Short Summary: Based on the bestselling novel of the same name by Lawrence Block, unlicensed private detective Matthew Scudder is hired by a drug dealer, Kenny Kristo, to find the people who kidnapped and brutally murdered his wife, Carrie. She was returned to him literally in pieces and Kenny wants his revenge, but when the feds start sniffing around the case Matt decides to quit. Then the teenage daughter of another drug dealer gets kidnapped by the same guys who’d butchered Carrie. Matt gets pulled back in to negotiate the ransom and make sure the girl doesn’t share the same fate as Kenny’s wife.
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.
VOICE
Kay passo, homie? Remember us?
And then sharp LAUGHTER. Followed by...
OWNER (OS)
Okay, alright -- Fucka get outta here, botha you. I told you last night, I --
Then BANG. LOUD. As a GUN GOES OFF -- shocks Matt, who drops the second shot glass onto the table and instinctively reaches for his own GUN, fumbles it clear of his holster, only to drop it onto the floor, the sound of it hitting the hardwood apparently getting one of the assholes over by the door looking this way, because just as Matt ducks down to pick up his lost weapon...
...A SHOTGUN BLAST blows away half the booth. Light spills in as once more the door swings open as TWO FIGURES get the f**k out of there while Matt slides out of the booth, his gun firmly in both hands now as he crosses the joint in a few quick steps, ignoring the cut down owner lying on his back behind the bar, floating in a sea of his own blood.
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.
EXT. D’AGOSTINO’S -- DAY
As Matt talks to a BAG BOY.
BAG BOY
She tipped me two dollars,
QUICK CUT TO: THAT DAY
As the Bag Boy shuts the trunk of a car to reveal Carrie Kristo smiling at him, holding out a couple of bills.
BAG BOY (VO)
...which is twice what anybody else tips, if they even tip at all.
CUT BACK TO: MATT AND THE BAG BOY
As Matt looks at the street...
MATT
You said something about a van?
BAG BOY
Yeah, it was parked right there.
QUICK CUT TO: THAT DAY
A BLURRY IMAGE of A VAN parked the curb. We move past it and see...
BAG BOY (VO)
Two guys get out of it...
TWO MEN in coveralls, some kind of uniform, dark sunglasses looking at a clipboard. The men are moving in FAST MOTION as they get out of the van, then the images SLOW as they stop and look at Carrie...
BAG BOY (VO)
I remember they checked her out pretty good. They were both dressed the same in some kind of uniform...
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.