Genre: Thriller/Contained/Drama/Post-Apocalyptic
Premise: A married couple is vacationing on the island where they spent their honeymoon, when a man in military fatigues washes onshore, claiming the end of the world is coming.
About: I thought that this sold last week but it was actually sold much earlier in the year. Last week was the announcement that Jason Isaccs was being replaced by Inception alum Cillian Murphy in the lead role. Thandie Newton will also star, and co-writer Carl Tibbetts will make his directing debut. Many are calling the film “the next Dead Calm,” which is high praise, as Dead Calm is one of my favorite thrillers.
Writers: Carl Tibbetts and Janice Hallett
Details: 91 pages – March 17, 2010 draft (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time of the film’s release. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).

I strolled into a rental store for the first time in four months last night listening to the audiobook of The Girl Who Played With Fire, the second novel in the now famous “Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” trilogy. I was on the chapter about math. I did everything in my power to escape math once out of college, yet there it was, being piped down my eardrums by Martin Wenner, the audiobook reader for the Dragon Tattoo series, who was explaining to me, in a thick English accent, the root of the square root. I was confused and discombobulated by the conflux of these events, which may explain how I walked out of the store with a copy of “The Losers,” a movie with the cinematic ambition of an eighth grader with a flip phone at the skate park.

As I watched this movie, I was surprised to realize that technically, it was well-written. Sure the dialogue was way corny and it tried uber-hard to be the kind of film you quote with your buddies on a roadtrip, but the thing was so structurally sound you could practically see a graph of Blake Snyder’s beat sheet behind it. It was a reminder that structure is only half the battle. Your choices still need to be original. Your dialogue still needs to be fresh. A dirty little secret is that workmanlike gets it done when you’re an established professional, but when you’re an amateur, more is required in order for others to take notice.

I bring this up not because The Losers and Retreat are similar in any way, but because Retreat is a contained thriller, and there are so many of these flooding the market, you need to figure out ways to elevate the material beyond the obvious (which The Losers wasn’t able to do). Now assuming you’re a competent screenwriter and know your 3-Act structure, the place this happens is in the choices you make for your story. Are they different? Are they new? Are you challenging both yourself and the audience? There’s hundreds of directions you can take a story about a vacationing couple who get word that the world is ending. So did Tibbetts and Hallett merely get to the finish line, or did they come up with an original exciting thriller with loads of surprising twists and turns? Let’s find out.

Martin and Kate are a well-off Irish married couple in their 30s. The two are heading to Dinish Island, a tiny private island off the Irish Coast where they spent their honeymoon together a decade ago.

But it’s evident early on that something is broken in this relationship. Kate seems more interested in talking to the tugboat owner, Doug, on the way over, than she does her own husband. In fact, the more we get to know these two, the more we notice how rare it is for Kate to even *look* at Martin.

And that’s because Martin, a hardcore workaholic, was too busy working to answer Kate’s distressed call 8 years ago when she had a miscarriage. Kate still hasn’t forgiven him for not being there, and hasn’t forgotten that Martin never wanted the child in the first place. This vacation is a last ditch effort on Martin’s part to save this marriage, a venture that’s looking less and less likely by the minute.

Retreat eases into its story slowly – maybe too slowly – as Martin and Kate perform a number of couple-related tasks under a thick cloud of tension. And just when you want to personally kick the story in the behind to move it along, an unconscious man washes ashore with military fatigues and a gun. The two hurry him into the house to nurse him back to health, only to learn, according to him, that a pandemic has swept across the globe like wildfire. Pandemic, if you don’t know, is the deadliest of the “demics” as it’s the kind that spreads through the air. And this one is a doozy. Catch it and you’ll be dead within 48 hours.

The man, Corporal Jack Corman, a member of the Royal Marines, dutifully starts boarding up windows and doors without consulting the couple, preparing for “when they come.” “They” is in reference to the survivors, who Jack predicts will be catching rides over to this island any minute now, in search of safety. And since they’ll probably be infected, it’s their job to make sure they don’t get in the cottage.

But Martin and Kate note an inconsistency in Jack’s comments and logic. There’s something off about the man, and it causes them to question whether he’s locking other people out, or locking them in. Unfortunately, with everything happening so fast, and no previous experience for “what to do when there’s a pandemic and a crazy man runs into your home and starts boarding everything up,” by the time Martin and Kate realize he might be dangerous, they’re already locked inside. With their only communication to the outside world an old CB radio that barely works, Jack becomes their only source to the outside world.

So when I’m determining whether something is elevating the material or just making the obvious choices, the first thing I look at is “Am I able to predict where this story is going?” I may not know exactly what’s going to happen, but if I generally know the twists and turns, that’s a bad sign. Obviously, you’re not being original if the reader can predict what’s going to happen.

Retreat, unfortunately, falls into this rut. For the first 50 pages or so, I knew every beat, every twist, every surprise, and while I wouldn’t say I was bored, I was disappointed that things were moving along so predictably. But I’ll tell you where the script saved itself. At a certain point, we think we know whether Jack’s lying or not. Then we’re not so sure. Then we’re sure again. Then we’re not so sure.

Retreat places that question front and center in the story: Is there a pandemic or not? And it keeps going back and forth on whether there is. After flipping back and forth so much, we really have no idea what to believe. And because we want to know the answer to this mystery, we’re compelled to read til the end. That alone makes this script worth the read.

But Retreat still suffers from the same thing a lot of these low-character contained thrillers suffer from. With only a single couple’s problems to explore during the second act, there’s a lot of extra time to fill, and so we’re given these scenes – particularly between Jack and Kate – that are intense and racy but lack a certain truth to them. Instead of servicing the story they feel like they’re trying to make up for the lack of it. I kept asking, “Why is Jack doing this? What’s his plan here?” And I could never come up with a satisfactory answer, which implied that it was just filler until we got back to the story again. I didn’t think these scenes were bad, but they definitely felt forced, and pulled me out of the script.

I also thought the writers missed a huge opportunity. This story is essentially about a woman who wanted children then lost a child, and how that event affected her marriage. That theme keeps coming up again and again. So why wouldn’t you have Kate pregnant again? How much more intense would this be if they were reliving the very thing that tore them apart in the first place? With her pregnant, possibly due soon, every problem here would be magnified times a thousand. It would also give the story more places to go.

I have to give it to the writers though. It’s so easy to wrap these stories up in a nice little bow. But Tibbetts and Hallett don’t screw around, leaving us with a finale that’s both shocking and disturbing. Retreat doesn’t rewrite the book on thrillers by any means, but the storyline keeps you guessing enough to make it worth the investment.

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: There’s a sizable percentage of writers who are resistant to any kind of screenwriting academia. I might say to someone, “Your main character needs a fatal flaw,” and they’ll reply with a scoff. “Don’t throw that screenwriting mumbo-jumbo at me,” their eyes say. I get that. Everybody has their own process. So let me take the technical side out of it and say it this way: every character should have a “thing” going on. Everybody’s got a “thing.” My friend Dan’s thing is that he’s obsessed with women, to the point where it’s ruined a marriage and a couple of other great relationships he’s had. My friend Claire’s thing is that she refuses to rely on other people for help. She has to do everything herself, even when at times it’s impossible. Kate’s thing here is that she can’t forgive her husband for putting his work before her. Think about all the friends in your life. You can probably break all of them down into having that one “thing” that identifies them. This “thing” is what you use your screenplay to explore. Sure this concept is about a deadly virus that could potentially end human existence. But really this script is about a woman trying to come to terms with what her husband did to her, forgive him, and move on. Once you identify what your main character’s “thing” is, you can use your screenplay to explore it. If you’re not doing that, I got news for you, you’re going to have a hard time writing a good screenplay.

This week has an interesting ring to it. I’ll be reviewing two scripts that deal with the same subject matter in very different ways, one with a well-known director attached and one that sold just last week. We also have a guest reviewer coming in to review Shane Carruth’s (Primer) long in-development project, Topiary, which I think is something like 200 pages long. I don’t know anything about it but you basically have to be a genius to write a 200 page script, or really bad at formatting, so we’ll see. Friday is still undecided but I’m sure I’ll find something to read. Right now, Roger reviews the recently sold, “Die In A Gunfight.”

Genre: Drama
Premise: A high society outlaw falls in love with the daughter of his father’s rival, endangering not only their reputations, but their lives.
About: In one of those stories that’s sure to bring out the jealousy and set the bar very high for this writing team, Andrew Barrer and Gabriel Ferrari sold this script straight out of NYU. “Die in a Gunfight” is next in line for Zac Efron. A project with a risky role, this may be Efron’s meal ticket to cinematic coolness.
Writers: Andrew Barrer & Gabriel Ferrari
Details: June 2010 draft – 109 pages (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time of the film’s release. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).

Zac Efron seems to be smartly cultivating his dapper Disney star image while cautiously stepping outside his bubblegum box to show the rest of us that he’s more than just a debonair pretty face. Do I think it’s a stretch to compare him to Johnny Depp? I don’t know, but I present you with the John Waters connection: Depp eschewed expectation and chose Water’s Cry-Baby over all the other pap passed his way, perhaps paving the way for someone like Efron, who starred in a more mainstream friendly rendition of Water’s Hairspray. While Depp didn’t seem to care what people thought of him, Efron appears to be considering the ramifications of career suicide.

Genre: Sci-Fi
Premise: A group of time-travellers jump back to 12th Century China in search of a rare gene that will save mankind. Problems arise when they find themselves in the direct path of Genghis Khan’s army.
About: Details are scarce about this one, but it was acquired by Sony earlier in the year. David Gleeson is an Irish writer-director who wrote and directed a couple of small features in his home country.
Writer: David Gleeson
Details: 116 pages – Feb 10th 2010 draft (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time of the film’s release. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).

When trying to find out more about this low-key project, I made a call out to my Facebook peeps for more information. A Scriptshadow reader chimed back, “This sold?!! I thought this was going to be the Amateur Week special on Friday. It is so f**kin’ bad!”

To you, Mike, I say….I couldn’t disagree more!

The End Of History starts out much like the sci-fi darling “Children Of Men.” It’s the near future and less than 5000 women in the world are pregnant. Something is preventing the human race from procreating, and if it continues, in about 90 years, earth will look like downtown Pyongyang.

Cool-headed Nathan Scott, however, is going to make sure that doesn’t happen. No place should look like Pyongyang dammit. The Colonel is leading a combination military/scientist team back to 12th Century China, where they’ve located a band of warriors that contain the extinct gene which can reverse the procreation problem.

Scott has a vested interest in the mission. His baby daughter is fighting the killer disease, and won’t live without a gene transplant.

The mission is supposed to be simple. The clan they’re targeting is militarily formidable for the 12th Century, but their weapons might as well be toothpicks compared to what the Americans are packing. Actually, there’s a specific reason the Americans chose this clan. In 100 years, Genghis Khan will wipe every single one of them out on his march through China, permanently erasing any historic influence their presence may have had.

Indeed, when they jump, the sailing is smooth. They infiltrate the fortress without much resistence and the sci-tech team quickly goes to work extracting the gene. But after sending up a quick satellite to get a lay of the land, a horrifying video plays back. An army of 100,000 soldiers is marching DIRECTLY TOWARDS THEM.

Genghis Khan’s army.

There was a malfunction in the jump. They jumped back 100 years LATER than they were supposed to. Which means they’re right in the path of that Ghegis Khan massacre that was the whole reason they chose this location in the first place. Ahh, the irony.

To make matters worse, the hastily scrapped together tech starts malfunctioning in bunches, and after a major explosion, their time travel apparatus is all but toast. The group realizes they can salvage a small piece of the flux-capacitor, but only enough to send a message into the future, not to jump. Their plan is to fix it as fast as possible and send out an SOS. But even under the most optimistic time frame, Genghis Khan is going to arrive before they finish. And that means the unthinkable. A group of rag-tag 21st Century American soldiers is going to have to hold off the most ruthless army in history.

Will they be able to do it?

I have to give it to Glesson. This script straddles the line between ridiculous and awesome so finely that at first I wasn’t sure which side it would land on. But after it got going, I decided on awesome. Usually, in these sci-fi/historic hybrids, either the sci-fi is shoddy and the history is exceptional, or the history looks like it was researched by an 8 year old and the sci-fi is brilliant. Rarely do you find a script where both are handled well, but that’s exactly what happens here, and why I liked the script so much.

And believe me, this isn’t easy to do. One only needs to “travel back” a few years to the abombination that was Timeline to see how to royally fuck up an idea like this. I don’t think I’ve ever heard, read, or seen a time travel story as bad as that monstrosity. There were two castles. People were running back and forth between them for no reason. The time travel had 16,814 rules you had to remember. It was embarrasingly bad.

What The End of History wisely does is it keeps the time-travel plot simple. There’s never a moment where you don’t know exactly what the portagonists’ goals are, and that’s important in a script like this.

I also loved the technology of the war. Oh, I’m not talking about the 21st century technology. I’m talking about all the wacky weapons Khan had in his arsenal. This guy had rudimentary Napalm at his disposal. He had early versions of dirty bombs. He even had an ancient version of the damn Predator (the pilot-less airplane). Watching him unleash these toys on a shell-shocked 21st century army was, in a word, sweet.

However, there were things that kept this from becoming the next Source Code. First, I’m getting tired of these serviceable but ultimately unimaginative motivations for main characters. Yes, Scott has a daughter affected by the killer disease, and that makes his mission personal, but it’s such a derivative motivation that it doesn’t resonate with us. We’ve seen it so many times before. Contrast that with Leo’s character in Inception. Sure there were some problems with the kids storyline, but I have to admit, I don’t remember seeing a character with that particular motivation before, which made it original and therefore powerful.

Also, to echo my sentiments on Layover, there needed to be more dissention inside the group! There’s a troublemaker here, Decker, who adds about as much conflict as an agitated Abe Vigoda. There was so much potential for his character to stir things up, but instead he observes Scott pull off a couple of neat military maneuvers and becomes his BFF. Dissention inside the group – conflict – always makes a mission/goal more interesting, because there’s more for the hero to overcome. If you want to see it how this can help a screenplay, read The Grey.

I also thought Gleeson missed a couple of opportunities. One thing he doesn’t adequately address is what happens if they destroy Khan’s army. Obviously, all of history would change. If they had to fight off this army, but only enough to keep from getting killed, and not enough to become a part of the history books – that’s the kind of unique obstacle that could’ve introduced some interesting challenges. There’s also a female character on Scott’s team who’s half-Asian. What if she were a direct descendent of someone in Genghis Khan’s army? What if killing them wiped her out of existence? Even better, what if she was the romantic lead (a surprisingly absent piece of this puzzle). That would create quite a dilemma as well.

But hey, that’s neither here nor there. Sure the script has some problems (like all time travel stories – there are some holes) but it’s a great spec premise. Contained area. Contained time frame. High concept. These are the kind of scripts that sell when written well, so I’m not surprised that it did.

Still needs to be developed, but overall, enjoyable.


[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: Whenever you write a time travel flick, you have to deal with one specific problem: “Why can’t they just go back and do it again?” The End of History, unfortunately, doesn’t deal with this question satisfactorily. But this is exactly why a franchise like The Terminator is dying. If they fail in killing Sarah Connor or her son, they can just send back another Terminator a few weeks later (or earlier). There’s no end to how many times they can try to assassinate our heroes.

The recommended solution to this isn’t as difficult as you might think. You simply have to make clear that this is a one-shot deal. Maybe the technology is unproven. Maybe the time machine is so expensive that if it breaks, that’s it. Maybe there’s something in your own time travel design that simply doesn’t allow them to jump more than once. If you do it this way, the mission actually means something. Because everyone knows that there are no second chances here. Ignore that rule, and you have a bunch of sophisticated fanboys (the core fanbase for this kind of film) in the audience thinking, “None of this matters cause they can just do it again.”

Genre: Thriller/Crime/Revenge
Premise: (from IMDB) A father is forced to confront his past when his teenage daughter is kidnapped during a layover in Las Vegas.
About: Zach Dean was teaching film and writing at a New York high school when he wrote the “Simple Plan’esque” Kin, a script he wanted to write after being on the infamous Jet Blue flight in 2005 whose landing gear malfunctioned, forcing the entire flight to watch in horror on their in flight TVs as major new agencies predicted their doom. The now 35 year-old Dean was so rattled by the experience he promised to write a film about family if he lived, and thus Kin was born. This is Dean’s second script, Layover, which sold a couple of months ago to Endgame Entertainment. You can read more about Dean and that experience in a recent LA Times article here.
Writer: Zach Dean
Details: 108 pages – undated (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time of the film’s release. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).

When we meet the deceptively conniving Theron Turner, he’s amongst a couple dozen convicts on a transport bus. The bus is twisting and turning its way through the snowy mountains, and as you might suspect, something bad is about to happen. As the bus rounds the corner, the innocent outline of a snowman appears in the middle of the road. One of the guards hesitantly steps out to clear the obstruction, and is promptly greeted with a bullet to the head.

A team of three men bursts onto the bus and free their target, Theron. He smiles, marches out, and heads to Nevada to prepare for the biggest job of his career.

Meanwhile, in the most isolated middle-of-nowhere town in all of Nebraska, tow-truck driver Doyle Green is managing the aftermath of yet another brush with the law by his rebellious daughter, Nikki. The bearded homebody is the exact opposite of his daughter, and the 17 year old troublemaker is so fed up with her boring life and her boring dad that she’s willing to do anything to escape.

It kills Doyle that his daughter doesn’t love him, or even like him, and he’d do anything in his power to change that. But Doyle has a secret he’s never told his daughter. He lives here because the witness relocation program made him live here. Doyle’s past is packed with more secrets than a prom after party.

However, when Nikki’s birthday rolls around, Doyle is so desperate to please her, that he tells her he’ll do anything she wants for her birthday. Her wish? To see the ocean. Against his better judgment, Doyle allows her to book a trip to California for the two of them.

With a quick layover in Vegas.

Hasn’t anyone told Doyle? Layovers are never as smooth as you think they’ll be.

Sure enough, in the 20 minutes they’re at the Vegas airport, Nikki sneaks into a bathroom and makes a run for it. She leaves Doyle a letter, explaining that her mother finally contacted her online, that they’ve been planning this for weeks, and that she’s running off to live with her. Doyle knows something Nikki doesn’t though. Her mother is dead. Which means someone lured her here. He knows who that person is. And so do we.

Theron has some big plans for Nikki. He’s holding her hostage until he gets the 13 million dollars Doyle helped him steal a dozen years ago, right before he sold him out to the feds. Theron will do anything to get that money back, and that’s exactly why Doyle knows he must do everything in his power to find Nikki as soon as possible.

Yes, I know. Taken.

There’s no place for Layover to escape its “father save daughter” premise, however, Layover excels in a lot of the areas Taken was criticized for. The story is really about two old friends, now enemies, trying to stay one move ahead of each other, as each tries to get something they desperately want. It’s not going to inspire Inception like discussion afterwards, but this is more of a chess game than a footrace, and that twist on the idea is what sets the script apart.

And it really does set itself apart.

One of the mistakes I keep seeing in amateur screenplays is that writers don’t surprise the reader enough. They continually choose the first twists and turns that come to mind, not realizing that they’re in their mind only because they’re remembering them from some recent film they enjoyed. As a result, their scripts play out in a straightforward boring fashion. Layover is an example of a story that keeps hitting us with one “didn’t see that coming” after another.

I say there should be a small surprise, twist or redirection every 15 pages or so, something that ups the stakes or makes us reevaluate the story we thought we were watching. Amongst those 6-8 surprises, there should be 2 or 3 whoppers that really shock us. Here, we see Theron broken out of the convict bus right away, which is a nice surprise. We find out Doyle is in a witness protection program. A nice surprise. Nikki makes a run for it in Vegas. Nice surprise. Doyle turns out to be the former leader of Theron’s group. Nice surprise. All of that is packed inside the first 40 pages. In bad scripts these surprises are either uninspired or non-existent.

Another solid move was creating an unresolved relationship between father and daughter. This may seem obvious but you’d be surprised at how many scripts I’ve read which take the opposite route. “I love you daughter,” “I love you too dad.” (the two then go play checkers for 8 hours). The reason you want to avoid this love-fest is because with unresolved relationships, there’s a desire for the audience to see them get resolved. That can’t happen unless the two see each other again, and of course they can’t see each other again unless he finds her.

At first glance, Taken doesn’t seem to have this. There’s genuine love between father and daughter. But the conflict is that he’s been a bad father all his life, and is trying to make up for it. The unresolved part is that he hasn’t proven himself yet, which is really the hidden emotional component of that film that many people overlook. By saving her, he finally proves how much he loves her.

This unresolved conflict extends into the other central relationship in the movie, the relationship between the hero and the villain. Your hero and villain don’t HAVE to have a history, but relationships with history tend to pack more punch than those that don’t (with the exclusion of a budding romance). This unresolved conflict between Doyle and Theron adds an extra layer to the plot and keeps Layover a character piece first, and a revenge/kidnapping piece second.

The only things that don’t work for the script are some of the early dialogue and the relationships between the villains. With the dialogue, some of it was too on-the-nose, particularly early on when the characters and story were being set up. There’s a scene in particular between the U.S. Marshall and his wife that feels like the scene is only there to give the reader insight into the character, and is in no way necessary to the story. This is an easy trap to fall into though. Good screenplays, particularly intricate ones with a lot going on, require a ton of setup, and being able to cram all that setup into the opening act and keep it natural is a constant challenge. So this wasn’t a huge deal for me.

My bigger problem was with the villains in Layover. I felt their relationships with one another weren’t explored enough. We only get the bare-bones details on their connection with one another (one is the girlfriend, one is the brother, one is the drug-addict). Dean hints at the conflict within, but we never get into it, and therefore when their lives are at stake, we don’t care as much as we should. Creating a division in the ranks of either team, the bad guys or the good, is always a fun way to stir up the story because then your characters are fighting battles on two fronts, the outside and the in.

Overall, I thought this was a really well-executed script. Had Taken never been made, this would’ve received a double “worth the read.” But the familiarities in the core idea did hurt it some. Still, it’s a fun smart thriller, and all this praise being heaped on Zach Dean is well deserved. I’ll be reading Kin as soon as possible!

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: There’s a feeling you get early on when you’re reading a screenplay. It’s a feeling of “this is going to work” or “this isn’t going to work.” Layover was one of those scripts I knew right away was going to work. The opening scene was interesting and mysterious. The story gets moving right away. The writing was crisp and to the point (1-2 lines for almost all paragraphs). But probably most of all, there’s a confidence in where the story is going. You knew the writer had a plan, that he was building towards something, whereas in amateur scripts scenes are thrown together in an almost searching manner, like the writer is enjoying the process of trying to find the story. Unnecessary scenes, wandering first act, that’s the kind of stuff you see in amateur scripts. Layover is definitely not one of those scripts, and should be studied on how to start a screenplay.

Welcome to another week of Scriptshadow. This week, we have two mega-geek scripts we’re reviewing. The first is Peach Trees, the Judge Dredd project, which Roger reviews today. The second is a reimagining/sequel to a popular franchise from the past, a script that’s been around for a decade and is beloved by many. Well, I’ll just say right now that I have no idea why anyone would love this script. I was bored out of my mind. I’ll also be reviewing two low profile recent spec sales, both of which were quite good. And since it’s the last Friday of the month, that means Amateur Friday Review! I just picked out the script this morning so we’ll have to see if it’s any good. Right now, here’s ROGER with his review of the next Judge Dredd project.

Genre: Science-Fiction, Action
Premise: When Judge Dredd arrives with rookie Cassandra Anderson to investigate a trio of murders at high-rise called slum Peach Trees, a drug lord puts Peach Trees on nuclear lockdown and the Judges are trapped inside, hunted by the entire populace. The Judges must choose between escaping the building, or ascending two-hundred stories to prove the drug lord guilty and execute her.
About: Alex Garland (The Beach, 28 Days Later, Sunshine) writes this adaptation to the popular AD 2000 comic strip. Pete Travis (Vantage Point) is set to direct for DNA Films. Karl Urban will star. Judge Dredd was named the seventh greatest comic character by Empire Magazine, and in Britain, he’s certainly the most well-known.
Writer: Alex Garland

“Peach Trees. This is Ma-Ma. Somewhere in this block are two Judges. I want them dead. And until I get what I want, the block is locked down. All Clan, every level, hunt the Judges down. Everyone else, clear the corridors and stay the fuck out of our way until the shooting stops. If I hear about anyone helping the Judges, I’ll kill them and the next generation of their family.”

Peach Trees is the high-rise Judge Dredd becomes trapped in, a mega-slum with a population of a hundred thousand people that are either trying to kill or hide from the iconic character as he ascends two-hundred stories to prove a drug lord guilty and execute her.

It’s a plot stripped of any supercilious details that’s less Hollywood and more 2000 AD, a simple framework that possesses the brilliance of taking a well-known comic book hero and placing him inside a contained thriller.

It’s like taking Batman and putting him in Die Hard.

I remember the 1995 Judge Dredd movie.

While not a reader of the British comic strip, even I could tell that something was amiss. The tone was all over the place. Here was a simple character that was supposed to be a faceless personification of justice, but this personification has Rob Schneider as a sidekick and Sylvester Stallone as a face. Stallone is quoted as saying, “It didn’t live up to what it could have been. It probably should have been much more comic, really humorous, and fun. What I learned out of that experience was that we shouldn’t have tried to make it Hamlet; it’s more Hamlet and Eggs…”

While I don’t agree that it should have been more comic (Sorry, I can only stand one Rob Schneider in a movie), I do think Stallone had a point. The ambition and scale of the plot does not serve the character. A story that is supposed to be about a futuristic gunslinger whom possesses no sympathy for either criminal or victim is lost in a framework that somehow includes cloning, the Hero’s Journey, the power struggles of a dysfunctional family, cannibals and Sly unintentionally but comically screaming, “I am the Law!”

There was plenty of humor, but not enough, I dunno, carnage.

It wasn’t visceral.

I suppose the idea of a Judge trying to clear his name with the law can make for interesting conflict, but I don’t want to watch court scenes.

I want to watch Judge Dredd shoot bad guys with his Lawgiver Gun.

Wait. I don’t know anything about Judge Dredd or Mega City One. Does Alex Garland tell an origin story?

Nope.

And, that’s what makes “Peach Trees” so refreshing.

All you need to know is that it’s the future, and that there’s a guy who will shoot bullets through civilians (endangering them, but not killing them) to execute criminals.

Mega City One is the last outpost of civilization in post-apocalyptic America. It’s a series of mega blocks, monolithic high-rises that serve as their own self-contained towns, stretching from Boston to Washington. Skyscrapers are the low-rise buildings peppered between them.

When we meet Dredd he’s suiting up. We meet his Lawgiver Gun, which seems to be matched to his DNA. The whole time, the top half of his face is hidden by his visor, and we only see chin and mouth, “as if they have been carved from rock.”

He chases a car full of Slo-Mo junkies on his motorbike. Slo-Mo is a drug administered via inhaler, and not only does it slow down time for its users, it causes the world to look beautiful, iridescent and bright. When the junkies steamroll some civilians trying to get away from the Judge, they start to die.

Presumably, Dredd has all the authority of police, judge, jury and executioner.

Especially executioner.

While they die, we learn that the Lawgiver is voice-activated and contains many different kinds of ammo. We also learn something about Dredd. He has phenomenal aim, even when he has to place a shot through a civilian, “Remain calm. The bullet missed all major organs, and a paramedic team will be with you shortly.”

Does Dredd get a sidekick in this tale?

Rookie Cassandra Anderson is an orphan who was given a Judge aptitude test (as is standard for orphans) at age nine. Although her score was unsuitable, she was entered into the Academy upon special instruction. When we meet her, we learn that her final Academy score is three percentile points below a pass.

As she stands before the Chief Judge, Dredd wonders why she’s in uniform. When Anderson is able to point out how many people are in the next room observing her, without seeing them mind you, we realize that she’s a psychic, a power she possibly developed as a child because she lived one hundred meters from a radiation boundary wall. While the fall-out proximity made her a mutant, it also killed her parents.

Although she’s failed the Academy, the Chief Judge is giving her one more chance. She’s to spend a day out in the field with Dredd, and he’s to assess whether she makes the grade or not, “Sink or swim. Chuck her in the deep end.”

“It’s all the deep end.”

Dredd informs of her what to expect out there. If she sentences someone incorrectly, she automatically fails. If she doesn’t obey a direct order from him, she automatically fails. If she loses her primary weapon, or if it’s taken from her, she automatically fails.

That’s all the stuff she knows.

What she doesn’t know is that she’s in for the most fucked-up day of her life.

She gets trapped inside of Peach Trees with Dredd?

Yep.

The Judges only respond to six percent of the seventeen thousand serious crimes reported per day, and a slum like Peach Trees, which has a ninety-six percent employment rate, is rarely visited by a Judge.

Because it’s rarely seen a Judge, someone like Madeline Madrigal has risen to power.

A character possibly inspired by real-life bandit queen, Phoolan Devi, Ma-Ma is a former prostitute who supposedly feminized a pimp with her teeth and took over his syndicate. More violent than all of the other crime lords and clans, she runs Peach Tree from her Dolce & Gabbana crack den-esque penthouse on the top floor of the two-hundred story building. She is responsible for the distribution of Slow-Mo in Mega City One.

As a testament to her ultraviolent nature, she has her lieutenants, Caleb, Kay and Sy, murder a trio of dealers who were caught selling a competitor’s product. They pump the dealers full of Slo-Mo, skin them alive (and because the brain moves at one-percent of normal speed while on the narcotic, this must seem to last an eternity) and toss them off the balcony of the atrium that rises through the center of the building as a message.

Of course, Dredd and Anderson arrive to find the bodies, and thanks to a helpful paramedic, they’re told how things work under Ma-Ma’s rule and he tips them off to the Slo-Mo distribution headquarters on Level 39. The Judges shoot up the joint, and we’re treated to our first gun fight which should blow people’s minds in the cinema thanks to the combo of the Slow-Mo point-of-view and the 3D. They manage to capture Kay, who has a tattoo of Judge Death on his chest (undead Judges?) and they get in an elevator to take him out Peach Trees.

Their goal is to interrogate him, learn everything he knows, which will give them enough evidence to return and arrest Ma-Ma. Only problem is, Ma-Ma can’t have this happen, so she has her Clan Techie, a dude who has robotic eye implants like a chameleon lizard, takes control of the building’s computers and he socially hacks Sector Control to run a systems test.

Peach Trees’ system control goes into a nuclear war testing drill and the building is suddenly encased in lead-lined shutters, blast doors that can withstand nuclear attack. Not only does this trap the Judges and the population inside, but it cuts off Dredd’s communication link with Control.

So, Ma-Ma announces to Peach Trees that she wants the Judges dead?

Pretty much. It’s a sequence that sort of took my breath away. I couldn’t help but be glued to the page as Dredd and Anderson are standing in the middle of the atrium, looking up at two-hundred stories of balconies as the clans and warlords begin to organize to collect the bounty on their heads.

You can’t help but wonder how much ammo those Lawgiver guns of theirs have.

As Dredd and Anderson struggle between avoiding detection and their duty as people that embody justice, they have to ultimately decide if they should just escape, or if they should ascend all two-hundred stories to prove Ma-Ma guilty and execute her.

To get the evidence, they have to get Kay to talk. But to get Kay to talk, they have to survive an entire population that is trying to murder them so they can get a quiet moment with him. While things are simple for Dredd, it’s a moral dilemma for Anderson. As a telepath, she is empathetic to some of the people who are caught in the cross-fire, and she really has to decide if all this is worth being a Judge.

How is the action?

Very satisfying.

This thing has fucking micro-genocides in it.

Ma-Ma is willing to kill entire floors full of people to stop the Judges, and she pulls out every weapon and trick and soldier she has to achieve her goal, which may include a quartet of dirty Judges as her ace in the hole.

It’s enthralling and because this is the type of shoot-em-up I love, and because Dredd never takes off his helmet, even when facing his worst fear, I give this an…

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[x] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: I’m still impressed that someone is making a comicbook movie that isn’t an origin story. This isn’t about the creation of a hero or antihero, this is about the character being put in a worst case scenario and seeing if he can just make it out alive. It’s a new formula. Take a popular character and put them in a situation that is basically the worst series of obstacles ever. Or take a superhero and put him inside a contained thriller. In a climate where it seems like Hollywood will never tire of making comicbook movies, this script proves that these tales can be told without telling their back story as the movie. Secondly, as a shoot-em-up, Garland has created a pretty cool cinematic device with the drug Slow-Mo. Although it makes the world slow down for its users, it doesn’t give them super-speed. However, there are lots of POV shots, especially in the middle of the action, and it gives those action sequences more of an edge than just a straight shoot-out.