simply enjoyed it for what it was – another epic manga, butchered to make it palatable for moviegoing audiences – good, but certainly no masterpiece.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not one of those ‘the movies are never as good as the books’ folk. Lots of my favourite novels have been turned into terrific films with major artistic licence to allow for the strengths and weaknesses of the medium (Lord Of The Rings) and equally, some books that I thought were dreadful have made superb films, way beyond expectation (The Bourne Identity). But a book into a film is one thing, a manga, into an anime into a live action film is something else entirely and given the cultural differences, the translation issues and the often dumbing-down or simplification of films by the big studios, I have to admit I approached this screenplay with some trepidation.

Unsurprisingly the story has been switched to America. Manhattan is in ruins following an ‘event’ that destroys New York, killing millions and leaving countless more homeless or orphaned. With it’s financial capital gone the US tumbles into a crippling depression, Japan emerges as the worlds financial powerhouse and China its sole military superpower. In an effort to boost an ailing economy the US government agrees to sell what remains of Manhattan island to the Japanese to house their booming population and from the ashes of the old City rises New Tokyo.

Against this backdrop we meet 11 year old Travis and 14 year old Kaneda, two lads orphaned by the event who become fast friends at a school for displaced children. Skip forward twenty-one years and the two of them have formed a biker gang called The Red Devils, policing their patch of the old city against encroachment from rival gang The Reapers. Kaneda is the cocksure gang leader and Travis his erstwhile younger brother, the one he’s always looking out for, bailing out of trouble, fights, drug addiction and keeping supplied with money and bike spares. Travis though is resentful of the way Kaneda is always trying to rescue him and of how the other gang members rag on him and is sulky and prone to violent outbursts. It’s exactly one of these outbursts that leads to a confrontation with The Reapers and an intense bike chase leads to Travis crashing into a strangely aged child in the middle of the road, but while his bike explodes he is left there, bloodied and broken but alive. Kineda arrives at the scene to find his best friend hurt, the aged boy scurrying away and a young woman nearby. Before he can do anything they are surrounded by the massed ranks of the military and the local police and he is powerless as he watches his friend transported to a hospital, the weird-looking kid taken away in a helicopter and himself and the girl arrested.

The next day, after getting out of the police station, Kineda follows the girl, Kay, and discovers an underground resistance fighting against the Vanguard Corporation, military contractors in league with a corrupt politician called Nellis, who are trying to clandestinely resurrect an old defence program. You see, what the world doesn’t know is that the ‘event’ was caused by a boy called Akira, a participant in a secret military experiment to turn people with latent psycho-kinetic powers into terrifying bio-weapons that can kill with just a thought. Unfortunately his immense power couldn’t be controlled and it was a single thought, by Akira, that devastated New York. However, rather than kill the boy they opt to seal him deep underground, in a secret containment facility, in a state of cryogenic stasis to prevent him unleashing his awesome power again. Meanwhile Travis finds unlocked in him a previously dormant ability to control things with his mind and begins communicating with three similar children, though not as powerful, who are cared for in secure facilities suffering from an advanced ageing disease as a reaction to the experiments.

What follows is a race against time to find Travis by the military man, Shackleton who just wants to contain him and keep the city safe, the politician Nellis who wants him under the control of the Vanguard Corporation for weapons development, the underground who want to rescue Travis and remove him from the program before he harms himself and others and Kineda who just wants to help his friend out of trouble. But Travis is uncontrollably drawn to Akira who is chanelling Travis’ predisposition to violent outbursts and resentment of authority to mount his own plan to escape from his cryogenic prison and return to the real world, and, as Travis grows more accustomed to the enormous power he now yields, his wanton hubris and newly-inflated ego means he doesn’t want to be contained, developed, rescued or helped. Not by anyone. Not anymore.

I’ve got to say right off the bat that this screenplay is unbelievably faithful to the movie it clearly uses as source material. The setting may have changed to the US but introducing a mixed cast of Americans and Japanese (Travis is ‘Tetsuo’ in the anime, Shackleton is ‘Shikishima’) will no doubt make this adaptation more palatable – and more marketable – to all-comers. Some of the scenes have been switched around, there’s a bit of lengthening or shortening in places, and a couple of new ones have been added but none of it is to the detriment of the story; in fact I rather think it works to strengthen the story structure, resulting in a screenplay that flows pretty effortlessly from scene to scene with greatly improved pacing.

You’ll be pleased to know that the iconic scene of the bike chase culminating in Kineda’s broadside against the backdrop of the city at night is in there, but so are many others like the attack on Travis and Kaori by the Reapers (Clowns), the battle on the bridge between Travis and the soldiers, the fight in the sewers – and the bloody and violent dispatching of all and sundry has not been sanitised or glossed over, on the page at least. The dialogue has obviously been westernised and, as a result, can be a little predictable in places and the burgeoning romance between Kineda and Kay is a little more played out in here but I’ll forgive it both of those if what ends up on the screen matches what can be read on the page.

And there’s the rub.

Original estimates for a live action Akira ran to a budget of $300m which is why it’s been shelved for so long. Advances in filmmaking technology and CGI mean that the budget must be much lower now but I would hope that the ambition of all involved, particularly the studio, have not been diluted. Many of the elements of the anime such as a country in financial ruin, massive political and corporate corruption, relentless growth of the military industrial complex and the media scaremongering of terrorism are so relevant today – arguably moreso than in 1988 when the anime was released – that I hope that the powers that be don’t shy away from the subject matter.

You can argue that Whitta hasn’t brought anything new to the table and undoubtedly there is an opportunity, given the transplanting of the story to the US, to do more to make it relevant to modern audiences, but Akira is as much about spectacular visuals as it is about polemic and as long as whoever eventually helms this film doesn’t make a hash of them then what Whitta has done is given us a very authentic take on the anime, and that is as much as the vast majority of people will ever want.

My rating?
[ ] PASS
[ ] CONSIDER
[X] RECOMMEND

Note: Due to the production status of this film, the screenplay is currently unavailable here.

And then came Monday’s announcement by The Hollywood Reporter trumpeting the fact that Lionsgate picked it up. Go figure.

LAST STAND by Andrew Knauer

Logline: Cops in a tiny border town are the only thing standing in the way of an escaped prisoner, protected by hardcore gangbangers, trying to make it across to Mexico.

OPENING – We get a look at the Gumpert Apollo – a speed car – doing 177mph on a deserted highway. It blows right on past a police cruiser. 770 horsepower.

CUT TO: Sommerton Junction – small border town, 5miles from Mexico. Everyone knows everyone here.

We meet SHERIFF RAY OWENS. 40′s. In charge. He walks into the diner and spots two suspicious looking characters. Gang tattoos on their necks.

A man named BURRELL steps into the diner. The two gangmembers walks out with Burrell. The Sheriff is immediately suspicious. What the heck are these strangers doing here?

The Sheriff drives through town and sees more suspicious characters. This can’t be good.

We meet MARTINEZ and BAILEY, two of Sheriff Owens officers, shooting at a hanging carcass. This is the bulk of Sommerton Junction’s police force. The Sheriff drives up and reprimands his officers for messing around. He tells them to be on the lookout – fears something is going down.

CUT TO: LAS VEGAS – FEDERAL COURT

GABRIEL CORTEZ SMITH – on trial, worth $400mill – on trial on 61 counts of drug trafficking

He pleads not guilty.

FBI AGENT JOHN BANNISTER places Gabriel Cortez Smith in an unmarked car for transportation. BAM. An elaborately staged prisoner-break ensues. Cars are smashed. Agents are shot. And in the end, Gabriel Cortez Smith is gone.

The FBI quickly set up roadblocks, stopping every car trying to leave Vegas. That’s when the GUMPERT APOLLO pulls out of traffic and roars off. Zero to sixty in three seconds.

The cops gives chase but they’re no match for this Supercar. A helicopter flies overhead, tailing the Gumpert Apollo. Bannister realizes Gabriel Cortez Smith is trying to make it to Mexico.

Back in Sommerton Junction, Sheriff Owens calls a meeting with all his Officers, informing them of the gangbangers in their town. He wants to know what they’re doing here. The Officers begin to tail the gangbangers.

Meanwhile, the FBI set up a roadblock at Bullhead City, Arizona. No way in the world will the Gumpert Apollo get through this. Armed Officers await its arrival.

And then….WHAM! BAM!! Gangbangers in SUVs pull up on the opposite side of the roadblock and fire upon the Officers. The cops are sitting ducks. The ones that aren’t killed have to scatter. A pick up with an attached snow plow clears the roadblock. The Gumpert Apollo speeds on by.

The area is clear all the way to Mexico.

Agent Bannister needs to know if they have any kind of law enforcement that can help them out. His answer: The only thing standing in their way is Sommerton Junction.

Bannister gets ahold of Sheriff Owens – tells him the Apollo is about two hours away from Sommerton Junction – also tells him to lookout for gangsters that have been placed there to make sure the Apollo makes it safely to Mexico.

END ACT I – Owens now realizes what’s going on – Sommerton Junction is going to have to stop the Apollo from getting through.

Bannister gets in touch with El Centro – they have a SWAT team – he tells them they have to provide help for Sommerton Junction. SWAT rolls to the rescue.

Bannister then learns Owens once was a cop in Los Angeles. He was shot three times and retreated to Sommerton Junction to escape. We also learn Owens partner was also shot and is now confined to a wheelchair and a respirator.

Gabriel Cortez Smith contacts Burrell – tells him to kill all the cops in Sommerton Junction before they get there.

Owens has a talk with his officers. He tells them this is not their problem. He states the FBI can work on extraditing Smith from Mexico if they want him so bad. Owens doesn’t want to see anyone get hurt.

Their guns are no match for these heavyweights with AK-47s. That’s when the gangbangers send molotov cocktails into the station and fire upon them. So much for being pacifists and minding their own business.

One of Sheriff Owens’ officers is killed. Owens takes this very personally. Owens calls Bannister and tells him that if Smith comes into Sommerton Junction, Owens is going to bury him. The die is cast. The wheels are in motion. Two forces are now on a collision course.

El Centro’s SWAT team is on their way.

Owens and his men go to see LEWIS DINKUM – a Sommerton man with a love of weapons – Dinkum has a Thompson submachine gun and a Vickers machine gun from WWII. They take everything and deputize Dinkum.

Owens and his officers go looking for the gangsters. The gangsters attack. Shootouts ensue.

END ACT II – An SUV carrying gangsters takes out the El Centro SWAT van. No assistance is coming now for Owens and his men. They’re on their own.

Sheriff Owens drives a school bus, using it to block a street. The Gumpert Apollo arrives. Owens manages to trap the vehicle. Walks up behind and shoots out its back windshield.

Tells the driver to get out. It’s not Gabriel Cortez Smith. Owens checks the vehicle – Smith is gone.

Sheriff Owens gets in the Apollo and takes off in pursuit.

Gabriel Cortez Smith is in a mustang. Owens rams it from behind. Owens uses the car to block the Mustang. Smith gets out, running. Owens shoots him in the leg.

Burrell gets out of the car. Owens shoots him three times. Burrell’s wearing a vest. He tears the vest off and faces Owens down. Huge fight sequence. Owens is victorious. Sheriff Owens then cuffs Smith and brings him back to town.

BIG FINALE- Smith’s men arrive. Free Smith. Smith shoots and kills Sheriff Owens.

Sheriff’s Owens surviving Officers bring Smith in. FBI Agent Bannister and the cavalry arrive. They take possession of the Gabriel Cortez Smith and compliment the Sommerton Junction Officers for a job well done.

HUH!!!?????

That’s the ending. That’s the biggest problem with the story. In an action film, your ending had better deliver the fireworks. This barely had firecrackers. Seriously, I think me and a couple of friends would’ve been able to arrest Gabriel Cortez Smith.

Which brings me to the next biggest problem with the script: The villain. Basically, all he does throughout the story is sit in a fleeing car. C’mon! The villain is the engine of the plot. The villain should drive the story. The stronger the villain, the stronger the script. Smith is too thin to even be considered one-dimensional. I’ve seen bit players with more meat on them. How is sitting in a car menacing?

Moving on. The action sequences are mundane. Cleverness and originality and MIND-BLOWING, FULL-IMPACT ACTION are called for to pull this story off. Unfortunately, none of this is found within the pages. We get stock scenes, connect-the-dots sequences and a been-there, seen-that feel which makes us lose faith in the writer quickly.

This cannot be the draft that LionsGate bought. Wait, after seeing “SAW VI,” maybe it is.

My rating?
[X] PASS
[ ] CONSIDER
[ ] RECOMMEND

Note: Due to the production status of this film, the screenplay is currently unavailable here.

Story’s about EMMA FRANKLIN and ADAM KURTZMAN. We open on them in bed as they discuss alternate terms for “f**k buddies.” We cut back to 1994 – summer camp in Northern Michigan. 12-yr old Adam spots 12-yr old Emma at a dance – there’s an immediate connection – they make out. Unfortunately, this romance is short-lived since camp is ending.

We then cut to 2001 – Adam and Emma meet up again at a Frat Party. Emma tries to screw Adam in a car but Adam stops her because he can’t cheat on his girlfriend – we learn that Adam’s father (a successful sitcom actor) cheated on his mother and left them

Emma invites Adam to a thing the next day – it turns out it’s her father’s burial service – we learn that Emma had problems with her father

We then cut to 2007 – Adam works as a lowly production assistant on a cheesy sitcom – we learn that

Adam’s father, ALEX KURTZMAN, is now sleeping with Adam’s ex-girlfriend of 4yrs

Adam is devastated – he gets totally wasted and wakes up in a strange apartment – it’s Emma’s. Turns out, he drunk dialed all his old girlfriends.

Emma and Adam screw. Afterwards, Emma explains she doesn’t do relationships. They make up ground rules – they are determined not to feel anything for each other, they are just there to f**k each other.

We get a montage of them having sex…everywhere and everywhichway. At the end of the montage, we realize they are falling in love with one another – END ACT I.

Emma is a doctor working at The UCLA Teaching Hospital. Adam yearns to be a stand-up comedian and tries out his act in clubs, while working as a production assistant on the sitcom. Their work schedules are so crazy, all they have time to do is f**k – no dates. Seems this f**k-buddy thing is just want they need.

However, Adam is stung when one of his friends wants to take Emma out and Emma actually considers it. Adam realizes they truly are just f**k buddies with no strings attached.

While having sex, Adam asks Emma if he should ask out a hot wardrobe assistant on the show. Emma encourages him to ask her.

MIDPOINT – Adam tells Emma he loves her – Emma rushes off without saying it back.

Emma has a patient die on her in the hospital. Unable to handle it, she calls Adam but learns he’s going out on a date – she’s crushed. Emma immediately starts an affair with her boss, DR. METZNER, an older married man.

Adam sleeps with his date – doesn’t enjoy it

Emma and Adam talk to each other about their dates – it’s clear they’re both jealous but they cover it up.

Adam and Emma go on a real date – he takes her to the museum. Emma freaks out – she doesn’t want a real relationship. Adam tells her he can’t do this anymore, he can’t f**k her unless she’s his girlfriend. Emma can’t do that. They break up – END ACT II

Dejected, Adam goes through a string of girls – he puts everything into his comedy act and starts to gain notoriety, signing with an agent

Emma goes out on a blind date, Mike. Hits it off with him.

Time passes.

Drunk, Emma calls Adam – he rushes over to her. Instead of f*****g, this time they make love.

However, Emma is distraught the next day when she wakes up and Adam is gone. Worse, he doesn’t call her the next day.

Unannounced, Emma goes to see Adam’s stand-up act and catches him kissing another girl. Emma runs off – Adam chases after her. Adam explains he’s confused and doesn’t know what they’re doing. They break up for good this time.

After much soul-searching and individually putting all of their parent-issues to rest, Adam and Emma get back together and welcome the challenges a relationship can bring.

Okay, talk about dialogue intensive. The whole script is just “talking heads.” Unless you have great characters, a movie like this tends to get visually boring in a hurry. Fortunately here, Adam and Emma are funny and engaging which makes for a great read.

The question is, will it make a great movie? While I loved the script, it’s a toughie. Because it’s so talky, I can’t see this film setting the world on fire. Audiences today need that visual-candy and this script has nothing whatsoever in that department. To give you a better idea, all of Judd Apatow’s stuff looks like “THE TRANSFORMERS” compared to this. All of the humor comes from the verbal sparring between the two leads.

While I found the story engaging and the dialogue funny, I would ultimately pass on the script. As far as the writer goes, I would sign her in a heartbeat. She’s got talent to burn. She just needs to either focus on sitcom writing or add more visual comedy to her movie plots. Doing so will enable her to conquer the town!!!

My rating?
[ ] PASS
[X] CONSIDER
[ ] RECOMMEND

OPENING – We’re on a small college campus. A security guard walks through the aftermath of bedlam: buildings broken into, a car is on fire, a light pole has fallen and…a dead body. We immediately CUT TO: 14 HOURS AGO

SET UP – JUSTINE WILLS (LEAD) 19-year old sophomore is in her dorm room with AARON, her 20-year old boyfriend. It’s Thanksgiving weekend. The campus is deserted. Aaron leaves to spend the holidays with his family. Justine doesn’t want to go. There’s tension in this decision – some turmoil just underneath the surface.

Justine plans to stay on campus and catch up on her homework.

A news reports states there’s a missing woman named Kristy Matthews – last seen three nights ago.

Justine decides to drive to town to pick up some supplies and snacks. She passes WAYNE, dorm security. They’re friends – she promises to bring him back some Snowballs.

While driving on the two-land road, a car approaches with its highbeams on. Annoyed, Justine flicks her own highbeams at the car. Justine drives past but is scared to see in her rearview that the offending car has stopped…as if contemplating whether it should attack her.

Justine drives on and arrives at the 7-11, picking up supplies. We then understand the source of the tension in her relationship with Aaron when she picks up a pregnancy kit.

There’s a girl at the counter buying aluminum foil, latex gloves and beer. She’s lanky with black fingernail polish. A hood hides the girl’s face. Automatically, we know something’s not right with this girl. Justine waits patiently in line until she notices out the window….THE HIGHBEAM CAR PARKED IN THE LOT.

Justine gets back in her car – finds her student ID card, which she left on her dashboard, is missing.

Justine goes back to her dorm – has to have the Security Guard buzz her in because she doesn’t have her ID. She goes to her room and takes the pregnancy test – positive.

She falls asleep.

END ACT I – Justine wakes up. Her CELLPHONE’s ringing. When she answers a male voice asks for “Kristy.” Justine says he has the wrong number. Hangs up. Another call. Justine answers. This time it’s a female caller asking for “Kristy.” Weirded out, Justine states she has the wrong number and hangs up.

That’s when she sees someone walk past her dorm door. She opens the door and looks out. There’s a guy at the end of the hallway up on the ladder……TAKING ALL THE LIGHTBULBS OUT OF THEIR SOCKETS. The rest of the hallway is pitch black. The guy waves at her and walks away.

Justine goes after him, confused. Finds all the vending machines unplugged. The guy’s gone.

Justine goes back to her dorm room. Finds her CD Player blasting a song. She turns it down. Realizes her laptop is missing. Looks out her window and sees her laptop smashed on the ground below. She then realizes her cellphone is missing.

Grabbing her baseball bat, Justine heads down the security booth….which is empty. A CAR ALARM then goes off. She looks out the window and sees it’s her car.

Out in the parking lot, Justine sees her car’s been broken into and all the electrical wiring has been pulled out. That’s when a set of highbeams flash on. Justine turns and faces her attackers.

Justine quickly goes back inside the dorm building and tries to call for help only to find the phonelines are dead. She watches in dread as the figures cut the powerlines, plunging the dorm into darkness.

What’s horrifying is, the figures are wearing masks made out of aluminum foil and latex gloves. What makes it even more horrifying is, one of the figures is wearing the security guard’s uniform.

The figures shatter the glass doors to the dorm and enter.

Justine hides in a bathroom. Finds the security guard’s dead body on the floor. Justine escapes out the bathroom window.

Justine manages to get out of the building. There’s another mask-wearing figure (there’s four figures in total) in a car outside – he chases her down.

Justine manages to run to the GROUNDSKEEPER’S HOUSE. The Groundskeeper gives her shelter as she explains what’s going on. The Groundskeeper tells her not to worry. He has a gun.

The Figures begin smashing all the security lights outside. The Groundskeeper chases them, FIRING SHOTS. Justine listens in horror as the Groundskeeper is killed.

Justine finds a knife, a cellphone, keys and a flashlight. She makes a mad dash to the library.

Inside the safety of the library, the cellphone rings. Justine answers. It’s 911 calling, asking if someone on this line called. Relief and hope sweep through Justine as she quickly recounts what’s happening. The 911 operator tells her everything will be okay and then calls her….Kristy.

The masked figures descend upon the library. Justine runs up to the roof. Gets out a call to 911. Tells them she needs help. Stops when she realizes one of the masked figures is behind her. With no other choice, Justine jumps off the roof.

Limping badly, Justine makes it to a sewage canal. She has to crawl through a mass of rats.
Then swims across a brook to reach the road on the other side.

A car comes driving up. Frantic, Justine flags its down and realizes it’s…Aaron. Yes! He came back to campus to be with her.

END ACT II – But no! The figures shoot Aaron in the head with the Groundskeeper’s gun.

Justine gets in Aaron’s jeep and floors it, RAMMING FIGURE#2, crashing into a lightpole, killing him.

Justine looks back. Sees the three remaining figures walking towards her.

Justine runs to the nearest building – it’s the gym complete with Olympic-sized pool. She sees a news report on the tv stating that the police have recovered the body of 20-year old Kristy Matthews in the woods.

Justine manages to drown a 2nd figure in the pool. Two down. Two to go. It’s here that Justine makes a promise to her unborn baby that she will not let anything happen to her/him.

Justine then dispatches of the 3rd figure in the weight room. She sees that the 3rd figure is getting text messages on his phone. The texts reveal that this is all a game to the figures and that they’ll call their next victim “Justine.”

RESOLUTION – The last figure is the female at the 7-11.

Wearing Figure#3′s clothes, Justine manages to sneak up on the female. After a furious fight, Justine stabs her in the neck.

The female just won’t die though. Justine gets in a car and runs her down.

We’re then back to our opening. The Guard then finds Justine on the ground, softly reciting a poem to herself over and over. The Guard touches her shoulder to see if she’s okay. Justine looks up and screams as we:

FADE OUT

The Opening is good. Very visual. Demands our attention. What the hell happened here? The writer has effectively hooked us right from the jump.

While the first act starts off slow, once Justine hits the 7-11, the pages crackle with tension. And make no mistake about it, this is REAL HORROR. Nothing supernatural here. This is the kind of horror that is waiting right around the corner. The kind that can happen to anyone at anytime.
As the story moves forth, Justine wants to know why they’re doing this. The frightening aspect of the script comes from the realization that they’re doing all this for no reason at all. It’s just a game to them. They are twisted, black-souls with a hard-on for terror.

The Second Act ends with a bang literally as Aaron is shot in the head. Right when you think Justine is going to escape this nightmare, her salvation is instantly killed right before her eyes.

It’s here where Justine realizes there’s no one that’s going to save her. That’s what really causes the horror to amp up. She’s all alone and there’s four figures out there looking to kill her.

The writing is extremely effective. You can feel your skin crawl as you read. The terror builds without any let up.

Yeah, maybe the reality dims a little by having Justine able to kill them all off but it’s a release that the audience needs at this point. We are living through her now. She has to survive because it makes us feel a little safer.

This film can be made on the cheap with a no-name cast. You then release it during winter break and watch all the students come out in droves to see it. CHA-CHING!

Anthony Kaswinski is clearly a writer to keep an eye on. Knows how to handle a story, knows how to build tension and knows how to make you feel the page instead of simply reading them.

My rating?
[ ] PASS
[ ] CONSIDER
[X] RECOMMEND

Revolves around a group of frustrated friends who hit a hot tub at the ski resort where they partied as teens — and get transported back to 1987. Tired premise, but a unique idea for a time machine. And John Cusack is going to star.

Buddy Comedy Checklist:
The handsome leading man? Check
The unbelievably hot, sexy girlfriend? Check
The token black friend? Check
The henpecked husband? Check
The insecure, angry, fat bald man? Check.
The hip, young friend? Check.
The younger brother who never really knew his older brother and vice versa? Check
Scary girl who is great in bed? Double Check.

Time Travel Checklist:
Betting on sports? Check.
Changing your past? Check.
Accidentally altering the future? Check.
Showing the cliches of the past? Check.

Where did this go wrong? For me it was right at the begining. A few moments after our soon-to-be-married couple begins sexual role-playing it was obvious that someone is going to walk in. How do we refer to the character? BLACK MAN.

A BLACK MAN. Yes that’s right: A BLACK MAN. He is referred to as this until the next scene where we learn his name is Nick. Why not just call him Nick from the start? I guess it’s better than calling him your typical henpecked husband which comes across through dialouge and story points. The guy has a name and the writer calls him BLACK MAN for his introduction. The situation would be embarrasing and shocking with any person walking in.

Problem #1 is our lead gang. They are made of cardboard. Each one fills their slot and never do they change. I’m not expecting Shakespeare. I’m not expecting character growth. I’m just sick of the same character over and over again.

Our group is throwing a bachelor party in the ski town they love where they spent their youth. Of course, it’s nothing like they remembered. It’s all modern now. It’s crushing to them. Where’s the fun? They make their own by getting drunk in The Hot Tub. Somehow, some way, they go back in time (I won’t ruin the cause) exactly to the moment they spent there as teens.

Adam, our lead, finds the ski instructor he still fantasies about and well you know what happens next. Misunderstandings and hi-jinks abound by all leading up to an ending never before in a John Cusack film, a ski off. The inspiration for this comes from the movie Better Off Dead starring John Cusack. If one thing is to change from script to screen, this is sure to be it.

I didn’t mention the sex-comedy aspects to this simply because if you’ve seen one sex-comedy you’ve seen them all, except for one moment that I’ll mention in the spoiler section next.

SPOILERS

The total disaster. The complete derailment. The Hindenburg moments are all over the time travel aspect to the film.

At one point our characters are arrested. They mention that using the money they have isn’t a good idea because it looks fake. When they do get arrested nobody seems to mind that their ID’s are current for 2009(10) and not for 1987.

Lou decides to stay behind. He uses his future knowledge to make money. He decides to kill his younger self just to keep one version of him around. Take a look at an early moment in the screenplay:

Now a few pages later we get:

Perfect example of time travel cause and effect. You break your younger self’s nose and your nose breaks as well.

Near the end of the script we get this:

Skip down a few lines.

So he can break his own nose by breaking the nose of his younger self but when he kills his younger self nothing happens. Something’s wrong with that. Logic dictates that if in your movie you can break your younger self’s nose any damage done will be done to the older version. So he dies. That means he never went on the trip. If he never went on the trip he never……………Cutting that short because it loops back around to him having to go back and all sorts of time travel technobabble will take up this space. Short and simple answer is: if you die at 19, you are not alive in your 40s. The whole ending falls apart with this joke.

There’s no need for that. No time travel paradox as they say in the script. Just use an alias and all should be well. Except for when it comes to paying taxes and whatnot. Time travel movies are a pain to write.

The script-killer was the last scene. I’m not spoiling it. Read the entire script. Just get to that last scene on the final page. It was wrong on so many levels. So very wrong.

There are elments that work, the Bellhop for one. Crispin Glover is perfectly cast.

What made this an iffy project for me is John Cusack’s involvement. What makes me want to see this is John Cusack.

The films climax, at least in this draft, is a riff on Better Off Dead‘s starring John Cusack. The film is even mentioned by name. I love Better Off Dead. It’s one of those movies where if I ever tune to it, it’s on till the end. Now this shows Cusack has a sense of humor about himself. It’s probably this films biggest joke, an in-joke at best. Problem is, only those who’ve seen Dead will get it. You can have this cornball ski-off that might fall flat.

Rewrites have taken place. Along with Cusack and Glover, one of the Gods of 80s comedy, Chevy Chase is in the mix. The three of them, plus the time travel aspect, make this a must-see for me. If the film is like this draft, this won’t be a two-timer for me.

Check out more:
Hot Tub Time Machine @ IMDb

The Expendables is about a group of mercenaries called, you guessed it, The Expendables, led by a gruff no-nonsense leader Barney Ross. After a short opening action scene where the mercs take down a group of Somali pirates holding some French hostages (and get into a scuffle with one their own, a more unstable member of the team), Ross and his merry band of cohorts are hired to take out a dictator of a small country in Central America while the CIA runs their own cloak and dagger game on the side. On the surface, it’s a relatively straightforward story and a fodder to a number of cheap direct-to-video shooters that don’t overstay their welcome over the typical ninety minute running time.

But with The Expendables, the problem is two-fold:

At 139 pages, the whole thing is way too bloated and aimless. The story takes its time to get sidetracked to a number of directions that don’t really add up to anything. There’s plenty of scenes of intrigue within the halls of the CIA that go nowhere, a really weak confrontation with the ex-member of the Expendables that doesn’t really have anything to do with the story at hand, and a really bizarre subplot involving a gay member of the team and buying guns from an arms dealer at a gay club in Mexico. I have no idea what Stallone was thinking there.

Second, even with the considerable length, the characters are paper thin. Sure, that’s quite expected from an 80′s action flick, but by the big shootout in the end comes up, I had hard time caring about any of these characters. The dialogue is mainly concerned about moving the plot along or plainly stating what each character is supposedly about. The script tries very hard to create a “wacky” band of colorful soldiers in the tried and true vein of Aliens, but falls short on creating anything memorable. Despite everyone getting a plenty of time to do their things, they’re basically cardboard cutouts sprouting interchangeable action dialogue, clunky exposition, or weak one-liners. There’s some moments of character building, but they are woefully underdeveloped. There’s nothing really that says “awesome” (or even “interesting”) about these characters – and that’s a cardinal sin when it comes to a story supposedly about badass mercs blowing s**t up.

Still, one has to remember that this is the first draft. While the core story isn’t anything remarkable or revolutionary, it is a solid framework to hang a cool and gruff men-on-a-mission movie. This draft isn’t it, but after Rocky Balboa and Rambo, I have faith in Stallone’s ability to let this thing simmer for a while and then return to it, take a long, hard look at it – and then cut about thirty pages of nonsense, find the core of what he wants to do with this concept and these characters, and then rebuild this thing into a mean, ripped and angry action piece that pulls no punches.

Curious as to why Mark Steven Johnson passed on Goyer’s draft(s) to commit his own take to the silver screen in 2007, I decided to dig the script out of the bottom of that box and see how our beloved “Prince of Darkness”² envisioned Marvel’s flame-skulled antihero. I also decided to scan it and share it with you here, so you can check it out for yourself. Click here to download it.

I should also mention, I suppose, that I’m a comic book fan. I started reading comics when I was ten-years-old and willing partook in the geekery that is ultimately associated with those “funny books” throughout the entirety of my teenage life. That said, I am by no means an expert, but I’m versed in comic lore and can, for the most part, hold my own in a comic-related conversation. Especially if it has anything to do with Marvel characters, as that was my comic company of choice. I could never fully delve into the expanse of the DC universe, save for some select Vertigo titles, as it always seemed so convoluted to me (“Wait, what do you mean there’s a gaggle of Silver Age characters and their timeline’s are completely different, but I need to know them to understand who the Modern Age characters are? Hold on, there’s Golden Age, too?! Ah, f**k it. Where’s my Turok #1 with the chromium cover? I should only have about fifty of them lying around here somewhere.”).

Moving on (small digression aside), I did purchase and read some Ghost Rider comics while growing up, but I could never really connect with the character. He looked cool, for damn sure, but there was nothing really lasting for me to keep going back month after month.

Anyway, after reading this draft I decided to do some homework and found that Goyer had written a previous 113 page draft with revisions made by Ken Sanzel dated June 19th, 1995, which The Stax Report reviewed in 2001³ when Jon Voight and Johnny Depp were rumored to be attached. That draft, though, Goyer explained in 2001 was “a starting point” and “the direction we’re going with the story would simplify things drastically… more Road Warrior than Marvel Universe.” Remember that last Road Warrior bit for later.

There’s also a June 14, 2001 draft by Goyer floating around the interwebs that Internapse posted a review for in 2005⁴. That draft is dated two months after the draft I’m reviewing here, and while I have not read that draft through to completion, a quick once-over revealed that the placement of the structural elements of the script has been altered significantly, but it does seem to retain the majority of the core story. Perhaps, as time permits, I’ll read it and compare the two, but for now let’s get on with the review.

The story begins simply enough:

The coyote is important, remember that.

The coyote wanders through a derelict amusement park before reaching a ridge that looks out over a Southwestern town. We then cut to a bike repair shop and meet our man, John Blaze, who’s cutting out of work early, again, to meet up with some friends, but not before skillfully grabbing a pair of bolt-cutters while screaming out of the shop on his “muscular, battered BSA.” Their destination? A freight train barreling across the high plains. We’ll get to the why in just a second, first you have to know how Blaze gets on the train.

And just as you start to question the validity of such a feat, Goyer is quick to remind us:

Okay, granted, I’ve seen a similar move on ESPN, but not a tail-over-head front flip or on an old BSA for that matter. Dirt bike, yes. BSA, no. Great. Here I am, excited to finally be reading this much-talked-about screenplay, and I’m already rolling my eyes on Page 3. What could be worse? Well, the why, of course.

That’s right. Our boy, Blaze, is a thief. A thief that we’re somehow supposed to connect with and feel empathy toward, especially after we learn in the following scene that his girlfriend, Roxanne, is seven months pregnant and when the cops show up to take John in for questioning (in connection with the freight train robbery), he calls them by their first names! Uh huh, he knows them both, well, and this isn’t the first time this has happened.

And now that we’re really rooting for our hero, he goes and does something sweet in the next scene. Once he gets back from the police station, he rouses Roxanne from sleep and takes her to the aforementioned derelict amusement park and ridge that overlooks the town, complete with a watchful coyote. Blaze then crafts an origami wedding band out of a dollar bill and sort of “proposes” to Roxanne without actually asking. Then we get a brief glimpse of that Goyer genius.

Then there’s some expository dialogue from Roxanne about Blaze’s lifestyle and their soon-to-be daughter. Oh, and the coyote again. Then all hell breaks loose as we cut back to the apartment and Blaze bursting in to warn Roxanne that they have to leave now. As Roxanne questions, we follow him to the bathroom where he pulls a handgun from behind the toilet, Godfather-style, and tears a panel off of the bath tub to grab a stack of black boxes.

CUT TO: Parking lot. El Camino. Backwards spin. Jump a curb. Rain. Passing cop. Fogging windshield. Cop turning around… You can see where this is headed, right? Cop gives chase. Blaze tries to outrun, but wait:

Blaze reacts. The car crashes through a guard rail and flips end over end before finally coming to rest at the bottom of a rocky arroyo. Blaze stirs to find the passenger seat is empty. He scrambles out of the car to see Roxanne lying ten yards away. He makes his way over to her and then breaks down crying. As troopers show up on the scene, we cut to a hospital and find Blaze in handcuffs and arguing with the troopers. He pleads to see Roxanne and one of the deputies finally agrees. As we discover Roxanne lying in a hospital bed, a doctor informs us that she’s in critical condition and that she lost the baby, which devastates Blaze. Later, with Roxanne on life support, Blaze sits handcuffed beside her bed as two troopers stand guard at the door. He’s lost, adrift. Then we hear footsteps, the ICU lights flicker, and the machines around Blaze begin to weaken as we’re introduced to:

Time stops and Starke places a coin in Blaze’s hand. On one side is a soaring eagle with a coyote on the other. Starke offers to save Roxanne if Blaze will work for him. Blaze questions what kind of work, exactly, as we fade to black.

Five years later, we join Blaze in a Motel room, looking haggard and beat as he stares into a mirror. We then meet a Native American woman, Nomi, and her daughter, Rain, in a Seven Eleven. As they exit the store, we also meet Billy Ray Carrigan talking on the phone, who we later learn is actually Nomi’s husband. As Nomi and Rain leave, Carrigan and his henchman follow at a distance.

Back to Blaze in his motel room, we get a glimpse at how he’s been living for the past five years: out of a duffle bag. He studies a map that is crisscrossed with lines tracing storms from city to city.

As Nomi and Rain travel down a rural back road, Carrigan and crew ram them from behind.

Blaze lights a cigarette and the flames acts peculiar, giving us our first hint as to what has happened to him. He then grabs the coyote/eagle coin, places it on the map, and spins it. As we push in on the coin… and this starts a series of back and forth sequences.

We’re back with Nomi and Rain as they’re harassed and chased by Carrigan and crew, then…

Blaze and the coin. Spinning, spinning…

Just as Nomi’s pickup has a blowout that sends it careening off the road. Once it finally comes to a stop, Nomi grabs a revolver from the glove box and leaves Rain in the pickup as she storms off to confront Carrigan, as…

Blazes watches the coin, then shuts his eyes to allow for dramatic buildup, as…

Nomi starts getting the s**t beat out of her. Did I mention this was an R-rated script? Carrigan’s henchman manage to pull Rain kicking and screaming from the pickup, as…

Blaze opens his eyes and stares at his hands that are now emitting a heat haze, as…

Carrigan beats Nomi umercifully, then…

The spinning coin stops. Coyote-side up. Blaze screams and WHOOSH…

Carrigan pistol whips Nomi with a Glock! I have to admit, this buildup to the Ghost Rider reveal is pretty damn cool. It reads fast and frantic on the page, just how it should. Keeps you turning the pages.

And just as Carrigan is about to shoot Nomi in the face (this is my favorite part)…

Now that is the Goyer I know and love! I’ll admit, I sat up at this part. It grabs you, demands your attention. If you’re not with the script at this point, then stop reading, put it down, and walk away, quietly.

At this point, Ghost Rider puts his ass-kicking abilities on full display as he, very violently, kills a few of the henchmen, demonstrates his ability to control fire (even in car engines), slices through metal like an acetylene torch, and unleashes the deadly Penance Stare. He’s only stopped, briefly, when one of the henchmen slams into him with a pickup “at sixty plus” that “pile-drives the howling spectre square into a massive boulder.” This gives Carrigan and a couple of his cronies enough time to kidnap and escape with Rain.

Nomi finally comes around in enough time to watch as Ghost Rider hurls the pickup off himself and approaches her. Scared to look at him, she waits until he stalks off, but when she finally does look up, it’s only Blaze rolling a busted-up motorcycle away. I’d say that throws us headlong into Act 2, wouldn’t you? Next, we see the aftermath and the toll that being Ghost Rider does to Blaze’s body while he wanders through a local hospital in search of medication and medical supplies. As he attempts to leave with stolen medication, he sees Nomi and he’s startled when she recognizes him. The following day, we join Blaze as he writes the date and time on a postcard and drops it into a mailbox, then turns to see Nomi, who claims to know what he is, which leads to:

But she ain’t takin’ no for an answer. She catches up to him on “a monster bike of her own.” After a bit of cat and mouse and Nomi pleading for his help, Blaze tears away leaving her alone. Only to reappear, silently agreeing to help. We then get a little exposition-heavy as we’re taken to Nomi’s trailer where we learn a little backstory on the “Spirit of Vengeance” from Nomi and her father, who tells Blaze about the purpose of his coyote/eagle coin and reveals the legend and motivation of that coyote (aka Ambrose Starke) we’ve been seeing.

Next, Blaze questions Nomi and we learn that Rain has been kidnapped because Starke wants her. Why? Oh yeah, that’s because Starke is her father! That’s right, Nomi did the nasty with the Devil, essentially. Crazy, right? And she’s seemingly okay with all of this, just taking it all in stride. Then we have some conversation between Carrigan and Starke, right before Starke goes to rent a car. Now, this scene is just kind of strange and awkward as Starke goes through the entire process of renting a car. It almost reminds me of something straight out of a Coen Brothers film. I get the careful, slow tension that’s created because we now know who and what Starke is, but it’s still a six and a half page scene that plays out long and strange as Starke ultimately kills the gentleman at the rental car place, his wife, and his son.

As Carrigan and crew continue on their journey, Rain warns them that the Ghost Rider is going to kill all of them. Thanks kid! We needed that little pick-me-up.

Blaze and Nomi go on the hunt for Carrigan, which leads them to a casino that Nomi and Carrigan used to frequent. After a confrontation with security, we continue on to where Carrigan’s house. Here we learn that Blaze has the ability to see the past or, as he explains, “Just echoes, sometimes.” We also learn that Nomi was attempting to O.D. when she met Starke and “nine months later, Rain was born.” Then the security guys from earlier show up… and, well, so does Ghost Rider. Ass kicking and burning things ensues.

Later, at another motel, we discover that Blaze can’t die as the Ghost Rider, well, not exactly, and that it [The Ghost Rider] is “drawn to darkness like a bloodhound. If it thinks you’ve sinned, it’ll find you.” Also, the coyote/eagle coin always lands coyote side up because “there’s always some sad motherfucker out there that needs retribution, vengeance –” As Blaze falls asleep, we drift into a flashback with Roxanne that slowly turns ugly as the memories of the car accident come racing back. When Blaze bolts awake, he finds Nomi looking through his old photographs and holding the paper origami ring he made for Roxanne. He then pulls out another postcard and makes note of the time, slaps a stamp on it, and leaves it on the dresser before they’re out the door, gone. As they continue on their own journey, Blaze tells Nomi that he made a deal with Starke so that Roxanne could live, but the cruel twist is that she’s in a coma and has been since the accident. Then she asks:

Nice riff on Indiana Jones there, eh? I’ll discuss instances such as these a little later. Then we’re back to Carrigan and crew and Rain spooks them a little by telling them that The Ghost Rider will find her, which leads to this pleasant exchange:

Did I mention this was R-rated? As the scene continues we discover that Rain has telekinetic abilities as she makes a pen levitate from the car floor and into her hand, which she then uses to stab into the driver’s thigh. The vehicle barrels off the road and crashes and, without missing a beat, Rain is out of the car and on the run. She’s eventually apprehended by Carrigan and his cronies and, realizing their vehicle is totaled, decide to hole up in a nearby shut-down rock quarry.

Later, Blaze and Nomi pass the totaled vehicle and stop to check it out. Blaze uses his ability to see the past to surmise they’re holed up at the rock quarry. Convenient. Just as they’re about to enter the compound, the Gray Gargoyles show up. A biker gang called in by one of Carrigan’s lackeys to offer protection and safe escort to meet with Starke. Of course, if Blaze were to meet a biker gang, what do you think would happen? Uh huh, I’d say you probably guessed right — a twelve page action scene! Most of the Gargoyles are killed as Ghost Rider frees Rain, who joins Nomi in a fleeing pickup, then the Ghost Rider eventually follows a crony into:

Ghost Rider then chases Nomi down and attempts to kill her because, hey, she’s a sinner, too, remember? But before Ghost Rider can finish his business, it’s dawn and John Blaze is once again a man — who doesn’t get a lot of time to recover because the bad guys are in hot pursuit, and Carrigan is bringing up the rear in a “seven ton Mack dumper.” And what would this story be if we didn’t destroy that Mack in a big, make-Hollywood-proud slow, motion crash? Afterwards, Nomi and Rain escape safely, but Blaze is arrested and put in the local county jail, where he pleads to be placed in solitary. “This isn’t a f*****g hotel, chief,” replies one of the deputies.

That brings us to another motel, where Rain helps Nomi dress a nasty shoulder wound she suffered in the crash. Through the course of conversation Rain reveals that Starke talks to her while she’s dreaming. The thought of it startles the poor kid to tears. Back at the jail, Blaze waits patiently for nightfall as Carrigan sits alone in a cell of his own. Wait, Carrigan’s here? Since when?

Now we begin another series of back and forth sequences to ramp up the tension.

Motel. Nomi leaves Rain sleeping to purchase a pack of cigarettes. She flashes back to ODing, then turns to see a coyote. Uh oh.

Jail. Blaze’s transformation begins as he falls to the floor.

Motel. Nomi bolts into the room, wakes Rain, drags her to the bathroom, and lifts her toward a window as we hear footsteps approach.

Jail. Still transforming.

Motel. Rain makes it through the window and runs off into the stormy night, just as Nomi turns to see Starke surrounded by coyotes, who attack!

Jail. FWOOOSH!

Woods. Rain runs for her life.

Jail. Behold, The Ghost Rider! Who starts on his fiery rampage all the way to Carrigan’s cell. And just as the Ghost Rider is about to deliver his Penance Stare, Carrigan whips out a mirror and reverses the deadly effect on our unsuspecting flaming demon that causes a burst a Hellfire making the world go white. We fade in from white at the jail and the devastation left behind from the Ghost Rider’s Hellfire explosion. Starke shows up and as he walks into Carrigan’s cell he sees:

Starke asks Carrigan if he’d like to make a deal, and then we’re left hanging much in the same way we were at the beginning of the script when Starke asked the same question to Blaze.

Speaking of Blaze, we join him sitting in a cemetery at dawn, with a gun in his hand. As he remembers the better times with Roxanne, he slowly cocks the pistol and fingers the trigger. Just as the memories become too much, he presses the barrel against his forehead and — chickens out and weeps with frustration. Suddenly, Rain appears out of nowhere and delivers the news that Nomi is dead. This leads to:

They hitchhike to a mission that’s described as “an old adobe building perched on stilts, precariously overhung.” This is where we meet a priest named Rhymer, and some ex-offenders staying at the mission on a work-release program. The ex-cons are quick to spot that Blaze and Rain are trouble, but Rhymer welcomes them anyway. As they start to enter the mission a scarecrow catches Blaze’s eye. The scarecrow is important, remember that. Later, as Blaze helps Rhymer with a generator, Rhymer calls Blaze’s initial bluff about how he and Rain came to be there. Blaze admits to not telling the truth and listens as the priest offers from words of wisdom. He evens offers Blaze a motorcycle sitting out back.

As night descends, we see the scarecrow and then Blaze, who’s had enough and decides to take the padre up on his offer. After checking in on Rain, who’s sleeping, he leaves the coyote/eagle coin on the stand next to her bed and heads out on the motorcycle. Rain wakes in just enough time to watch Blaze leave. Then, as she walks down a hallway, she’s startled by the sight of a scarecrow through a window. She continues down the hall as Rhymer leads the ex-cons in a prayer before dinner.

We cut to Blaze riding down a coastal highway, then back to the mission and the guys eating dinner. Rain has joined them now, as well, but it doesn’t take long for one of them to notice the gathering coyotes outside making their way slowly toward this mission. One of the men starts to blame Rain, convinced there’s something wrong with her. Soon, three dozen coyotes are attacking the mission! And then:

Seconds later:

The deal with Starke has made Carrigan “The Scarecrow!” You know, the one from the field? Together The Scarecrow and the coyotes unleash on the mission as we cut to Blaze continuing down the coastal highway. He rolls to a stop and contemplates and then ultimately comprehends what his purpose is now.

As The Scarecrow and coyotes continue to wreak havoc on the mission, Blaze makes his comeback, going from ninety to “so fast the g*****n camera can barely catch it” to (I’m not kidding, here) Mach 1 as “sonic booms rock the landscape.” At the mission, we’re close on the coyote/eagle coin as it lands — coyote side up — and then The Ghost Rider explodes through a wall in “deep slow motion.” This leads into our seven page climax sequence, where the mission is destroyed and all of the coyotes are killed along with Rhymer and the ex-cons. As dawn approaches, all that’s left in the aftermath is Blaze, Rain, and a badly wounded Carrigan.

And as Blaze and Rain begin walking away from the smoking ruins of the mission, Starke pulls up in his rented Cadillac. There’s some quick banter between the two as Starke asks to be given Rain, but Blaze threatens:

He disappears over a rise, but not before a coyote can join him along the way. Rain reminds Blaze that he’ll be back, to which Blaze simply replies, “Yeah.” We then continue over the rubble to finally land on Blaze’s coin “balanced perfectly on it’s edge. How it fell like that, at the heart of the wreckage, is a mystery that will probably never be solved.”

We then cut to a hospital as a “nurse brings a postcard to a sleeping patient’s bedside.” The patient? Roxanne, of course, and we realize that the girl who’s been narrating the story since the beginning is her.

So, my thoughts? This draft shows promise, but it’s still a bit of a mess, and since it is a first draft that’s to be expected. My first question is, who’s the villain? We meet a lot of them, but who’s the real opposition, here? Is it Starke or Carrigan? It’s never clearly defined and it’s one of the reasons you’re left so unfulfilled at the end of the script. I also think one of the bigger problems is that the plot gets too complicated. We’re here, we’re there, we’re here. By the time we get to the mission it feels like we’re reading a completely different film. It’s almost as if the scope of this script could cover two films, and that causes us to get bogged down in minutiae.

Also, the number of characters seems a little overwhelming because, again, by the time we arrive at the mission I was moaning, “Please stop introducing new characters!” And according to Stax’s review of Goyer’s 1995 draft⁵ this draft was supposed to be simpler. If that’s the case, I don’t think I’d even want to attempt to read that sure-to-be headache of a script. I am curious, though, as to how much Goyer changed in the draft following this version. I may have to read it sooner rather than later.

So, if Columbia/Marvel/Nicolas Cage are thinking of actually doing a reboot of this franchise I definitely have some advice: keep it simple, stupid. The Ghost Rider and his mythology are rather complex, so don’t place him in a complex story because you’ll inevitably get bogged down in the details. It’s the same trap that Mark Steven Johnson fell into; too many details. Another good bit of advice would be to check the camp at the door. The Schwarzenegger/bazooka comment was just too much. Johnny Blaze is a dark character who needs to be taken seriously. If the writer isn’t going to take him seriously, then the we, as an audience, won’t either. Why were Batman Begins and The Dark Knight such huge successes? Because Christopher Nolan respected the character. He respected who Bruce Wayne was first, and that allowed us to respect what he was to become: Batman. Nevermind the nearly absurd premise, we bought it and it was the respect that got us there. The moment that your main character utters a Schwarzenegger/bazooka comment you introduce camp and when you introduce camp you lose respect. The moment Mark Steven Johnson said, “…and Ghost Rider will whistle for his motorcycle and it’ll respond and come pulling up like a pet… or something,” somebody should have slapped the ever-lovin’ s**t out of him.

Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not saying that you can’t have comedy in a story like this. Jon Favreau proved with Iron Man that you can have comedy without the camp and still be taken seriously. It’s just that, Johnny Blaze, by his very nature, is a complex character. His inner demons are what demands to be explored more fully. Make us understand his inner demons and we’ll understand — we’ll respect — the flaming Demon that he becomes. And that road to understanding has to start on Page One. If it doesn’t, the writer is in trouble and we’re in for another s****y Ghost Rider movie.

What would my pitch be, then? Remember that bit that Goyer said at the beginning of this article… “the direction we’re going with the story would simplify things drastically… more Road Warrior than Marvel Universe.” And in another IGN article⁶ Goyer mentions that one of his favorite films is Unforgiven. Now, what is it about Road Warrior and Unforgiven that makes them such great films? First, complex characters with a host of inner demons in not-so-complex, simple, concise, but really good stories. Second, clearly defined villains. That would be interesting, eh? Unforgiven meets the Road Warrior in this story of one man’s battle for his eternal soul against the Devil himself…

Agree? Disagree? Agree to disagree? Leave your comments below.

Kane & Lynch was a fun, frantic, flawed game. I played it to completion (both endings). It was touted as the closest you’ll get to being in a Michael Mann movie, and on that level it delivered. That’s not something I give away easily. Heat‘s bank robbery and botched getaway are stamped into my subconscious from many, many viewings with the surround cranked to eleven.

But Kane & Lynch (the game) manages to recreate that feeling, the sweat, the streaming hot bullet casings, the mayhem, the carnage wrought against metal and flesh.

And the Tokyo club scene. Wow.

So. The screenplay. By Kyle Ward.

How many pages had I thumbed before I began to suspect Ward was going to destroy this potential film franchise? Take a guess.

One. Yup. On Page One we’re introduced to Eliza (Jenny, in the game), Kane’s spunky teenage daughter. Right away, Ward totally misses the mark. Watch the character of Kane’s daughter in this trailer. Now go read Page One of the screenplay.

Notice anything different? What’s the first thing Jenny in the trailer says? “I remember my Dad’s eyes as kind…” Jenny goes on: “Yesterday, I met him for the first time in years… He’s changed… I’ve seen what he and that medicated psychopath are capable of… I just hope they kill him.”

“I remember my Dad’s eyes as kind.” Wow. That hits home. Here is a daughter who still holds fond memories of her father. We know right away that Kane wasn’t always the awful human being he is now.

“I just hope they kill him.” Is Jenny hoping Kane dies for Kane’s own sake? For her sake? It’s curiously ambiguous.

Now, Eliza/Jenny from the screenplay:

OK. Slight character shift there. Subtle repositioning of Jenny as a daughter who hates what her father HAS BECOME (thanks to Kane) to a daughter who is just plain emo-rattlesnake angry. Seriously — side by side, the trailer and Page One of the screenplay. Which daughter do you feel closer to?

Take your empathy meter and wave it over Ward’s Kane & Lynch script. Not a peep out of that thing. Don’t bother checking the batteries; it’s reading right. The screenplay is emotionally D.O.A.

Sure, it’s filled with all the blood and mayhem that made the game fun, but why should we root for Kane at all if there is absolutely NO connection between him and his daughter, absolutely no sign that secretly his daughter wants to SAVE her father despite all the s**t that’s gone down between them?

So that’s gripe number One.

Gripe number Two is Lynch.

I can almost excuse Ward ‘not getting’ the Jenny/Eliza character. But sweet mother of tears, WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO LYNCH?

Ward writes Lynch as if Lynch is some kind of demented English Lord of the Manor, pip pip, tally ho. Here’s a signature line from Lynch in the game: “Whoah! What the f**k did I just do?” That line of dialogue effortlessly reveals the core of Lynch’s personality: he’s always not quite in control of his actions, and that makes him even more paranoid and scared.

Here’s how I think Ward would write that same line: “Goodness me. The effect that just resulted from my immediate actions completely eludes my reckoning!”

Oh, you think I’m joking? Here are some of Lynch’s actual lines of dialogue from the script, plucked at random:

If you haven’t played the game, let me assure you: this is NOT Lynch as created by IO Interactive. Either Ward hasn’t played the game OR he just decided to create a whole new Lynch character for the movie. In either case, very poor choices.

I could go on. But I won’t, because the mere act of typing that dross makes me want to launch Kyle Ward into the flaming heart of the Sun.

Suffice to say, if Ward misses the mark with the character of Kane’s daughter then with Lynch he not only misses but was aiming at a different Universe altogether.

I’m going to cut this review short, because it’s simply not worth my time to point out everything I loathe about this screenplay. Like how every character talks in the same macho military jargonista that sounded way cool back when you were a sixteen-year-old boy.

I’ve not heard that Bruce Willis is locked in to this production. Variety last reported he was ‘in negotiations.’ I pray that Willis sits down and reads the script before he inks any deal. There is NOTHING here for him. If he thinks the production has legs then he should demand a page-one rewrite to FIX the character problems. Kane & Lynch has potential to be a fun, crazy action franchise. C’mon, when was the last real action-buddy franchise? Yep, it was Lethal Weapon (No, I’m not counting Rush Hour).

And if you’re wondering… Yes, next I sure am going to read Ward’s Fiasco Heights screenplay. Will that one flip me over, administer a nipple-cripple, and have me begging for forgiveness? We’ll see. Until then, keep wearing the vest, Kyle. I’m keeping one in the clip just for you.

PITCHPATCH over and out.

Roundtable is the story of Merlin’s Knights coming together to defeat Morgana La Fey… in modern day England. Oh and Sir Michael Caine plays himself. And Merlin’s a brit-turned-american that plays WOW. F*****g brilliant.

The dialogue was hilarious. Inescapably hilarious even. The story flows very well and doesn’t sag at all. Repetition of themes and jokes, ala Shaun of the Dead style. For instance the jaws jokes and the flamethrower uses were great. The characters are fun and play well together.

A lot of the scenes were very unique and just plain strange. In a good way though. Such as Michael Caine fighting a younger wax figure of himself.

The story itself is kind of light. It almost seems like there’s no 2nd act at all. Just a long first act and a crazy finale 3rd act. And to be honest I don’t know how I feel about it. Because it’s chock full of jokes and bizaare scenarios, I really don’t know if it’s a weakness. The movie is very simple. A ragtag group comes together to kill evil. Take a guess as to how it ends.

But despite the simple story. And the somewhat anti-climactic ending. I think I would really enjoy seeing this on the silver screen. Especially if they leave in the sequel inspiring ending that had me rolling on the ground. Read it. You’ll see.