I hate when Hollywood promotes terrible films. And today, I’m speaking my truth!
I’m tempted to spend the next 1500 words unloading on the atrocity of a movie that was The Secret Agent. Let me explain why. People were trying to tell me this movie was good. People were hyping this movie up. But all I needed to do was see the poster, see 10 seconds of the trailer, and I was willing to bet my life that this movie would be terrible.
You know how I knew that? Because I’ve seen this song and dance for decades now. An indie distributor picks up a movie specific to another country where the production value is competent enough that you can distribute it in the US and not get laughed at. They then rev their spin machine up, throw out words like, “masterpiece,” “brilliant,” and “auteur director,” and I’m pretty sure the trades are co-opted into this wool-over-the-eyes tomfoolery, resulting in high RT scores, convincing everyone under the sun that this movie is amazing.
What’s The Secret Agent about?
I DON’T KNOW!
I watched 50 minutes of it and I STILL DON’T KNOW WHAT THE MOVIE IS ABOUT.
“You can’t judge a movie if you’ve only seen 50 minutes of it, Carson.”
YES YOU CAN.
IF THE AUDIENCE DOESN’T KNOW WHAT A MOVIE IS ABOUT AFTER 50 MINUTES, THAT MOVIE SUCKS.
One of the truest screenwriting rules there is: SET UP WHAT YOUR MOVIE IS ABOUT AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.
This is such basic screenwriting advice, it’s on the verge of no longer needing to be taught. Cause people just know. Duh, tell the audience what your movie is about.
The Secret Agent starts off with a decent scene. It’s 1970s Brazil and a man is getting his car filled up at a gas station in the middle of nowhere. There’s a dead body covered up with cardboard off to the side. The gas station attendant says the man was a thief who tried to rob the place a few days ago so they shot him and the police haven’t come to pick up the body yet.
Then a cop car shows up and very methodically inspects our hero’s car. The scene is tense. It’s suspenseful. I thought, “Maybe I’ll be wrong about this movie. Maybe it will be good.”
Nope. It’s all downhill from here.
We then follow this random dude, our main character, driving this car across Brazil. He shows up at some random collection of apartments and starts staying there. Why? No idea. It takes the writer 20 minutes to, literally, set up arriving at an apartment.
Oh, you know what comes with the apartment? A cat with two heads. I’m not kidding. This is a serious movie by the way. It wants to be taken very very very seriously.
Cat with two heads though! Gotta throw that cat with two heads in there.
Why?
Because that’s the kind of random bullshit hack screenwriters think is good writing. Throw in random nonsense that does nothing for the story.
By the way, quick screenwriting tip. This is the easiest way to judge a creative choice as a screenwriter: Does it do anything for the story? This did nothing. That’s how you know it’s a garbage choice.
Then our hero goes and retrieves his son, who he hasn’t seen in a long time. It’s not explained who’s taking care of his son. Maybe it’s our hero’s parents? This screenwriter has no interest in helping us understand even the basic beats of what’s going on in this story.
Seeing his son again is treated like a really heavy deal.
BUT NOBODY TELLS US WHY!!!
God forbid the writer, Hacky McHackems The Screenwriting Wonderboy, share information that might help us enjoy the story.
Randomly, we cut to another plot about a shark with a human leg in it. No, I’m not kidding. It’s a shark story now. Then we come back and hang with our hero as he lounges around at his apartment complex, carelessly stripping away minutes that could be used for, you know, SETTING UP AN ACTUAL STORY.
Oddly, his son isn’t with him anymore. It’s never explained why. We literally just had this super intense scene where he comes and gets his long lost son back. But now he’s banging some chick up in Apartment 2C and I guess Little Johnny doesn’t matter anymore.
We’re getting to about the 45 minute mark of the movie and NOTHING HAS HAPPENED! Just complete randomness with no character goals set up or overarching story set up. Atrocious screenwriting on full display.
Then, without any context, we cut to our hero…. WHO NOW WORKS AT A NEWSPAPER! How did this happen? Nobody tells us. Actually, it’s worse than that. We just see him at some work and are expected to know he’s a journalist now and this is a newspaper.
You don’t move a character to a brand new location in life and then just cut to him working. You have to SHOW HIM GET THE JOB, lol. There has to be a progression so that we understand a) what kind of job he wants, b) why does he want that job, c) what are his options, d) how difficult is it to get the job? e) show a freaking interview and the aftermath so we can build suspense around whether he gets the job or not. You know, basic drama.
This just cuts to him working. I didn’t even know this guy was a writer until 50 minutes into the film!
You’re probably wondering, at this point, why I’m so angry.
Here’s why.
Because I spend my life trying to teach people how to be good writers. It consumes most of the minutes in my day.
So when Hollywood unleashes this trash on us and brainwashes young ignorant writers into believing that this is good storytelling, it pisses me off. Because now you have young writers believing that randomly introducing cats with two heads into an extremely serious drama is great writing. And that writer is going to go off and write a bunch of garbage and be confused why nobody likes his screenplays. And he’ll give up because nobody ever taught him the correct way to write.
With that in mind, let’s try and use this failure of a film for good. Let’s at least learn a lesson here. So, here’s the big lesson I want you to take away from this film.
SET UP WHAT YOUR STORY IS ABOUT AS SOON AS POSSIBLE
The more “Hollywood” a film is (by that I mean: a film made by a major studio) the earlier that setup should be. This means that if you’re writing a spec script, you want it to be very clear what your movie is about as soon as possible. This doesn’t mean you have to state the exact plot. But we should have a very good idea of what the movie is about within ten minutes.
We know we’re going to have people on an island full of dinosaurs in Jurassic Park within ten minutes.
You have more leeway with setup time in an indie-type script. But you’d be surprised at how quickly you’ve known what your favorite indie movies were about when you first watched them. It was likely within 15 minutes. And, at the very latest, it would’ve been 25 minutes in, by the end of the first act.
That’s because if you push the setup of your movie past the first act, it’s the equivalent of a drunk guy telling you a story at a party and they never get to the point. They’re telling you about all these little things (a shark with a leg in it, a cat with two heads, and then I was at this gas station and there was this dead body in front of my car covered up by cardboard) but you don’t know what it is they’re trying to say. This movie, The Secret Agent, is the cinematic equivalent of the drunk babbling party guy.
Now for those of you who will inevitably tell me that if I just kept watching, I would’ve gotten to the “good part.” Try telling a producer that the next time you don’t reveal the point of your story until page 50. “Well, Mr. Producer, if you just would’ve kept reading, you would’ve gotten to the good part!”
Yeah, tell me how that goes. Cause I don’t think it’s going to go like this: “Ohhhhhhh! You mean the good part came after the first hour!!?? Why didn’t tell me! If I would’ve known that, I would’ve kept reading!”
My final message to use is this: Don’t let Hollywood brainwash you. They try to tell you that every movie is great. They’re lying the majority of the time. And it’s up to you to use your own discernment to evaluate these movies. Don’t listen to other people. Pay attention to how the story is affecting you. Pay attention to if it’s propulsive or if it’s wandering. Pay attention to how the main character makes you feel and if you care about their journey. If it’s providing good feelings in those areas, it’s a good movie. If not, it’s probably bad, like The Secret Agent.
