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GENRE: Sci-fi Thriller
Logline: (from writer) A callous identity-thief-for-hire, who specializes in genetically altering his clients so they can assume another person’s identity, falls for his latest victim and must risk his own life to protect her from his ruthless employers.
Why You Should Read: (from writer) I set out to write a fast-paced, action thriller with a hint of real-world sci-fi, grounded by an intriguing protagonist and a tangible setting that is a character itself. A movie with a marketable concept and a strong theme that would appeal to producers, directors, and actors. A movie inspired by gritty ‘70s thrillers that takes the audience on a breakneck ride. I’d very much appreciate the opinions of Carson and the Scriptshadow community to tell me if I’ve succeeded.
Writer: Mark Townend
Details: 107 pages
This sounds like it could be a Liam Neeson movie
Today we’re reviewing a sci-fi thriller, a genre I like a lot (and one that does well on the spec market). But I’ll be honest. I was hoping something else would win this week because we’ve reviewed a lot of these on AF already and maybe I’m a little sci-fi thrillered out. However, you can’t go against public opinion. And public opinion says that they want to be procured!
And I have to admit, it’s a nifty premise with a lot of possibilities. So if writer Mark Townend has really taken advantage of said premise, I’ll have forgotten all about my sci-fi thriller sunburn by the end of the review.
40-something Simon Walker lives a very emotionless life. Maybe that’s because of his job. He’s a “procurist,” someone who kills people and replaces them with an imposter, someone who’s genetically modified to look exactly like the person they’re replacing. Walker facilitates this process by training the people taking over the lives of the target to be like said target, and then being a sort of ongoing tech support whenever they run into trouble (ring-ring: “Uh, hi, this is Daisy. Can you remind me what year I was born in again?”).
So Walker comes into work one day and is informed that their next client, a woman named Meredith Pierce, wants a 72 hour rush job done on a journalist named Natasha Lloyd. Rushes are rare and always carry with them an air of suspicion. Why the rush?
But Walker does it, only to find out before the assassination that Natasha is writing an article about the underground practices of his company, as well as other procurists. It appears that Meredith is coming in to replace her so that when the article goes live, she can say that it was completely made up, discrediting herself and letting the world know “there’s nothing to see here.”
That gets Walker’s Spidey senses tingling, so instead of killing Natasha, he saves her. He then goes on the run with her while questioning who this Meredith Pierce bitch is and why she’d want to replace Natasha. Walker’s main co-worker, a doofus named Barnes, is the first to catch on to Walker’s plan and becomes the primary guy chasing him and Natasha down.
Eventually, Walker’s own past is revealed (he’s replaced numerous people throughout his life, which is why he has no family life – they’re not his real family) and something about trying to save Natasha makes him question that past, and if he really wants to be living this life forever. He’ll have to decide soon, because it’ll only be a matter of time before Barnes and the rest of the company catch him.
Townend pointed out his 70s influences in his WYSR above, and you can see that in the script for sure. This had a Chinatown vibe (Townend? Towne? Can’t be coincidence, can it??), mixed with present-day works like Looper and Inception. It’s sort of a brilliant combination as the script can then appeal to young and old Hollywood alike. When you add how easy it would be to market a film like this, I can already see executives licking their lips, hoping for a home-run so they can snatch The Procurist up.
I would love nothing more than to announce that home-run, but The Procurist lands somewhere between a single and a double instead. You know, sometimes I forget to give credit to writers like Mark for simply getting their script to this point. The way this thing is written? As far as the sparse, clean, descriptive writing? It’s pro-level all the way. You can tell Mark knows his shit. But there were some things bothering me here, and maybe me pointing them out can help Mark both with the future of this script and others.
First, I never really understood the setup of the story. Okay, so there’s this guy who works for an organization that replaces people with imposters. They find out the person their latest client is replacing is writing a story exposing their business, and that the replacement plans to sabotage that plan by saying she made the story up.
Isn’t the problem then taken care of? Why snoop around and ask questions? It would be like winning a basketball game on a last second shot, then complaining to the ref that you got fouled. Uhh, you just won the game. Who gives a shit if you got fouled!
Then there was Walker saving Natasha. Why did he do that? The best I could come up with was that Walker “saw something” in her. That’s majorly lazy motivation. So it started the second act off on a strange note.
The script would’ve been better off creating a conspiracy that HURT the company. That way, action would’ve been required, instead of your main character taking action off a “gut” feeling, which isn’t very convincing.
On top of this, the script runs into a classic “on-the-run” thriller issue. Once all the cool concept-y stuff is out of the way in the first act, the script becomes a straight-forward chase. I think a good 40 pages went by with our characters on the run, and that’s all that was happening. They were just on the run. If I’m going to open a script with a cool premise like this one, I expect a lot of mind-bending plot points and reveals the whole way through, not typical thriller chase scenes that I could see in any of 500 Jason Statham movies.
I like my thrillers to evolve with plot as they move along, not promote chase porn. The exception is when I really love the characters and I’m really into them achieving their goals. But like I already said, The Procurist didn’t check either of those boxes. I couldn’t understand why everyone was making a big stink about someone who was trying to HELP them. And I couldn’t understand why Walker was trying to help this woman in particular.
I think Mark’s plan was that we’d be intrigued by Walker’s illogical obsession with Natasha. Because we didn’t understand it, we’d read on to see it explained. And the reason is explained later. But I don’t know. It didn’t work for me. I would’ve liked saving her to have a more direct correlation with the plot. Which would’ve happened if the Replacer (Meredith) was malevolent instead of helpful towards Walker’s company.
You know, as I was reading through The Procurist, I was wondering if a different story angle would’ve yielded better results. Whenever you write these trippy sci-fi thrillers, the best stories tend to come form the people experiencing the change as opposed to the ones executing the change. For example, with Source Code – how interesting would that script have been if we had started out with the people in the control room?
I couldn’t help but think it would’ve been cool to start The Procurist with a character whose wife (or husband) starts acting strange. They’re not being themselves. They don’t remember obvious things. And they finally learn that this person is a fake, maybe trying to get information from them (maybe our character is the CEO of a big company, or someone in the government). They have to get out, go on the run, and find out what’s going on. I don’t know, I just think you get more mystery and suspense from your main character being in the cold. The sci-fi twist ends up being a little cooler that way as well.
Then again, Inception tells the story from the “Inceptors,” so I understand it’s a choice that can go either way.
If I were Matt, I’d suggest one giant change moving forward. And I believe that change will solve a lot of the other problems along with it. Change the reasoning for why the client is replacing Natasha. It has to be something that threatens Walker’s company. This whole “newspaper article” plot is not only thin, but it has too many holes in it. I mean why go through this whole dog and pony show of “You publish the article, then we replace you and tell the media that we were just making the whole thing up?” Just kill Natasha before she hands in the article and problem solved!
I think Matt is a really good writer. Any agent who pops open his script is going to feel like they’re reading a pro. But that’s supposed to be the given part. You gotta bring sun-like heat with the story, and The Procurist feels more like a comfy space heater.
Script link: The Procurist
[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Build the foundation of your story on something big, or else the rest of your story will feel small. The Procurist never had a chance after its weak setup. Cause you can’t put a skyscraper on a foundation meant for a 2-story home. The conspiracy had to be something bigger than a newspaper article. And it probably shouldn’t have been stated right away. Keep the reasoning for Meredith taking over Natasha’s life a mystery, and as the script goes on, Walker finds more and more clues that point to how big this thing is.
