Genre: Comedy
Premise: Three friends with the worst bosses imaginable decide to solve their problem…by killing them.
About: Michael Markowitz sold this script to Rat Entertainment and New Line back in 2005. After busy scribes John Goldstein and John Francis Daley gave it a rewrite, it was able to land Aniston and Colin Farrell in two of the juicier boss roles. Markowitz, the original writer, has been working in Hollywood as early as the eighties, where he acted in a couple of small movies. He’s worked as a producer and writer on TV since, most notably on the Ted Danson starrer, Becker. Markowitz recently worked on another script that sounds funny, titled Tapped Out. It’s about an unemployed man whose life is turned upside down when he accidentally knocks out the Ultimate Fighting Champ at a bar. Shooting right now, Horrible Bosses stars Jennifer Aniston, Jason Bateman, Colin Farrell, Jamie Foxx, Jason Sudeikis, and Charlie Day. New Line seems high on Sudeikis and Day, both of whom teamed up in New Line’s Going The Distance.
Writer: Michael Markowitz (current revisions by Jonathan Goldstein & John Francis Daley)
Details: 120 pages – April 14, 2010 draft (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. 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).

The Switch.

Bounty Hunter.

Love Happens.

He’s Just Not That Into You.

Common factor between all these movies? I’ll give you a hint: It ain’t that they’re good! Give up? The scripts were terrible! The other common factor? Jennifer Aniston chose to star in all of them. I don’t know why I’ve never seen it before but my brother pointed it out a few weeks ago. Jennifer Aniston is terrible at choosing roles.

So when I opened Horrible Bosses, knowing only that Aniston had chosen to play a part in it, I felt a little like a guy diving head first into an active volcano. But the good news is, Aniston does not play one of the leads here. More like a large cameo. Which meant that the script had a chance. What I wasn’t expecting was that Horrible Bosses took this chance and ran with it like hell.

Nick Waters works a nondescript office job and has been busting his ass for 17 hours a day in hopes of getting that big promotion his slick boss, Dave, keeps telling him he’s the frontrunner for. Nick’s eliminated any chance of having a girlfriend or a life with this schedule, but it’s all going to be worth it when he gets that new cushy office! Oh, except that Dave decides to give the job to…himself! He then readily admits to Nick that he lied in order to get him to work harder. It’s called ‘good managing,’ he says. Furious, Nick threatens to quit, but his boss tells him that if he does he will make it his mission to make sure he never gets a job anywhere else ever again.

Ladies man Kurt Gamble works at a chemical company. His grandfatherly boss, Jack, is one of the nicest men you could imagine. He and Kurt see eye to eye on everything. Jack even promises to write Kurt into his will that night. Except ten minutes later Jack has a heart attack and dies, leaving the company to his 20-something coke-fiend mega-dickhead son who hates Kurt more than anything.

Dale Stevens is a dental hygienist, high on his recent engagement. In fact, Dale’s got a lot of good things going for him. Except, that is, for his boss. Dr. Julia is hotter than June in Mexico City. The problem is she’s just as dirty. Julia spends the majority of her work day sexually harassing Dale, to the point where you might even call it her real job. From commenting on the potential size of his dick, to explaining how horny she is, and even insisting, every time they put a patient under anesthesia, that they make him/her an unwilling participant in a sexual three-way. The conservative monogamous Dale struggles minutely to perform his job.

The three of these guys are best friends and after discussing just how miserable these bosses make their lives, they wonder what it would be like if they could just…be erased. The thought is funny and euphoric but the once the alcohol takes over, they take it to the next level. What if they actually killed their bosses?

After some initial hesitation, they go marbles in and hire a “killing consultant” to help them plan the kills. As you can expect, nothing goes according to plan after that.

Horrible Bosses roped me in from the very first page. Above all other things, it’s just a funny script. I was laughing throughout the entire first act, especially at all the scenes with Dr. Julia (Aniston’s character), When she invites Dale’s fiancé in for free dental work, puts her under with anesthesia, and suggests they have sex on top of her sleeping body, I mean, I both couldn’t believe what I was reading and couldn’t stop laughing. This character will be one of the funniest characters you’ll watch all year. Mark my words.

The script also makes good on my “what I learned” section from Friday’s script, Flora Plum. Nearly every story improves when you add a villain! And Horrible Bosses has three! Let’s go back even further to my review of Shawshank Redemption. As I pointed out, one of the big reasons for that film’s success is just how much we hated the villains and wanted to see them go down. Horrible Bosses may be flying through different genre airspace, but boy do we want to see all these villainous bosses pay.

One of the things I noticed early on about Bosses is that despite liking it so much, the writers made the strange decision to end their first act on page 37. That’s the moment when the trio comes up with the idea to kill their bosses (the end of the first act is usually determined by when the central plot of the movie is initiated). I usually HATE when scripts wait this long to get to Act 2. Not because I care about some arbitrary page number, but waiting 37 pages to get to the point of your movie is usually going to bore your reader to death (a better place to end your act is somewhere in the 23-28 page range). So I was wondering why this didn’t bother me. Then I realized we were setting up three separate storylines (Dale’s, Kurt’s, Nick’s) instead of one, which requires more time. And the fact that we have multiple storylines and characters to jump back and forth between is what kept everything fresh and moving.

The script also handles its problems well. One mistake I see a lot of amateur comedy scriptwriters make is they never care about believability. They think, “Ehh, it’s a comedy. Who cares if it makes sense?” Now it’s true you get a little more leniency with comedies, but it doesn’t mean you can make up your own logic. One of the challenges in Horrible Bosses is you have to convince the audience that killing their bosses is the only option for these guys, because if it isn’t, then you don’t have a movie. So as a writer you need to ask yourself questions like, “Why can’t they just quit and get jobs somewhere else?” So the writers added a scene where an old friend of our trio pops in. He’s a guy who finished at the top of their class and graduated from Yale. Looking barely presentable, the friend tells them how he’s been out of a job for a year, that the economy has made it impossible to find work, and that he actually needs to borrow money from them. It’s a funny scene but it also slyly takes care of that problem. We know that leaving their jobs isn’t an option.

The only thing that didn’t work for me – and I was bummed to see that they had already cast the part cause I was hoping they’d get rid of it – was Cocksucker. Cocksucker is a guy they hire to help consult on the killings for them. True this script is pretty broad, but Cocksucker just moves it into Super-Silly territory, to the point where he feels like a different movie. Even worse, they hire him off Craig’s List. If I had a dime for every time someone hired somebody from Craig’s List in a comedy I read, I’d be able to buy Craig’s List. This script is about 10-15 pages too long, and it’s all because of Cocksocker, who disrupts the flow worse than Kanye West in the middle of an acceptance speech.

But this is a minor misstep in an otherwards very funny comedy.

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

What I learned: Always look to go against type with your characters. What’s the first image in your head if I say, “I hate my fucking boss.” Chances are you’re picturing a bloated white male in his early 40s who looks like an asshole, right? Well guess what? The runaway scene-stealer in Horrible Bosses is Dr. Julia, and the reason she’s the runaway scene-stealer is because you’ve never seen a sexually harassing female dentist boss before. It’s a totally unique character. So push yourself and steer away from cliche. Give us a character that surprises us.

Last week kinda sucked. Nothing even remotely captured my interest. But this week promises to be much better. We have a project with Hollywood’s new bad boy attached. We have an article by yours truly about one of the top 3 things that determine your screenplay selling. We have a really funny comedy that caught me by surprise. And on Friday I review a script that may get an impressive. I haven’t determined what to rate it yet but it’s easily the purest fun I’ve had reading a spec in awhile. Also, we’re going to introduce a new feature in the reviews which will be revealed in that Wednesday article. So I’m anticipating good vibes this week. To start us off Roger’s found himself a copy of a recent Relativity pick up…Goliath. Take us away Roger!

Genre: Action-Adventure, Historical
Premise: When the Mycenaean army surrounds Jerusalem, a young shepherd must accept his divine destiny as king if he wants to save not only his family, but the nation of Judah. But first, he must defeat the elemental force of violence known as Goliath.
About: Goliath sold to Relativity Media back in July. I’ve never heard of the writers before, so I assume they’re tyro scribes and that this is their first big sale. I did some poking around and learned that they were quarter-finalists in the 2005 Scriptapalooza Competition with their script, Our Man Lilburne, and that McKay was a semi-finalist in the 2006 American Zoetrope Screenplay Contest with The Halloween Party. They’re repped by Kaplan/Perrone and UTA.
Writers: John D. Payne & Patrick McKay

This script mysteriously appeared in my hands the other day, and somehow, made it to the top of the pile. I hadn’t heard of it, but was immediately intrigued. I’m no scholar on Judah or the Old Testament, but you could say, from an early age, I’ve always been interested in King David. See, I was raised in the South, and for much of my early life, my parents made me go to Sunday School. I’d rather not get into my thoughts on religion or faith on this forum, but David has always fascinated me. I’ve read a lot about him; I’ve read a lot of stuff written by him. And, I’ll just leave it at that.

The title made me curious.

Did someone write a script about David and Goliath? Or just Goliath? My first thought was, “Wow, this is probably really lame.” So I cracked it open and my expectations were immediately shattered. This thing boldly opens. It feels like a movie with no credits. Just the sickening crunch of bone and a body hitting the ground and being dragged to a mass grave full of dead gladiators. There’s a scarred behemoth responsible for all these deaths, and we meet this war machine as he makes quick work of three of the ancient world’s most bloodthirsty combatants.

These writers aren’t fucking around.

In two pages, they destroyed the pre-conceived notions I had about horrible faith-based movies and the images burned into my brain from Southern-fried Sunday School and those flowery illustrated bibles and their stories therein. It’s a trachea-extracting intro that reads like it was written by a veteran scriptwriter. It felt like one of those cut-scenes from God of War where a Cyclops, a Heavy Metal-inspired nightmare of flesh, is just flattening men with his big club. Because of those first two pages, I was hooked.

I needed to know more about the vision contained within the next niney-eight pages.

Who is Goliath and what does he want?

Other than being a monstrous giant whose flesh is marred with tally marks of all his worthy kills, he has the mind of an archaic philosopher who knows that he’s the personification of violence. Like the Joker in The Dark Knight or Chigurh in No Country for Old Men, Goliath is a force of nature that this region of the ancient world reverently fears. While religious texts might say his height is anywhere from six and a half feet to nine-feet tall, imaginations must wonder if the giant’s mass was some type of physical anomaly.

I like how the script handles the origin story. It’s twisted, a hint of the supernatural melded to the motivation of revenge. It’s mythic.

The mentor in the script says, “He is more a curse than a man. One created by our people.” During the Judean conquest of Canaan, a regiment of soldiers defiled the sole survivor, a beautiful woman. “Eight months later, she died in child birth, bearing a son three times the size of a normal child.” Goliath had not one father, but a hundred. He was forged with their hatred in his mother’s womb, and he lives his life as an honorable killer, preparing.

Preparing to exact justice for her dishonor.

And the ultimate target for his revenge?

The future king of Judah.

David.

I don’t get it, Rog. What makes David so special?

You’re not the only one.

Even his own family doesn’t understand his significance. He’s one of many shepherd’s sons, the runt of the litter who, compared to his brothers, is always overlooked. His own mother mocks him for not being ambitious. In fact, he spends most of his time out in the pasture playing his harp instead of tending the flock.

While young David may not find favor in the eyes of men, in the eyes of his God it’s quite a different story. In the bible, the story goes that the Israelite God no longer favored their current king, Saul. So the prophet Samuel comes along and chooses the least-likely of Jesse’s sons, David, and proclaims that this is God’s choice for king. Out of all the men in the Judaic bible, David was a guy who became known as a “man after God’s own heart”. He became such good friends with the Almighty, that God, in the New Testament and presumably for the rest of eternity, referred to his own son made flesh, Jesus Christ, as the Son of David.

That’s how big of a deal the guy became.

Goliath is interested in David because he knows he will prove a challenge. To a monster that has never met his match, he is interested in fighting a guy who supposedly carries the protection of a god. In slaying David, he will slay an entire people — the Judeans who defiled his mother. And, in doing so, he will humiliate and mark the death of the Judean god.

Enough scriptural context! What’s the damn plot?

Some Mycenaean emissaries, on the warpath to kill David, who according to prophecy threatens their empire, recruit Goliath into battle. Since he finds the practice of killing for money deplorable, he joins the Philistine Dagon-worshippers not for riches but for the chance to face a worthy adversary.

They ravage the countryside around Jerusalem, slaughtering the Judeans and blinding David’s pal, Ezra. David rescues his buddy and they flee into Jerusalem, which has protective walls but is a city that makes the modern slums of Jakarta seem like a five-star resort.

At the House of Judges, the leaders of the twelve tribes are freaking out. Although they outnumber the Mycenaeans ten-to-one, they are a nation divided because they lack someone who can unite and lead all the tribes into battle. It’s a siege and they know they’ll only last so long before everyone in the city starves to death.

King Saul, a porcine man that the Judges don’t respect, decides to visit the enemy camp via royal chariot to inquire about their demands. King Saul suspects that they’ve come to take the Ark of the Covenant (the ultimate war trophy), but instead, he discovers they have an odd request.

It’s disarming.

Grant Goliath unfettered access to their city so he can find the boy who would be the king whom threatens their empire.

What if Saul refuses?

If anyone interferes with Goliath, after three sunsets, the Philistines will crush Jerusalem.

So Goliath is released into Jerusalem, where he goes on a killing spree, executing any and all young shepherd boys that might be David.

Goliath’s only opposition is a secret society of paladin warriors, a band of Dirty Dozen-like soldiers led by Caleb, whose sole purpose is to protect David. There’s a crazy chase through the city as Caleb rescues David and introduces him to The Order of the White Stone.

David can’t believe the news that he’s the rightful king of Judah, and wishes to go to the desert and find Samuel so that he can nullify the prophecy. David is just a shepherd. He doesn’t want this responsibility.

His first order of business is to rescue his family, so he convinces the Order to rescue his family from the House of Judges, which doesn’t go all too great. Goliath chases them through Underground Jerusalem and a shit-ton of people die valiantly whilst trying to protect David.

Goliath chases David into the desert, where more people die. David eventually learns about his true destiny from Samuel the Prophet, and there’s a chase back into Jerusalem and a quest to retrieve pieces of the sacred tablets from the Ark.

Along the way, there’s a crown jewel of an action sequence that has a lot of fucking lions in it.

The script builds up to the famous duel between our two main characters, and yes, it is a doozy. Combining the intimate scale of the mano-a-mano fights in Gladiator and the Let’s Revolt attitude of Spartacus, the final pages are pretty darn satisfying.

Does it work?

Indeed, it does. The pacing is that of a chase movie, and the set-pieces seem like they could belong in a Jerry Bruckheimer movie. It’s a fun read. The theme is pretty epic, familiar but universal, but what makes it shine is the execution. For someone who has read the bible, it was fun to see the writers create a sort of Old Testament primer.

My only gripe is that it lays the Joseph Campbell on pretty heavy. I mean, as a scriptreader and writer, I prefer it when this stuff is more subtle. If it’s possible for formulas to be on the nose, then stories that use prophecy as a major plot device are a prime example. We’ve seen it a thousand times. A literal prophecy declaring that some ordinary person is going to become a hero and save the world?

C’mon! It’s familiar, which is good, but sometimes there’s too familiar! When someone in the general audience can think, “Oh, like in The Matrix?” Then you’re in too familiar territory.

And, unfortunately, all of the Order of the White Stone stuff falls in this realm. It works, but as a reader, I’ve seen it one billion times. I see something like that and I see the writers revealing the gears turning in their heads. They reveal their secrets, methods and reference material whenever that happens.

Luckily, I got thirty-three pages into the script before that happened, and it was the only part that felt like a miscalculation. Why not go for something more fresh?

This sounds kind of like a faith-based film. Is that assumption correct?

Thanks to that Mel Gibson snuff flick that came out a few years ago, Hollywood discovered that there’s a huge market for faith-based movies. Hell, it’s proven that many of them don’t even have to be good, as long as their audience connects with the message. Which may be good enough for the seventy-year old Georgia couple who purchases tickets for Fireproof, whom have no idea that Kirk Cameron used to star in a classic tv show where his best friend was a character named Boner (Boner!), but to the rest of us who rolled our eyes at The Blind Side, we may demand something more, I dunno, good.

I think something like The Book of Eli aspires to create a new standard for faith-based movies, or that’s at least the way I saw it when I read the script. When I watched the movie, I even remembered that Denzel associates himself with Christianity.

In any case, Goliath seems to be in the vein of this new standard, which somehow smuggles in a perceived truth in an original story that can appeal to even the most jaded movie-goer. It entertains first, and delivers a message second. It’ll draw in the Bible-thumping hordes and the sword-and-sandals demographic, and it’ll do so because it’s pretty fucking good action-adventure storytelling.

It’s probably more 300 than Braveheart, and script-wize, it’s more Galahad than Medieval, but Goliath will appeal to fans of all four. It’s a blood-and-guts Bible Story Remix, so don’t be surprised if it even appeals to non-fans who get their movie recommendations from some guy brandishing a bible behind a pulpit.

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

What I learned: Smuggle in your message. Smuggle in truth. Your message, or your truth, is just your theme. Firstly, and above all, your story must be entertaining. And, it must be good. You’re telling a story, not an idea. You’re telling a story, not a theme. Whatever idea you have, whatever theme you have, hide it. Hide it underneath your story. Hide it in the hearts of your characters. If you aspire to be a screenwriter, you’re aspiring to work in Hollywood. In Hollywood, it’s like Martin Scorsese says, you’re gonna have to smuggle in the truth. You’re aspiring to work in a trade where commerce is the bottom line, not art. You’re gonna have to learn how to tell commercial stories. But rest assured at the irony: Usually, for a story to be commercial, it has to have a universal theme. If your story is entertaining, your theme is either eventually gonna reveal itself naturally, like all good metaphor does, or people are going to find it because they’re going to be searching for it. But, first, you have to reel them in and entertain them.

Genre: Drama/Love Story
Premise: (from IMDB) A penniless girl in the 1930’s is taken in by a circus freak, and even as he falls in love with her, she begins to launch a career in the circus herself.
About: Flora Plum has been in development for many years and almost went into production with Jodie Foster directing, and Russell Crowe and Claire Danes starring. The project then fell apart because Russell Crowe fucked up his shoulder. That one unfortunate ill-timed accident sent everyone racing off to other projects and Flora Plum was abandoned like a discarded peanut shell under the rafters. Steven Rogers has been around for quite some time, penning a lot of love stories such as “P.S. I Love You,” “Hope Floats,” and “Stepmom.”
Writer: Steven Rogers
Details: 103 pages – 1999 draft (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. 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).

Man, it has not been a good week for screenplays here at Scriptshadow. Well, I guess Fright Night got some good reactions, but this is the third script this week that I wasn’t into. I guess it’s only fair as we had to balance out last week. But I did hold out some hope for Flora Plum. It’s been around for awhile and I’ve heard good things about it. But the problem here is that once you read that other circus script (of course I’m talking about “Water For Elephants”) this feels like the JV version. In fact, you could tell where this script went wrong in a lot of places just by comparing it to Elephants.

I’ll give this to Flora Plum: it’s different. Set in the 1930s, we begin with documentary interviews of various circus members recalling Flora Plum, who, from their various recollections, we conclude to now be America’s sweetheart. But that doesn’t stop most of them, such as Opal, a flirty dwarf, from recalling her as somewhat of an annoying bitch. In fact, there seems to be an almost disdain for this woman from everyone interviewed, and of course this builds our anticipation to meet the girl ourselves.

Indeed we meet Flora Plum just as she arrives in town. She’s fresh-faced and naturally beautiful but lacks any definable talent and may be a little on the clutzy side. Luckily she’s the hardest worker you’ll ever find and dangerously determined. More than anything, she just wants to be a part of something, and in her eyes, the circus is her calling. Of course, throw a gorgeous knockout into a sea of freaks and you’re going to see some jealousy. Which leaves us to wonder if those earlier interviews were the truth or simply a bunch of frekazoids with an axe to grind. I mean, could this sweet girl really turn into something as hideous as they say?

After Flora gets settled in, she meets and takes a liking to Jake, otherwise known as “The Beast.” Jake is covered in hair from head to toe, to the point where he makes Robin Williams look like he has alopecia. Jake is clearly talented, but has chosen a very esoteric long-winded routine for his act. This man is Jean-Luc Goddard to everyone else’s Michael Bay. The owner of the circus, Herbert Little, eventually gets fed up with the bizarre act and cancels it, relegating Jake to the humiliating position of “sideshow.”

This part of the screenplay was the strongest, as it not only pushed the story forward, but gave us a glimpse into the politics and cut-throat world of the circus. On the outside, they all seem cute and cuddly, but underneath the dome, everyone’s trying to one-up each other. Greed, jealousy, and the bottom line dictate who gets onstage and poor becomes a victim of this ideology.

But Jake’s downfall is cushioned by the burgeoning support of Flora. She’s the one person who loves Jake’s strange act and probably the only one who believes in him. This leads to an intense friendship and before long Flora comes up with a plan. They’ll create an act together – a sort of “Beauty and the Beast” – and work their way back into the main lineup. As the circus moves from city to city, the two train day in and day out, which of course brings them even closer. However, expert acrobat Patrice, the stud of the show, starts making moves on Flora, going so far as to invite her into his act. Flora is then torn between the beastly Jake and the handsome Patrice. Does she stick with the long shot, or go for the sure thing?

In order to keep the story moving, Rogers wisely throws Blade Devin into the mix. Devin has the best circus in the region and he’s actively searching for a new act. Word has it that he’ll be at their New York show and whoever shines the brightest, that’s who he’ll pick. It isn’t just Flora, Jake, or Patrice who are gunning for the spot, but everyone in the circus. But the bigger question is, who will Flora choose to perform her act with? Jake or Patrice?

Flora Plum wasn’t a bad script. I think if I never read Water For Elephants, I might have liked it more. But comparing the two you can see this script’s faults a lot more easily. Let’s start with the most important element – the love story. Flora Plum has the beauty and the beast thing going as well as the love triangle. But Water For Elephants had forbidden love going for it. Our hero didn’t just fall in love with a random act. He fell in love with the CIRCUS OWNER’S WIFE, someone he couldn’t have. Not only that, but that owner is a raging terrifying psychopath. We genuinely feel like if he finds out that his wife is with this guy, he’ll kill him. So the stakes are through the roof. Here, Flora and Jake’s relationship is pretty much in the open. The only thing at stake is feelings, which can work if we really love the characters, but still, it didn’t come close to the tension and undercurrent present in the Water For Elephants relationship.

Another problem is that the love triangle here doesn’t work. It’s never clear to me if Flora even likes Patrice. And most of the time, she’s overtly uninterested in him. Incidentally, Patrice is no different. One second he seems content with trying to steal Flora from Jake, the next he doesn’t know who she is. And not in a “stuck up” way. He literally doesn’t seem to know who she is. The whole storyline was just way too inconsistent. And since it was never clear where all the characters stood, it was hard to get a handle on what was going on.

What really set Elephants apart, however, was that even though there were a million interesting characters to choose from, it always focused on the right ones. Flora Plum, unfortunately, drops us into storylines we have no interest in watching, and so the narrative keeps getting chopped up by insignificant secondary scenes. For example there’s an “aging star” character who’s watching her limelight fade who I could care less about. After awhile, I began to treat these moments like commercials. I’d watch them begrudgingly hoping for the main show to start back up again.

I think the script does some things right. It has some charm. There are places where the relationship between Jake and Flora really shines. I could imagine Russell Crowe, full on make-up with the wolfman hair and everything, staring into Flora’s eyes, sad and desperately in love, and really see it working. The script had one of my favorite lines I’ve read in a script in a long time. Jake is asked, after his performance, how his act went. He replies. “The act was a success. The audience was a failure.” There’s also a late story twist which caught me off-guard and worked quite well. I feel like the elements are here for something special.

But in the end, this just doesn’t pack the firepower Water For Elephants did, and no matter how hard I tried to judge it on its own merit, I couldn’t get past that.

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

What I learned: This is a rehash “what I learned.” I was trying to figure out why this wasn’t pulling me in the same way Water For Elephants did. There were a lot of reasons, but the main one? No villain. There’s no true villain here to root against. In Water For Elephants, you have a ruthless terrifying villain that with every fiber of your being you want to see our hero destroy. You’d be surprised at how much better a villain – any villain – can make your story. So if you choose not to have one, make sure it’s for a good reason. The lack of one here really hurt the story.

It’s not often that I really take a script to town. After reading as many scripts as I have, I have way too much respect for writers to tear down their babies just cause it makes for a good review. However, every once in awhile, I let a script have it. Enter M. Night! Sure, this is an older script, and one that’s already been reviewed on the site by another reviewer, but my buddy Colin over at Take 148 has been doing an M. Night review marathon and wanted me to finish it off for him. So head on over there and check out my review for “Labour Of Love.”

Genre: Crime Drama
Premise: (from IMDB) A newly-released ex-con seeks revenge upon his mentor who framed him for a crime he didn’t commit.
About: I said I had an Oscar winning screenwriter this week but I just remembered Up in the Air lost out to Precious at the Oscars, so I guess I don’t. Still, the co-writer of Up In The Air is easily one of the hottest scribes in town, having over 15 projects in development. That’s a nice bump for a guy who just a year ago had only two produced credits to his name, “The Longest Yard,” and “Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning.” Turner’s used his newfound buzz to not only get this latest script sold but attach himself as director. The project’s been getting a ton of heat and is said to have Eric Bana and Collin Farrell attached. Turner doesn’t believe in screenwriting books or seminars (“If you’re being taught the same skills as [everyone else], then what’s the point? Find your own answers,” he says.) However, he’s a huge reader, still reading a screenplay a day. As a young screenwriter, Turner wrote a dozen screenplays before sending any of them out.
Writer: Sheldon Turner
Details: 117 pages – January 9, 2010 draft (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. 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 have to admit, I struggle to enjoy any movie in this genre.

So why am I reviewing this script? Because people have been knocking down my e-mail door ever since the project was announced begging me to review it. There are so many people fascinated with cops, fascinated with the FBI. I don’t know why but all these movies tend to blend into each other for me. Just like I was saying in my review of Drive, in order to get my attention with one of these movies, you have to do something really different, and while By Virtue Fall takes some interesting chances, they weren’t enough to sway me from my usual reaction to these kinds of films.

The story centers around two federal agents. The first is Matthew Vanetti. He’s the Golden Boy, the one with the bright future, the one who does everything by the book. Matt’s partner and good friend is Danny Sloan. Danny is a drunk, a fuck-up, a corrupt agent who can be bought with a hot cup of coffee and a jar of applesauce. The two live on opposite ends of the spectrum, with Matthew ready to marry his soul mate and Danny barely able to keep his marriage together.

Unbeknownst to Matt, Danny is selling federally confiscated firearms to the big badass in town, Jericho Trower. Somehow – though I still don’t know if Danny does it on purpose or not – the feds find out and think Matt is responsible for dealing the guns to Jericho, not Danny. As a result, Matt gets sent off to jail for five years, losing his job, his reputation, and even his girlfriend, who apparently only loves him until he’s behind bars.

The story then follows both characters in their respective positions. The former Golden Boy slowly descending into prison life, shaving his head, blanketing himself with tats, pumping himself up, while Danny the alcoholic stumbles into a series of lucky breaks and begins ascending the Federal ranks, getting back together with his wife, and becoming a big shot at the agency.

But Danny can’t shake what he did to his best friend and partner, and has a hard time sleeping at night. He knows that if Matt ever found out the truth, he would come after him in a second. Indeed, Matt is like a caged animal waiting to be let loose. He holds everyone accountable for the deceit that put him here, and when he gets out, he’s going to make them all pay.

Besides the subject matter not being my cup of tea, my big issue with By Virtue Fall is the thin plot. There’s no inherent goal driving the story here. We’re simply watching two people’s lives laid out in front of us and while I enjoyed the ironic turns for both, it was really hard to stay interested when neither of the characters were pursuing anything.

I suppose our interest is driven by seeing what Matt’s going to do to Danny and the others once he gets out, but I had trouble getting excited even for that. I mean, it’s not like Danny killed Matt’s wife and framed him for it. It’s a gun-selling charge. In the grand scheme of motivation, it never seemed like that big of a deal to me. I understand that if he was framed for something like murder that he’d be stuck in jail for a lot longer than five years, which would’ve upset the timeline, but it would’ve infused the character with a lot more motivation. It may have even opened up some new story possibilities. Matt’s framed for killing someone close to him. He gets a 50 year sentence. The only way to get revenge on the people who killed his [wife/son/whoever] is to break out. This would’ve added a lot of drive to the story. If Matt’s planning an escape, it makes him more active, which makes him more interesting, which gives the story more momentum, and that goal I was looking for.

That’s not to say there’s nothing to see here. I have a feeling that fans of The Departed (another script I felt had little driving the story) are going to like this quite a bit. It’s fun to watch the transformation of these men, especially Matt, who becomes a completely different person. And while there’s no clear character goal, I think Turner would argue that our desire to see these two finally square off in the end is what’s driving our interest. Indeed, he may have a point, and since I’m far from an expert on this genre, I’m not going to argue that.

You know one of the things I think I learned while reading this is that crime scripts have the unfortunate handicap of not reading well. There are always a lot of characters – a lot of people to keep track of – and there are usually a lot of double-crosses or intricate character interactions that occur as the script goes on. Onscreen, when you can see the characters’ faces, it’s easy to remember who’s who. But on the page, it can be really tough, so you’re always rereading things and going back in the script to confirm that what you think is happening is really happening. This happens every time I read one of these scripts, which may explain why I rarely like them.

I wanted to enjoy this. I like Sheldon Turner’s writing style. It’s just for me personally, I wish there was more plot pushing the story.

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

What I learned: One thing I’ll give credit to Turner for – he knows how to get big actors attached to his project. One of the things I’m paying more attention to these days is not just how to sell a script, but how to GET A MOVIE MADE. The quickest way to do that, obviously, is to write a part (or parts) that big actors want to play. A or B list attachments mean go-pictures and I think that’s what separates a lot of the top professionals from the rest of the pack. While story-wise, this script is light, it definitely has two characters that actors would want to play. Why? Well, the transformations of course. You have one character who’s a clean-cut do-gooder who transforms into a tattooed juice-head killer. And the other is a stumbling drunk who turns into a successful star for the government. Actors love shit like this, getting to play both ends of the spectrum, because it stretches their acting muscles. So I’m not surprised Farrell and Bana signed onto this.