Genre: Action-Comedy
Synopsis: An Alias-like agent must fill her soon-to-be-fiance in on what she really does.
About: This script made the rounds recently and everyone and their mother seemed to love it.
Writer: Kyle Long
Either this is a clever mix of several popular TV shows/movies or a completely derivative ripoff of them. Breach and Clear is basically a mixing of Alias and Chuck, with a little True Lies sprinkled in for added flavor. A girl tries to balance her secret life as a Homeland Security agent with her desire to have a “normal” relationship with her soon-to-be fiance. Hmm, sound familiar?
Quite honestly, I don’t know what the big fuss is about. Seriously. Chuck is on Monday nights on NBC and is probably a lot funnier (I don’t know – I’ve only watched one episode). What struck me about Breach and Clear was just how average its choices were. I want you to imagine a secret agent girl who has to kill numerous baddies during her day job. Then I want you to imagine your average video-game playing one-day-at-a-time office worker. Now imagine those two worlds colliding…There you go. You’ve just imagined Breach and Clear. Absolutely nothing different or original ever happens in the script. It wasn’t “bad” by any stretch. It’s just that everything went exactly according to plan. And that was my big problem with the script. The whole thing felt like it was on cruise-control.
Rounding out the characters are a vengeful female villain who wants to exact revenge on the girl for killing one of her agents. And then of course you have the girl’s stud partner, who is an ultra suave cross between Enrique Iglacius and James Bond and who our boyfriend is completely threatened by (and apparently Adam Sandler did a rewrite on this because there are the requisite 2 dozen”he has a big penis” jokes that are the staple of every Sandler film). I guess I just wanted to turn the page and be surprised for once. But Breach and Clear never gave that to me. I suppose for huge fans of the genre, it delivers. But if you’re like me and looking for something new, you’re going to want to stay “clear” of this one. :)
I’m just one opinion folks. A lot of people loved this script. Check it out for yourselves…
script link: Breach and Clear
[ ] trash
[x] barely kept my interest
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned from Breach and Clear: You should always be challenging yourself. You should always ask yourself after every character you invent, scene you write, line you type…”Is this original???” “Is this something I’ve never seen before?” Of course nothing can be truly original. But there should always be enough originality in your script to distinguish it from everything else.
