It’s Monday so it must be time for another Roger review. Today he jumps in his time machine and tackles a screenplay from the past, which, ironically, is set in the future. Bringing it full circle, I’m writing this from the present. But speaking of the future, the rest of the week should be fun as I plan to review that script with a “genius” label on the final 20 pages, a script I thought would’ve been a thousand times better than Bel Ami for Scriptshadow’s favorite son, R_Patz, and a script for a prominent film playing at The Toronto Film Festival. For now, here’s Roger…

Genre: Post-apocalyptic action-adventure.
Premise: A female courier in a plague-ridden future has to take a cure across state lines.
About: This script became notable as it sold right after the infamous 1988 Writer’s Guild strike (for $500,000 to Columbia) when studios were starved for product. Many years later it was considered one of the best unproduced screenplays in town. Heavyweights at the time Cher, and then Sharon Stone, were attached. It’s apparently swamped in producer fees and Pascal has repeatedly and adamantly refused to allow it to leave Sony in turnaround.
Writer: John Raffo. Screenwriter of “The Relic” and “Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story”.

Eden Sinclair is the female side to the Snake Plissken and Mad Max post-apocalyptic action hero coin. But before Eden Sinclair and Neil Marshall’s “Doomsday”, there was Mary and John Raffo’s “PINCUSHION”.

America. The post-apocalyptic future. The remaining inhabitants of New York City, St. Louis and Chicago have lost the battle against “DNV 47X toxemia”.

DNV 47X toxemia is a stronger, evolved, more dangerous strain of the plague that has driven survivors to live in fortified, sanitized stalags. The ruins of Americana modified into clandestine bomb shelters, makeshift underground railroad-like stations of the post-cataclysm.

Dust-bowl wanderers try to survive in a world that’s much, much worse than any mere debilitating Depression or recession. Ordinary people are forced to play the role of brigand, of killer, of victim.

America’s highways and bi-ways have become killing grounds. A simple trip from Point A to Point B becomes a trial in a gladiatorial arena. Mutants and dwarves and assorted freaks patrol the desolate roads by gunpoint, by the razor-sharp tips of arrowheads.

It’s a dog-eat-dog-world, and if you’re brave enough to venture onto the charnel tracks you better have a fast car, your favorite shotgun, and a trusted friend to watch your back when shit gets rough.

A weapon of last resort is probably not a bad idea either, because when you’re forced off the road and the people attempting to jack you take your boomstick away, that last trick up your sleeve is gonna be the only thing between you…and life and death.

And try not to stay out of your car for too long, otherwise you might get burned.

Radiation exposure.

It’s a bitch.

But The Cross is worse. Much worse. Those shitbirds that were on the road earlier, who set up an ambush to steal your vaccine? The ones you were scared of? They’re nothing. Even they run from The Cross. And if you’re smart, you will too. Because The Cross? They’re the masters of the road, and you best oblige and hide.

Because there’s a war a-brewing between The Carriers and The Cross. And The Cross is gonna do everything and anything to come out on top.

So who’s this Mary chick?

Mary’s a plague carrier. Might as well be immune. She’s alive and kickin’ it. Trying to eke out a living in a world that has little life.

Mary’s a courier.

You need to move some alcohol, some heroine, some vaccine, some toothpaste, some explosives but you’re too yellow and weak-kneed to brave the roads yourself? Mary’s the gal you want. She gets shit done, son.

Give that precious little package of yours to Mary, and she’ll make sure it gets to its destination. Her vehicle of choice? An antique station wagon she’s painted a dull black and equipped with large off-roadin’ tires. She’s even covered the rear with sheet metal and rivets. Armor like this is kinda required should The Cross ride up and stitch a line of machine-gun fire into your backside.

All this for a price of course.

Besides Tommy, her eye-patch-wearing navigator, compadre, and mentor, the only thing that matters to Mary is the dollar-sign payday that’s waiting for her at the end of each journey. Mary’s destination is currency.

Now, for Mare, there’s nothing she won’t carry. But she’s gotta play the odds, and there are places she won’t go. Only problem is, Mare’s hard up. And when a job she would normally tell to fuck off offers a solution to her financial woes, she’s forced to take it.

What’s the job?

She has 72 hours to deliver some precious cargo to Salt Late City. Big whoop, right? Wrong. To get there, Mare has to cross the Nevada Border. And no one crosses the Nevada Border except for The Cross. Last courier that tried the Border got himself killed, and since then, everyone’s developed the wisdom to stay away.

Why only 72 hours? What’s the precious cargo?

It’s a box. It’s about four feet high, two feet wide, three deep. Looks like an ordinary shipping trunk. Except this trunk is covered with valves, pipes, and scuba-like tanks.

And inside of the box is a cure for DNV 47X.

The storage life on the tank is limited, and the people waiting for the delivery can only safely hold out for 3 days.

Who’s hunting these people?

He’s known as Number One. Captain Doctor Alwin Spoor. That’s right. You guessed it. The Cross? This is the organization formerly known as The RED Cross. And they have devolved into an authoritarian terror squad.

The Cross shut down the borders, sealed off the city and state lines to non-Cross personnel. To not only stop the spread of disease, but to cut off the free market and freeze out all the other medical groups. They starved out everyone who refused to live under the Cross’ iron fist.

Number One is after Charles Shepard, a molecular biologist, a geneticist who has developed the cure to stop the Ultraplague. Shepard’s the guy who has decided to go rogue, to cross to the other side and petition the help of the plague carries and its couriers to get his panacea to the right people.

Spoor, in true totalitarian-gestapo-commandant fashion, kinda likes the world the way it is. He enjoys being at the top of the post-apocalyptic food-chain, and he doesn’t want this to change. At all. A cure would break the manacles The Cross has cuffed society in. This cannot happen. Because well…Number One would no longer be…Number One.

What’s the cure?

It’s Pincushion. Pincushion is the child inside of the box. He’s a test-tube baby. Genetically engineered. His blood is the serum, the antidote to the plague and its manifest destruction westward.

So this story has an interesting world, an intriguing protagonist, and a cool set-up. Does it work?

It has four issues that keep it from working:

1.) Mary’s arc is underdeveloped. For her journey to have emotional resonance, this story does warrant an elegant character arc. It’s a sinner-to-saint character journey that should connect, but doesn’t. If this is connect-the-dots, we’ve got the dot at the start of the journey and the dot at the end, but we’re missing all the other dots in-between.

This is all dependent on her interaction and tortured feelings for Pincushion, and I feel like there’s not a lot of time for these two to bond. And this is a minor note, but the kid is pretty freakin’ weird. I mean, I’m not blaming him. He’s engineered after all. But he has this weird, unpleasant alien quality to him. If he were CGI he’d be afflicted with Uncanny Valley syndrome.

I think I could live with this if Mary wasn’t so much of a blank slate. Something about her seems void. One interesting character trait is that she’s illiterate. But other than being a pretty bad-ass driver and resourceful shooter, she’s kind of one-note. Two dimensional. Stilted.

There’s not much meat to these spindly, bad-ass heroine bones.

2.) There’s a jarring tangent after the mid-point where our protagonist is M.I.A. The floor is given to the villain. And it’s boring.

For the first half of the script, Mary shares a lot of the decision making with her first-mate, Tommy. And since he has more experience than her, you get the sense that she’s more of the apprentice to his mentor. And you know, we get a really good mid-point where she is forced to take control. Kinda like Ripley in Cameron’s “Aliens”, but the opportunity is wasted here.

Mary is injured and taken in by this convent/coven of crazy post-apocalyptic warrior nuns, and she’s unconscious for a lot of the time. And these are such weird, bizarre characters you become more interested in them than Mary.

And I think this is a bad decision, because this should be about Mary.

Then we get scenes of Spoor monologuing and providing us with exposition that we really don’t need. Yes, we know the kid is the cure. We don’t need a lab scene where Spoor fondles the child’s flesh and terrorizes the nuns with verbose threats. Unnecessary exposition is death. There’s absolutely no need for it. Slows the story to a halt.

3.) It lacks rising action. If your most suspenseful action sequence is in the first 10 pages of the script, man do you have problems. And it’s a great 10 pages! But every single action sequence in this is a chase, for the most part. And every single chase is Mary trying to escape Number One’s massive Red Cross Truck that’s armed with machine rifles and an artillery battery. For an action movie, the lack of rising action is death to your movie.

In a movie like this, what we’re basically waiting for is the big fuckin’ Road Warrior sequence that’s going to blow the top of our skulls off. But no, we’re treated to something we saw in Act 1 and Act 2. There’s no incremental build-up to the action sequences. I mean, actions sequences are basically mini-movies and mini-acts in themselves. Each one should be bigger and better than the last, right? Or at least more interesting with higher stakes than the sequence that came before it.

Pace yourself and —

Up the stakes, up the stakes, up the stakes.

4.) It does not earn its ending. The ending is great. With this one scene, we get everything that this story is about. It has an emotional wallop to it that I kind of adore. It’s harsh, poignant. Imagine being on a clean-up crew after someone is martyred. And all of your co-workers are a hardened lot, just doing a job. Now imagine the type of dialogue that would be said as you clean the mess up. Maybe a quick blue-collar sentiment…but life goes on and you still got a job to do.

It’s sad, but great at the same time.

Except, because of the reasons above, the story does not earn this moment.

Now, I know Jeb Stuart rewrote this thing back in the day, and I’m really interested to see what he did with the story, because despite its similarities to “Mad Max”, “Escape from New York”, and “Doomsday”, I still think the script can be fixed. And when it is, it has all the ingredients to be an awesome flick.

Hell, I’d be the first in line at the theater.

A final aside, this script reminded me a bit of Kurt Wimmer’s “Ultraviolet”. Which begs the question, I wonder how many working filmmakers today have read this script and are influenced by it?

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] barely kept my interest
[xx] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I Learned: Mid-points. Read a David Mamet interview and I’ll bet he’ll say something like, “Anyone can write a 1st Act.” Inferring that Act 2 is the true challenge. Having a great mid-point can really glue a story together. Especially when it is seamless. And most great mid-points are reversals of some kind. When I read scripts, I’m always really curious to see what the mid-point is going to be. It’s like a game for me. And this script has a great one. It’s emotional. It shakes the story to its core. So much so that you can’t wait to see what happens next. Even if you can predict what the mid-point is going to be, the good ones always seem to be surprising. Something that makes you say, “I can’t believe they really went there! I didn’t want it to happen, but I’m glad it did because it makes the story better.” It’s narrative harmony.

Genre: Thriller
Premise: A man wakes up from a four day coma to realize his wife no longer knows who he is and his identity may have been erased.
About: Based on the 2003 novel “Out Of My Head” by French author Didier Van Cauwelaert, this Dark Castle Thriller went from the treadmill to the production mill when Liam Neeson signed on to play the lead. Jaume Collet-Serra (Orphan) is directing. Joel Silver and Leonard Goldberg are producing.
Writers: Oliver Butcher and Stephen Cornwell (revisions by Karl Gadjusek)
Details: 116 pages (dated 2.10.09)

When I saw Liam Neeson sign on to Unknown White Male, I thought, “yes.” Taken may not have been the deepest pool, but it sure was fun to swim in. And Neeson fit into that role like a well-worn pair of speedos. What did I want to see after Taken? I wanted to see more Neeson kicking ass! I wanted to hear more Neeson talking into phones and telling people that if it’s money they wanted, he didn’t have any. But that he had developed a particular set of skills over the years, skills that have enabled him to find and kill bad men like them. I wanted him to give these men an opportunity to leave his daughter be. But if they didn’t, I wanted him to tell them that he would find them…and he would kill them. On title alone, “Unknown White Male” sounded like the kicking-ass cousin of Taken. Neeson wakes up from a coma and starts beating the shit out people! Right? Right?? At least, that’s how it played out in my head. Is that how it played out in reality?

Well, not exactly. Unknown White Male is more of a mystery than an action flick. Neeson certainly does a lot of running around. But not so much beating up people. Part of the problem is that his phone is broken. Obviously that means he can’t call people and tell them that he will find them and he will kill them. If he had that phone, I’m sure this would be a completely different movie.

Dr. Martin Harris and his wife, Liz, have just arrived in Germany for a bio-tech conference. We learn very little about the two other than that they’re tired and want to check into their hotel. For reasons unexplained, Martin hops into a cab to head back to the airport. In a case of wrong place, wrong time, the young driver, Gina, swerves to avoid an accident and ends up sending them into the river. Gina saves Martin, but runs away before the police arrive.

Four days later Martin wakes up from a coma in the hospital. He’s confused, disoriented, and he’s got a slight case of amnesia. All he cares about is finding his wife though. Against doctor’s orders, Martin hops out of bed and goes back to the hotel. But when he asks hotel security about his wife, about his room, he finds out that “Martin” has already been checked in. He’s supposedly already here. When Martin insists that’s impossible because *he* is Martin, he realizes that he has no way to actually prove it. His wallet was lost in the accident.

Lucky for Martin, a party happens to be going on in the hotel and wouldn’t you know it, there’s his wife! All dressed up right in the middle of it all. Smiling. Laughing.

Wait a minute. What the hell is his wife doing smiling at a party when he’s been missing for four days?? Martin charges into the party and grabs her. He’s here, he tells her. He was in an accident and got sent to the hospital but now he’s okay. Yet his wife just stares back at him, confused. She’s doesn’t seem to know Martin. And if that isn’t bad enough, a man steps up and takes Liz’s arm. The man’s name is…Martin (referred to in the script as Martin B) and he claims that Liz is *his* wife. What the fuck is going on here?? With a combination of anger, confusion, and hurt Martin insists, as the entire party watches, that he is indeed the real Martin and that this woman is his wife. Problem is when a bandaged unkempt man with no identification barges into a party and claims a woman who says she doesn’t even know him is his wife, it usually doesn’t go over well. That’s how security sees it anyway and sends Martin out on his ass.

Martin, alone and, more importantly, without a phone, attempts to go back to that night and figure out what happened. Part of the problem is that his amnesia is fragmenting his memories. He only remembers bits and pieces of the evening. After doing some research, he remembers he had a meeting set up with Nobel Prize winner and head speaker of the biotech conference, Professor Bressler. If he can get to that meeting and convince Professor Bressler he is who he says he is, maybe he can regain his identity and figure out what the hell is going on.

But like a lot of things in Unknown White Male (and like a lot of things should be in a good thriller/drama/mystery) shit don’t go according to plan. When Martin shows up, he finds that Martin B. is already there ahead of him. Martin approaches the problem a little differently this time around, realizing he can bring up e-mails and phone calls that only he and Bressler would know about – once and for all proving that he is the “real” Martin. But wouldn’t you know it, as soon as he speaks, Martin B is already a step ahead of him, feeding the professor Martin’s lines before they’re out of his mouth. Now Martin’s mind goes from “What the hell is happening here?” to “Am I going crazy?” I mean, how could this possibly be happening?

If that weren’t bad enough, a healthy dose of paranoia sets in when Martin starts noticing the same people over and over wherever he goes. Is he being followed? Are these men trying to dispose of him? With nowhere to go and his life in danger, Martin must find the driver that saved his life, Gina, and beg her to help him. As an illegal immigrant, she’s limited in what she can do, but she knows what it feels like to be alone, and offers Martin a helping hand.

But since this is a mystery, there’s really only one thing that matters, right? Is the reveal any good? Is all this craziness explained in a satisfying way? I have to say I was pleasantly surprised with the reveal. I did not see it coming. In fact, Unknown White Male is one of the few mysteries where I eventually just gave up trying to figure out the mystery. I honestly had no idea what the ending was going to be. So when the reveal turned out to not only be plausible, but sensible, I was quite impressed.

Unknown White Male is one of those screenplays that’s hard to critique. Because you’re so excited to get to the ending, you’re not as aware of the characters and the story. Looking back, there are definitely some questionable areas in the plot. For instance, if I were accused of not being me, I’d call every single person I’ve ever met in my life to vouch for me. It’s really hard to imagine that in this day and age, with all the technology and instantaneous communication methods we have, that you couldn’t prove you were you in a first world nation. Gadjusek makes a bit of a stab at this problem (The incident is taking place on Thanksgiving Day weekend, therefore nobody is answering their phone. – Yeah…right) but it’s not very convincing. Luckily, as I mentioned, once the story gets going and the pace picks up, you’re not thinking about plot holes.

I’m sure my knowledge of Neeson in the lead colored my opinion of Unknown White Male (if I haven’t made it clear, I love Liam Neeson) but this was a solid script regardless. Definitely worth the read.

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] barely kept my interest
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: When you’re trying to pull off a high-concept mystery like this one, its’ important to ask what YOU would do in that situation. Don’t use movie logic to guide your character. Ask yourself: “I’m in Germany. My wife doesn’t recognize me. Nobody believes I’m me. What would I do?” Martin calls a couple numbers for the police and when he gets answering machines, he gives up on trying to make any connection back home. That seems a bit unrealistic. So always make sure to approach your character’s decisions with real world logic by putting yourself in their position. Not only will your movie feel more logical, but you’re bound to get some interesting ideas from the practice.

For those who have forgotten, this is number four in a series of five scripts I’ll be reviewing this week from represented writers who have not sold a script. The exercise is meant to explore the level of quality it takes to obtain agency representation. Enjoy!

Edit: So it turns out (all my fault – not the writers) that Bear and Thomas had sold a spec before – their script “Mental.” I received the script from someone I assumed was their agent, but turned out to be someone who was affiliated with the project when it went into the marketplace last spring. He was a big fan of the script and just thought I’d like it. There was no malicious intent there. In a way, I’m kind of glad this happened. I went into the script believing that these two writers had never sold anything before. So the fact that I really liked it before knowing that they *had* sold something, validates that there’s something to be said for the quality of screenplays from those writers who have broken in and sold a script before. Wow. Anyway, enough with the nonsense. Sit down, enjoy the review, and enjoy the script. :)

Genre: Comedy
Logline: A straight laced guy finds his life thrown into turmoil after he agrees to become the “emergency contact” for a guy he barely knows.
About: These guys are repped at Paradigm.
Writers: Bear Aderhold & Thomas F.X. Sullivan

Jay is just an average guy preparing for an average life. He works under the safety of a company that builds elevators, a company that, if he plays his cards right, will be his employer for the next forty years. His girlfriend, Debbie, is safer than a Sunday stroll to the ice cream shop and the kind of woman who gets antsy if you’re not in bed by 10 o’clock. Jay is preparing for a long no-frills life of stability. And he’s pretty sure that makes him happy.

Enter Russell, the mailroom guy. Russell, a bit of a weirdo, is the man you go to when you need good weed. When Russell saves Jay’s ass at work, Jay kindly asks if he can return the favor. Sure, Russell innocently replies, I was wondering if I could make you my emergency contact. And that’s when our story officially begins.

On an ordinary weekday night, after Jay and Debbie are asleep, Jay gets a phone call. Something’s happened to Russell and Jay needs to come immediately. He stumbles out of bed to Debbie’s dismay and heads off to the address in question. But strangely, the address is for a gay nightclub. And the gay nightclub is having a “no shirts night”. So Jay has to take off his shirt before shimmying through a warehouse full of man meat until he finds Freddie, a porn producer who’s just made the Titanic of porn films. Problem is Russell stole the master copy. Jay is completely dumbfounded as to how this involves him, so Freddie lays it out for him. Russell made the idiotic mistake of leaving his wallet behind. And in his wallet is a card that lists JAY as his emergency contact. And of course, as everyone knows, you only list your closest friends/family members as your emergency contact. Hence, if anyone knows where Russell is, it’s Jay.

Jay runs for his life, somehow escaping the gayporium. Thinking he’s just going to waltz back into bed, he’s surprised to see two police officers waiting outside his house – Glibby and Briggs. These are the kind of officers who taser first and ask questions later. Which is exactly what they do. So the recently electrocuted Jay wakes up in an interrogation room. What the hell is he doing here?? Well, it just so happens Russell is fucking Glibby’s wife and he’s none too happy about it. In trying to find Russell, he’s learned that Jay is his emergency contact. And in Glibby’s world of vigilante justice, the one who knows about the cheating is just as guilty as the one who’s doing the cheating.

Jay’s rescued when an officer passes by wondering why an innocent man is sitting in an interrogation room. Jay once again tries to get home only to run into the man of the hour – Russell. Jay curses him out for ruining his “perfect” life. Russell points out that Jay’s life is actually pretty boring and sucky. Life advice from a man who’s never used an alarm clock. Unfortunately Jay realizes that neither of them are getting out of tonight until they find and return that porno. The question is: Where is it? The answer is a mystery that takes them all over the city. To make matters worse, Jay has the mother of all presentations in the morning. If he doesn’t kill it, he’ll be out of a job.

What Aderhold and Sullivan do really well in Emergency Contact is create a host of hilarious secondary characters. Briggs and Glibby can star in their own spin-off movie as soon as this one’s over. Their clueless banter is one of the highlights of the script. And one of my favorite sequences is when Jay and Russell meet up with Russell’s friend, Captain Kirk, a former pilot turned crackhead who hasn’t worn pants in over a year. As he drifts in and out of consciousness, he tries desperately to remember where he left the porno.

But what really makes this script sing is anything that happens as a result of Russell being Jay’s emergency contact. A flippant decision early on by Jay turns out to be the biggest mistake of his life – over and over and over again. The only time the script runs into trouble is near the end when Aderhold and Sullivan try to tie a neat bow around Jay and Russell’s friendship. I liked the idea, but it comes on too fast and is resolved too quickly. That needed more work. Plus it replaced the potential for more emergency contact stuff. Any way these guys can plant more storylines that arise because Jay gave Russell permission to be his emergency contact I’m highly in favor of. That’s where the gold happens. And I feel that as we get closer to the end, those moments should increase anyway, not decrease, as that’ll make things even harder (and therefore more funny) on Jay.

Emergency Contact reminded me of another script titled The Sitter which sold earlier this year. This script is nearly as good as that one and, I believe, has more potential. I honestly think with a couple of rewrites, this could be the next Hangover. It’s a hilarious ride. I’m actually surprised no one’s snatched it up yet.

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] barely kept my interest
[xx] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: When you think you’ve put your character in a terrible situation, make it worse. The writers do a great job of not only barraging Jay with the worst night ever. But on top of it all, he’s got the presentation of his life to give tomorrow morning at 9. That added dynamic introduces an additional level of tension to every situation Jay’s in because we’re always thinking, “Even if he gets out of this, how is he going to give his presentation??”

For those who have forgotten, this is one in a series of five scripts I’ll be reviewing this week from represented writers who have not sold a script. The exercise is meant to explore the level of quality it takes to obtain agency representation. Enjoy!

Genre: Drama
Premise: After wrecking his marriage, his liver, and a 737, an alcoholic ex-airline pilot tries to put his life back together.
About: Matthew (one half of the writing team) is a blogger himself doing breakdowns of DVDs at Criterion Collection DVDs. He and Adam are repped over at UTA and managed by Circle of Confusion. The two are going out with a new spec soon.
Writers: Adam Price & Matthew Dessem

Clearly Matt and Adam have been waiting for this moment. They’ve been tracking my taste, planning and plotting, looking for just the right moment to storm the Scriptshadow beach and take the island. Because they obviously understand what I like. “Everything Must Go,” a story about a man who sets up a living quarters on his front lawn when his wife locks him out of their house, plays to just about everything I like in a story (please find an actor for this and make it now!). So when I heard Matt and Adam’s logline, a logline that sounded like “Everything’s” second cousin, I couldn’t control the magical download finger that transfers my next reading experience onto my hard drive.

But beware the follow-up blues. Whenever we see something great, something that personally moves, shocks or excites us, we want more of it. And we want it now. But when, in the history of mankind, has there ever been anything that’s capitalized on the success of something else, and was actually better? After Pearl Jam we got Soundgarden. After Lord Of The Rings we got Dungeons and Dragons. After Pac Man we got Q-Bert. Ultimately, you end up disappointed, feeling like you just witnessed a shallower emptier version of your previous love affair. That’s not to say that Adam and Matthew even knew about Everything Must Go when they wrote The Conquered. I’m speaking for myself, the reader’s perspective. And these similar second endeavors almost always end up in disappointment.

So then what’s the deal? Was the first script in our Repped Week any good? Was this a disastrous idea? Are these writers without a sale so far out of the big-timer’s league that they don’t even deserve any Scriptshadow love? Let’s find out.

The Conquered is kind of like a cross between Everything Must Go and The Wrestler. Frank is this beat up guy. His wife, Kelly, left him for an “actuary,” which is a job Frank’s never even heard of. He’s pissed about the ordeal, even though he has no right to be. Let’s be honest. When your spouse is gardening in another man’s lawn, chances are it’s not because you’re Husband Of The Year. In a move so monumentally moronic it makes my Freshman year at college look like a year in seminary, Frank, a pilot, stumbles into the cockpit of his flight, wasted beyond recognition. He proceeds to kick the co-pilot out, start the plane, pass out onto the controls, and roll a 737 into the airport lobby.

Niiiiiice.

Needless to say, Frank loses his wings and six months later finds himself slumming it in Hollywood (note to non-Los Angelinos: Hollywood is very very dirty), selling off his things to pay for rent and food. Frank’s best friend Virgil is a bit of an oaf but has a good heart. Ironically, Virgil just lost his life as well. After 16 years she didn’t even leave him a note. He spends most of his days hunched over in Frank’s apartment, weeping like a little girl.

Virgil nabs Frank a job at his brand new employer’s, The Matchstick Company, pulling levers on an assembly line. On his very first day, Frank manages to somehow set both himself and Virgil on fire. But Virgil meets and falls in love with his Mexican boss, Elena. The relationship occasionally ropes Frank into doing things he doesn’t want to do. Any time he’s not getting shitfaced watching TV is considered unproductive. But a party at Elena’s introduces him to Elena’s drop-dead gorgeous 18 year old (and still in high school) daughter, Lily, a blossoming artist stuck in a going-nowhere situation. Her thug boyfriend, Nando, has just gotten out of jail, and Elena is desperate to keep Lily away from him.

Frank does everything in his power to destroy his life short of swallowing an atom bomb. He drinks, drinks, drinks, and when the liquor runs out, he lies, cheats, and steals to get more. Occasionally he’ll rendezvous with the local bar owner, the mature but attractive Angie. Not only does he pull a one night stand on poor Angie, but also steals a stuffed dog of hers and names it “Mr. President.” Mr President becomes Frank’s best friend and unwitting accomplice in an ongoing attempt to throw his life away.

When Elena finds out that Lily’s sneaking out with Nando, she starts sending him over to Frank’s so he can keep an eye on her. They don’t have very much in common and she seems baffled that Frank can sit there and watch The Weather Channel and infomercials for six hours straight (For the record, this does not even come close to my 8 hour ESPN marathons). Slowly, the two develop a friendship, and Frank starts to pull himself out of that 20-mile hole he’s been digging. The friendship leads to a few dates and the dates lead to one night of sex. But ironically, after a lifetime of screwing others over, it’s Lily who realizes she made a mistake, and she’s the one who wants nothing to do with Frank. After this karmic taste of his own medicine, Frank’s forced to square of with Co-Nando The Barbarian. And as you can probably guess, it doesn’t go well.

There’s an honesty in The Conquered that you don’t find in a lot of scripts – an aversion to play it safe, a hesitancy to wrap things up in a neat bow. And that’s what I liked about the story. Frank is pretty much despicable and has no real desire to better his life. He’s trapped in that place in your life where you’re supposed to have everything, yet you have nothing. So you start to think, what’s the point in trying? What’s the point in sticking it out? He drifts from beer to beer, shot to shot, and somehow, through it all, we still root for him. There’s a part of us that wants Frank to get back up on his feet, because we think maybe, if he can, we can. It’s always a daring choice to go with an anti-hero, Paul Newman as opposed to Will Smith. But when it works, the story is richer for it.

The script isn’t perfect. I’m still not sure why Elena would leave her 18 year old daughter with a raging alcoholic she barely knows. Not exactly the daycare center I’d send my kids to. And I feel like the script lacks that one “big moment,” near the middle. The drifting nature of Frank motivates a fairly straight-forward narrative, but I was looking for that one jolt, that one surprise to knock me out of my seat. I don’t like it when I start to feel too comfortable in a script. And that happened a bit in The Conquered.

Needless to say, The Conquered was still an enjoyable experience. With a little exposure, it has Black List written all over it. Definitely not Top 50%, but somewhere in the lower half for sure. If you liked The Wrestler, or the scripts Everything Must Go and Up In The Air, you should check this one out pronto.

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] barely kept my interest
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: A lot of writers just starting out leave their supporting characters out to dry. They’re not concerned with them – their backstory, their goals, their purpose. Smart writers have something going on with all of their characters. In the case of The Conquered, Virgil, Frank’s friend, plays a crucial part in the story. His own collapsed marriage and new relationship with Elena is what leads to the main romantic storyline between Frank and Lily. Inexperienced writers would probably bring Virgil in as the “funny guy” and not go any further than that. He wouldn’t have any depth or any goals of his own. But by taking your time and really giving each character something to do, something to seek out in the film, you create a richer more fulfilling experience for your reader.

No link (in case you were curious – :)

Genre: Sci-Fi
Premise: A hotshot politician meets a beautiful ballet dancer only to experience unseen forces fighting to keep them apart.
About: Adapted from a Philip K. Dick story, Universal and Media Rights Capital (Bruno) will be producing. Matt Damon and Emily Blunt to star. George Nolfi, who wrote Timeline, Ocean’s 12, and The Sentinal, adapted and will make The Adjustment Bureau his directorial debut. Nolfi is also producing along with Chris Moore, Michael Hackett and Bill Carraro. Damon will be getting a 20% first-dollar-gross backend. Yikes.
Writer: George Nolfi

If you were following me on Twitter yesterday, you’d know that I was super excited about a particular script I was reading. Up until page 32, I thought I had a “genius” on my hands. I purposefully went into it blind and as the story unfolded, I found myself inching closer and closer to the screen. I was actually on the edge of my seat…for a screenplay. As the setup came to a close however, I began to realize this wasn’t going to be the script I wanted it to be. The sci-fi element that made the story so unique and interesting, faded into the background in favor of a heavy love story. Had I prepped myself for that, I would’ve been more tolerant. But I couldn’t help thinking of the potential this kind squandered.

Congressman David Norris, 33, is running for Senate. He’s kind of like the white version of Obama. He’s good-looking. He inspires young people. He gives great speeches. His only fault is that he’s a little *too* honest when discussing issues. And on the eve of what should’ve been a blowout victory, he himself gets blown out. Looking like Andy Roddick after this year’s Wimbledon (but come on – did anyone really think he was going to win?), David must find solace in the second place trophy. How did this happen? Where did he go wrong?

As David preps for his “loser” speech, he meets a beautiful rambunctious woman named Elise. She and David gravitate towards each other like sugar and cinnamon, immediately lost in one another’s eyes. Words, smiles, and laughs are exchanged. It’s as if some unknown entity has put the rest of the world on hold so that these two can experience a perfect moment in time. To say these two are soul mates would be the understatement of the millennium.

David then gives an amazing consolation speech inspired by Elise. It’s the kind of speech that gets played over and over again on CNN and makes him not only the frontrunner for a Senate seat in three years, but many people’s pick as our future president of the United States. But all this is insignificant to David. All he cares about is finding Elise again. He must find Elise.

As it would happen, the very next day (as David is preparing for his first day of work at his new hedge fund job) David drops into Starbucks to pick up a coffee. But we push up above and meet a mysterious group of men on a rooftop, overlooking the city. The men speak in hushed tones. Something about preparing for a coffee spill. One of the men, Harry, is assigned to the “case”. We cut to David, coming out of the coffee shop, and then over to Harry, who’s supposed to do…something. But he’s drifted off and missed his cue. Which means David catches a bus. And when he catches that bus, he can’t believe his luck. Cause sitting there right in the middle is the world’s most perfect vision. Elise. The two share a shocked smile. But Harry’s not smiling. Neither are the rest of the mysterious men. Apparently, David’s just done something terrible.

The mysterious men are thumbing through something called the “Handbook”. Not to be confused with Facebook. It’s full of extremely complicated diagrams inside, lines twisting and turning in every which direction. And then, to our utter shock, the lines start moving. They disconnect, slide and extend, reconnecting with other lines. It’s this movement that seems to have the mysterious group of men concerned. Something is happening that shouldn’t be. And David appears to be the cause of it.

Elise gives David her number and he’s holding onto that thing for dear life. Off to his new job he goes, a skip in his step and an “I’m in love” smile on his face. When David steps into the building, we notice an immediate emptiness. There’s a security guard there but he doesn’t pay much notice to David. David heads upstairs and passes by his secretary. But when he says hi, she doesn’t say anything back. She just sits there. That’s when David takes a closer look at her. Her face appears to be…frozen. David understandably freaks out and runs into his partner’s office only to find…that his partner is frozen too! Three men (the mysterious men) surround him, adjusting some sort of metal contraption on the side of his head. They turn and spot David, and David turns and runs.

But when the world’s frozen and people are inserting metal contraptions into other people’s heads, do you really think running’s going to help? The men have an ability to leap from door to door, covering large distances in split-seconds and before David knows it, he’s cornered, caught and drugged. When he wakes up, the men are standing over him in a warehouse. After some debate, the decide to tell him the truth.

Behind our world are planners, fate-spinners who guide and encourage us with lost keys, spilled coffee, phone calls and texts – anything to keep us on “the Plan.” The Plan is our preordained destiny in this world. It must be adhered to. If too many people stray from The Plan, the foundation of humanity itself will crumble. So these men are here to help keep things on point. Harry was supposed to be there to enforce a coffee spill with David so he missed that bus. But David got on the bus. And because he got on the bus, something very terrible happened.

David was never supposed to see Elise again. Apparently if her and David were to get together, a rift in The Plan so huge would occur, it would make that stuff they talk about in Ghostbusters seem like a bad night of drinking. They tell David that whatever he does, he cannot speak to this girl again. To drive home their point, they take out her number from David’s wallet and burn it! They then inform him if he speaks about this puppeteering backworld to anyone, they will be forced to erase his memory. Which will essentially make him a vegetable.

CUT TO THREE YEARS LATER

David is once again on the verge of becoming Senator. But all the life has been seeped out of him. His happiness is tied inexorably to his inability to find Elise. He still takes the same bus every day in hopes of seeing her again. But the Planners have been behind the scenes, manipulating everything to make sure they stay apart. David knows this but keeps trying. And then, impossibly, he sees her again. This time, he will not leave her. This time, he will not let her out of his sight. But The Bureau has other plans.

And there you have The Adjustment Bureau. David tries desperately to be with Elise. The Bureau tries desperately to keep them apart. Is it any good? Well, that depends on if you want David and Elise to be together. If you do, you’ll root for Mr. Damon to break through walls to be with her. If not, you’ll likely close this puppy by page 40. It’s always difficult to create a storyline where two people fall desperately in love. You basically have to have them fawning over each other within seconds of meeting, and the slim timeframe makes it hard to develop any real conflict in their relationship. Which leaves us with pure love. And what movie have you seen where two people dote over each other for 120 minutes that’s actually any good? Romeo And Juliet? Even The Notebook had the two fighting just as much as they proclaimed their love for each other.

I think I have a problem with adapted Philip K. Dick material in general. It always feels like 3/4 of a good idea. The setup is usually solid, but the idea can rarely support an entire screenplay. In “Bureau” there were times when it all felt a little too silly. David and Elise share a lovely lunch together while The Bureau stands 100 feet away and flings little pieces of fate at them to try and keep them apart. Kind of like less-menacing versions of Final Destination. A text message to Elise telling her her ballet recital has been moved up. Sending David’s campaign manager over to encourage David to get his speech ready. I’m trying to figure out if that would actually be compelling onscreen or just really really stupid. It’s a tough call.

Luckily there’s nothing out there quite like The Adjustment Bureau. Of course it borrows from other movies (more than a few times I thought of The Matrix) but overall the feeling is a unique one, which no doubt is why this project has caught the attention of such a big star like Damon. The themes of fate and choice are prevalent, and it’s hard not to find those interesting even in a conventional story.

If only the 129 page screenplay were a good 19 pages shorter, this could’ve played out more urgently – always advantageous when you’re dealing with sci-fi. And like I said, the innovation in the first act doesn’t extend into the rest of the story. One good idea is never enough for these flicks. You need two or three. There’s a final act chase that has David teleporting from doorway to doorway throughout New York just like The Bureau does, but it feels safe as opposed to innovative. I felt like a father consoling a kid after he lost a nailbiter of a soccer game. “Almost,” I wanted to say, as I patted him on the back.

But there’s no denying that there’s something about The Adjustment Bureau. I’m sure they’ve already engaged in rewrites that will render some of these issues moot. And Emily Blunt being super-hot doesn’t hurt things. The Adjustment Bureau wasn’t bad.

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] barely kept my interest
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: When you have two people falling in love, you want to avoid having them spout back and forth how much they love each other for 120 minutes. For an example of *why* you don’t want to do this, please watch “Star Wars Attack Of The Clones.” In The Adjustment Bureau, Rolfi makes use of a writer’s best friend in this circumstance: sarcasm. Not only does sarcasm keep the conversations light and funny, but it feels a lot more like real life. Who out there is constantly blathering, “You’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever met in my life. I love you like air.” Why not instead, “Nice shoes. Where’d you find those? Wal-Mart?” We know it’s a joke. We know Elise really likes David. So the line ends up being cute and interesting. That’s not to say there won’t be moments in your screenplay where your characters say what they feel (“I love you”) but you want to make those moments the exception and not the rule. — Sarcasm is just one of many tools you can use to stave off those dreaded cringe-worthy lovey-dovey moments. Use it judiciously.