Kyle Ward. Strap on your kevlar. Because I’m gunning for you, motherfrakker.
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:
ELIZA (CONT’D)
Like he gives a f**k.
(beat)
I haven’t seen him in two years. And I’d rather have you beat me, rape me, and shoot me in the f*****g face before I ever ask for his help.
She looks away. Just for a second. Now back to us.
ELIZA (CONT’D)
You wanna message for my father, here it is...
(beat)
Dad. F**k you and die!
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:
LYNCH
I happen to be parched.
LYNCH
Are you referencing my last meal?
LYNCH
I extend my gratitude, Kane. You preserved my life back there.
LYNCH
Exquisite technique. Good form.
(picking up print-outs)
However, I doubt our travels will be of a discrete nature. We’re fugitives.
LYNCH
Unhand me you ruffian f**k!
LYNCH
Please, male bonding is not a procedure I long to accomplish on this trip. Don’t flatter yourself.
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.