Article on the twenty greatest movies about writers

Posted on February 1, 2010 | by admin

Mike Le over at Geekweek gives his take on the twenty greatest movies about writers!

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Full Circle

Posted on January 31, 2010 | by admin

Roger and I get scripts thrown at us from every direction. And if we could read them all, we would. But there are only so many hours in the day, and as much as I would love for the Scriptshadow audience to demand Joe Nebraska’s very first attempt at a screenplay, the reality is, there probably wouldn’t be a Scriptshadow if that’s all we were reviewing. However every once in awhile we come across a script with some admirable credentials that just hasn’t found its way through the system. Roger bumped into this script by chance, enjoyed it, and found out it won the Creative Screenwriting Screenplay Contest. After getting in touch with the writers, they were more than happy to have it reviewed on the site. So, we get another little peak into what it takes to do well in a respected contest. Let’s check out Roger’s review of “Full Circle.”

Genre: Action (Ninjas!), Fantasy
Premise: A supernatural thrill-ride about a struggling artist forced to share his body with the soul of a dead ninja who is determined to stop a malevolent sorcerer from transforming the human race into an army of demonic slaves.
About: Winner of the AAA Screenplay Contest sponsored by Creative Screenwriting Magazine. “Full Circle” came out on top in a field of 1,200 entries. Now, Mr. Regan is set to direct another script he and Mr. Henderson wrote, titled “Sherwood Horror” (a vampiric retelling of the Robin Hood legend set in the modern day American South), which has been optioned by Collective Development Inc. and will star actor DJ Perry. Regan and Henderson met in High School in a TV production class, collaborating on short movies. As proof of how important having a mentor is, the two were initially doing poorly in the class, working under a teacher who could care less about the arts. Just as John was about to drop out, the teacher was replaced with someone even Mr. Holland would be jealous of. He encouraged them to just take the cameras out and shoot whatever inspired them, and it ended up changing their outlook on the medium. The two wrote this script because at the time they had never seen a really good Ninja movie that wasn’t treated with B Movie production value. Full Circle is still available. So if you’re a ninja fan, time to snatch it up.
Writers: John Regan & Ben Henderson

Look, this thing has fucking ninjas in it.

And for some people, that’s worth the price of admission alone.


Yes, I’m the kid who gasped in the theater during Edward Zwick’s The Last Samurai when, out of nowhere, ninja assassins attack our bushido-practicing heroes. Yes, I’m the dude who paid to see Ninja Assassin in a theater, wherein I learned that shurikens leave contrails in the atmosphere.

If you’re not a fan of comic books, kung fu, Japanese sorcerers, or hot Asian chicks, man, I guess we really don’t have anything in common, do we? Go play a round of golf or something.
Fans of John Carpenter’s (and W.D. Richter’s, David Z. Weinstein’s and Gary Goldman’s) Big Trouble in Little China, or more generally, those who still have their sense of awe and wonder intact, you
may continue forward to find a seat in our reading room.
What’s this sucker about, Rog?
Last week I looked at a script that turned to Chinese mythology and culture for its inspiration (The Bone Orchard), and now this week we’ll continue this Eastern mythology theme and jaunt over to ancient Japan.
That’s where “Full Circle” opens, in the Koga Mountains where a father and son are fishing. Hope of a peaceful night and good eating is shattered when demonic kappa (usually mischievous water sprites, but straight up killers here) emerge out of the lake and attack the village.
This village has a temple that’s home to a ninja clan who take up their arms against this reptilian sea of trouble. You would think a clan of ninja could keep a situation like this under control (Demons? No problem, eat my throwing stars and katana), but there’s a problem. Not only are the kappa infecting the villagers, creating more kappa, but they are led by a rather nasty sorcerer named Izanagi.
Izanagi wields a mystical amulet that gives him his Lo Pan-like powers. He can summon energy blasts, which comes in handy when tengu descend out of the sky, “Powerful creatures said to be able to shape-shift into human form. Supposedly they were a dying race, older than man, who needed allies in their battle against their adversaries, so they trained defenseless villagers, turning them into warriors, and that’s how the Ninja began.”
Izanagi has some kind of blood feud with the leader of the ninjas, Toshiro (perhaps a nod to Toshiro Mifune?), and he’s here to collect. Of course, the key to defeating Izanagi is taking away his amulet, and we’re treated to a flight and fight through the trees as the army of kappa and tengu battle around them.
The tengu, looking to end this wholesale bloodbath, try to stop Izanagi as well, but in a magical snafu, end up trapping the souls of Izanagi and Toshiro in a Black Stone.
Sounds like a cool enough prologue. What happens in the modern day?
At the age of eleven, Tom Rafferty appeared on the cover of TIME magazine with the headline, “American Masters: It this Child Prodigy the next Picasso?”
Like many parents that have a kid who turns out to have a profitable talent, Tom’s parents used him. They denied him of certain freedoms, so much so that Tom learned to hate painting. When he decided to stop altogether, they betrayed him and shut him out of their lives and kept everything he earned for themselves.
So by the time we finally meet Tom in present day San Francisco, he’s become the rebel type who loses his (and his girlfriend’s) rent money street-racing crotch-rocket motorcycles. Gemma Soto, Tom’s cute and dorky Asian American girlfriend, is none too pleased with his acting out. One could say she’s at her last straw with all this selfish behavior.
She doesn’t understand why he won’t simply sell some of his work so that he can begin to secure his future financially, and more than that, she’s tired of babysitting her regressing boyfriend.
She breaks up with him so she can focus on her upcoming museum exhibition, an exhibition which will feature ancient Japanese paintings and artifacts.
But like any spurned boyfriend who doesn’t want to lose a good thing, Tom continues to harass Gemma. Fortunately for him, he works as a forklift operator at the same museum Gemma is having her exhibition at.
It should be noted that Gemma wears an amulet on a necklace around her neck, the same amulet that belonged to Izanagi.
Of course, while Tom is at his forklift gig, a crate falls from a shelf, splitting open the Black Stone that rests inside of it.
It’s not long before Tom is haunted by the ghost of Toshiro, allowing for a few comedic Ghostbuster-esque antics. Eventually, Toshiro manages to explain the weight of the situation to Tom. If Toshiro doesn’t kill Izanagi (whose spirit was also in the Black Stone), Tom is going to find himself in the middle of an end-of-the world scenario. Only problem is, Toshiro needs Tom’s body to do so. He needs consent for a full possession.
Tom has a decision to make: It’s either help Toshiro or be haunted and annoyed by the spirit of a pranksterish ninja before the world is destroyed by a demon army.
What else will Toshiro throw into the pot? Oh yeah, some of those mad ninja skillz. Now, what would you do?
Okay. So if Toshiro possesses Tom, who will the evil sorcerer possess?
Ah sooo…our villain. One Charles Caspian. A sweater-vest wearing museum file clerk who has a stalker hard-on for our protag’s ex, Gemma Soto. Constantly treated like shit by his boss and made fun of by Tom, Charles is kind of like the Eddie Brock of “Full Circle”. If given super-powers, he would just love to make Tom, Gemma and the world see what he’s truly capable of.
And he does.
As Izanagi slowly tempts him to the dark side, convincing him that not only Gemma can be his, but the world, Charles dons a decorative Japanese mask and goes on a crime spree, honing his newfound powers.
But true to character, his main interest is Gemma. With the boost in confidence that comes with having an evil sorcerer on your side, Charles convinces Gemma to go out on a date with him. Although Charles likes his new abilities, he is faced with a dilemma.
Does he merely woo the girl, or does he obey Izanagi’s bidding and rip the amulet from her neck? Well, there’s a compromise in such matters. Charles will take the amulet once Izanagi helps him bed Gemma.
As we want it to happen, Tom/Toshiro and Charles/Izanagi clash at Gemma’s exhibition. What starts out as an argument over a girl explodes into a full out ninja versus sorcerer brawl that leaves a swath of destruction through San Francisco.
Charles has had a little too much action and evil for his fragile personality, but Izanagi takes the reins and all bets are off as he attempts to execute his master plan of rebuilding the kappa, raising a demonic army, and taking over the world.
In true action movie personal stakes fashion, Gemma is ultimately kidnapped by Izanagi and Tom must go full ninja to save her.
Crazy. But does this script work?
If all of this sounds very comic-booky and cartoonish to you, it is. But in a good way. If you look below the surface, there are some really interesting things going on with these characters.
Toshiro and Izanagi act as opposing moral consciences to our protagonist and antagonist. Angel and devil, ego and id.
Tom and Charles are characters who seem to suppress their true natures, and Toshiro and Izanagi do their best to convince their respective vessels to take off their masks, to let the world see who they really are.
On one side, Toshiro is trying to convince Tom to tell Gemma how he really feels, to drop his façade and defense mechanisms so she can see his soul laid bare. On the other, Izanagi is trying to convince Charles to stop hiding his sins and reveal his true nature as a killer to the world. It’s about vulnerability.
This was a surprising thing to find in such a pulpy and action-packed script, but you know, this is what makes it a solid screenplay. It remembers to anchor the plot and the action in character.
The execution might seem a little on-the-nose at times, or unabashedly comicbooky, but this is a solid and entertaining adventure yarn that manages to mix together some too-hot-to-handle explosive ingredients: Ninja action, Japanese mysticism, supernatural shenanigans, and most of all, characters who really have something personal and intimate at stake other than just saving-the-world, all set against the backdrop of modern day San Francisco.
It’s crazy alchemy.
Just look at the logline again. If a writer can take flight with such bombastic pulp material and create an original genre spec that’s not based on a comic or a novel, while managing to stick the landing, then they get cool points in my book.

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

What I learned: Chances are, a script that has demons, bird-men, possession, ninjas, sorcerers, katanas, guns, and energy blasts isn’t going to be for everyone. In fact, when you have these type of elements, many readers (honestly, how many Hollywood readers are well-versed in literature, B-movies and comicbooks? Not many, I’m guessing. Something like this speaks to the right people, i.e. directors or industry people who like this kind of material) are going to think you’re a fucking lunatic or that your script never had rails to begin with. So what do you do? You create characters that not only have goals, but have flaws and shortcomings that they are trying to overcome. Flaws and shortcomings, that, emotionally and psychologically, we as humans can understand. In this script, Tom is intriguing because he’s developed a defense mechanism that frustrates the shit out of his girlfriend. If he wants to get her back, he’s going to have to learn how to let his guard down and trust people. Even Charles, the antagonist, is trying to overcome his nebbishness so he can get a little more respect from his employer and the girl he has a crush on. These are real flaws these characters are trying to overcome. Focus on that stuff about your characters, and you’re focusing on Story.
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Weekly Rundown

Posted on January 29, 2010 | by admin

Here’s Jessica Hall once again with our Weekly Rundown! Some great info here. Oh, and the Efron project she’s referring to (the time travel one), I believe is titled “Algorithm” and I’m desperately searching for it. So if you can get your paws on it, please send!

Still no action on specs this week and very little lit news until everyone returns from Sundance. A few announcements came out of the Festival, but acquisitions were still light.

Chris Sparling’s 2009 Blacklist script BURIED was the first narrative sale at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. The film, directed by Rodrigo Cortes, was picked up by Lionsgate for just under $4 million. The ScriptShadow favorite is about a civilian contractor in Iraq who is kidnapped and awakens to find himself buried in a coffin in the desert. (http://bit.ly/57UjAp)

Writer/director Michael Winterbottom will take on “Promised Land” as his next feature. Project explores events leading to the 1948 partition of Palestine and the subsequent creation of the state of Israel. Winterbottom currently has THE KILLER INSIDE ME showing at Sundance. (http://bit.ly/bGILgh)

The Butcher Brothers aka Altieri & Flores have announced their next writing and directing project. BLACK SUNSET, about seven friends on a surfing trip to Mexico that turns deadly, will be financed by Queen Nefertari Productions, a film finance fund run by Gersh Agency. Writer/Directors also have THE VIOLENT KIND at Sundance. (http://bit.ly/bpAZsC).

2006 Black List writers Calpin & Jakubowski (ASSASSINATION OF A HIGH SCHOOL PRESIDENT) have written an Untitled Time Travel script. Zac Efron is set to star in the Action/Adventure project for Warner Bros. and Mark Gordon Co. (http://bit.ly/d9DU4I)

2008 Spec THE COMMUTER by Byron Willinger & Phillip De Blasiwas was set up at Gold Circle with Olatunde Osunsanmi (The Fourth Kind) to direct and possibly rewrite. In the action/thriller, a mysterious cell phone caller directs a former NYPD detective to find a federal witness aboard his commuter train, and kill him before the train reaches the end of the line. Willinger and De Blasi are currently rewriting “The Fourth Horseman” for Intrepid and writing “Paradise Lost” for Legendary. Osunsanmi is also set to write, and potentially direct an adaptation of the yet-to-be-released video game Zero-G. (http://bit.ly/bQefKV)

Martin Scorsese signed on to direct THE INVENTION OF HUGO CABRET from John Logan’s (SWEENEY TODD) script. Scorsese replaces Chris Wedge who dropped off the project about 12-year-old orphan Hugo, who lives in a train station and must finish what his late-father started by solving the mystery of a broken robot. (http://bit.ly/6MP5GV)

From the 2008 Black List, PASSENGERS (script review here) by Jon Spaihts may be getting a new breath of life with the rumor that Gabriele Muccino (SEVEN POUNDS) is circling the project. Highly regarded script is about a man who accidentally awakens from hypersleep with ninety years left in an intergalactic journey and decides to wake up a beautiful fellow passenger to keep him company…even though doing so means she too will die before they reach their destination. (http://bit.ly/8XJ0YV)

With The Mulroneys hard at work on the script for SHERLOCK HOLMES 2, Warner Bros. and Silver Pictures announced that Guy Ritchie, director of the first installment, is set to direct the sequel. (http://bit.ly/dlsUsZ)

Writer/Director Boaz Yakin (REMEMBER THE TITANS) is in early pre-production on SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL, the story of two Baton Rouge Detectives who find themselves involved in a case that escalates into a cosmic confrontation between Heaven and Hell. Samuel L. Jackson is set to star. Film marks Yankins return to mainstream fair after directing the ill received film DEATH IN LOVE, which showed at last year’s Sundance Festival. (http://bit.ly/6sQB6W)

David Berenbaum (ELF) will write a new project that George Lucas will produce. The untitled animated musical will be directed by Kevin Munroe (TMNT). (http://bit.ly/bpqr45)

Gotham Group optioned DARK LIFE, the first book in a series by Kat Falls. Producers are currently out to directors. Books are set in a near future world, where rising ocean levels and catastrophes have led some people to homestead on the ocean floor. Story focuses on an underwater boy, and a surface girl who join forces to uncover a government conspiracy. Book was featured on the 2009 Book List. (http://bit.ly/aixkUj)

Permut Presentations is developing a biopic about controversial civil rights activist Bayard Rustin. They have yet to announce a writer on the project. (http://bit.ly/607SWR)

Doug McKeon will write and direct HARD WIRED from Kari Lee Townsend’s book. Pic is about a girl with a lousy sense of direction who becomes Techno-Girl when she touches a meteor while talking on the phone and gets all the capabilities her cell has (GPS, phone, text, camera). McKeon last directed COME AWAY HOME.

Warner Bros plans to remake fight/action film MORTAL KOMBAT, based on the popular 1992 video game. 2009 Black List writer Oren Uziel (SHIMMER LAKE) is in talks to write. (http://bit.ly/dzisPr)

Walter Parkes and Laurie MacDonald to adapt “Eat, Sleep, Poop: A Common Sense Guide to Your Baby’s First Year” into a feature comedy for DreamWorks. Allen & Wilson (FOUR CHRISTMASES) are set to write. Scribner is publishing the witty guidebook by Beverly Hills-based pediatrician Scott W. Cohen on March 30th. (http://bit.ly/a2tgST)

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The Romantics

Posted on January 28, 2010 | by admin

Gonna wrap up my not-so-comprehensive Sundance Week here. Just the other day we had my review of the Sundance film, “The Company Men,” and now we’ve got another one for you called “The Romantics.” To read some past reviews of this year’s Sundance crop, check out my posts for HappyThankYouMorePlease, Nowhere Boy, and of course, Buried.

Genre: Drama/Ensemble
Premise: Seven friends from college reunite when two of them get married.
About: Starring Katie Holmes, Anna Paquin, Malin Ackerman and Josh Duhmal, this was one of the films playing at Sundance. Nierderhoffer has quite a history behind her. She’s been producing small independent films for over a decade, focusing on dramatic offbeat fare such as Lonesome Jim (Casey Affleck) and Saving Grace (John Cusack). During that time, she’s also written a few novels, such as The Taxonomy of Barnacles, and The Romantics, which she adapted into the screenplay herself. She will now become one of the few people who can claim to be an author, screenwriter, producer, and director, as she has directed this movie as well. I hear next year Galt will be up for the part of Mary Jane in the Spiderman reboot.
Writer: Galt Niederhoffer
Details: 113 pages


I always wanted to get back together for one weekend with six college classmates that, because of time and space and distance and life, I wasn’t able to keep in touch with. I wanted an unlimited supply of beer and to be out in the middle of nowhere and have seven sunsets a day so the lights’ always perfect and sexual tension so thick even the walls couldn’t stop it and music from ten years ago that makes you both cringe and smile at the same time, and unfinished business and decade old drama. But most of all, I just want to put life on hold for a few days and enjoy the company of people I spent four intimate years with, but don’t know anymore. I want to catch up and make out. I want to see where we all ended up.

But since none of this is likely, I wanted The Romantics to bring me as close to that place as possible.

Did it?

Holmes will play Laura.

The Romantics follows 7 friends from college: Laura, who we’re told is a “beauty,” Tom, who we’re told has “puppy-ish green eyes”, Lila, who has a “cascade of blonde hair,” Weesie, who’s “put together even in her pajamas,” Tripler, who sounds like a guy’s name but since there was no pronoun in his introduction, I figured out was a girl 60 pages later, Pete, who’s “handsome and athletic,” and then there’s Jake, who gets the only introduction that actually gives us a sense of who he is and what he looks like, described as a “shaggy haired modern-day Victorian poet,” despite the fact that he’s probably the smallest character of the bunch.

These 7 are the bestest of best friends. So best friends-ish in fact, that they’ve given themselves the nickname, “The Romantics.” There’s a lot of heavily implied history between the group, but unfortunately we don’t get any of it. The only piece of information that makes its way to us is that Laura and Tom are together and that Laura and Lila are closer than peanut butter and jelly. Waking up after a crazy night of drinking, the 7 realize that they’re all late for graduation, so they hurry up and get ready, only to run outside and see a sea of caps flying into the sky. The seven have missed their own graduation.

Duhmal will play Tom.

Flash-forward 10 years and we’re shocked to find out that Lila is getting married. No, that’s not the shocking part. The shocking part is that she’s getting married to Tom, Laura’s old boyfriend. The seven besties reconvene at Lila’s mansion, ready to reignite old times, with no one seemingly concerned about the fact that Lila is marrying her best friend’s boyfriend of five years. It’s as if no one thought this was going to be an issue. Laura pretends that everything’s fine. Tom bumbles around, rarely saying anything to anyone. It’s a really weird vibe and an awkward set-up to the weekend’s events.

Despite this triangle of non-fun, the rest of the group does their best to get drunk and live it up. There’s laughing, flirting, even a little bit of kissing. But it always comes back to Tom and Laura. How did they break up? Why would Tom end up with her best friend? Why is he marrying Lila??

Ackerman will play Lila

Apparently, the reason Tom and Laura broke up was because…well, actually I don’t know why they broke up. But the reason they’re not together anymore, according to Tom, is that he loves her too much. And they had such a great time together, he doesn’t want to screw it up. He wants their time together to remain perfect. Which brings us to his relationship with Lila. He hates Lila. For all intents and purposes, he despises her. Isn’t a single trait he likes about the woman. So obviously, he’s marrying her. Why? Um, I believe it’s because it makes him feel like less of a fuck-up. To complicate matters, Laura and Lila, who are still supposedly friendly with each other, have NEVER SPOKEN ABOUT THE FACT THAT SHE’S MARRYING THE MAN LAURA STILL LOVES. Am I the only one who thinks none of this makes any sense at all?

But that’s not the only problem with The Romantics. I never knew any of these characters. I was barely given a description of them in the first place so I had no idea what they looked like, and once we got to the present, I was never told who they are out in the real world, what they do, what their dreams are, what their problems are. And the person I’m told the least about, Tom, is probably the most important character in the entire story. And I know absolutely nothing about him. There’s vague notes thrown out like, “lawyer” and “married” but that’s all they are is notes. The lack of time you have in a screenplay prevents you from getting into a character’s autobiography, but if all I’m told about someone after 110 pages is that they’re “put together” and “married,” I mean… how can I root for that character. It’s like asking me to root for the stranger I watched cross the street the other day. And I probably know more about him than I do these characters, as I could at least take an educated guess about who he is based on what he was wearing.

I get it. This is a writer-director project. Not everything needs to be spelled out, as long as the director understands what she needs. But in leaving so much on the cutting room floor, in preventing us from truly understanding these people, all we’re left with is a bunch of pretty faces.

The script does some things right. We have an obvious ticking time bomb here (the wedding) and potential for a dramatically played out love triangle. The opening and closing images were perfect. But it didn’t matter cause none of it felt real. I was miles away from ever understanding where these characters were coming from.

What’s so odd about all this, is that the adaptation of her other novel, The Taxonomy of Barnacles, which I reviewed here, has some really nice character work in it. It was adapted by someone else but still. I came out of this one stumped.

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

What I learned: I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Ensemble pieces are a bitch. And my advice is to stay away from them. Why are these films so hard? I’ll tell you why. Coming up with an interesting character that an audience wants to watch for 2 hours is one of the hardest things there is to do in the world. That is not hyperbole. It’s why studios pay half a million dollars for screenplays that get it right. It’s why they then back up that investment with 100 million dollars to put it on screen. In what other medium is such a huge investment made on something so tiny? – So when you essentially say, “I’m not going to just come up with one compelling character, I’m going to come up with seven!”, it’s like asking if you can enter your lottery numbers in a drawing that’s seven times bigger than the normal lottery. And that’s just the beginning of your problems. As I mentioned above, one of my issues with The Romantics was that we didn’t know anything about these characters. Well, when you spread your movie out between seven different characters, there’s not a lot of time to *go into* these characters, which forces you to have to do *more* in *less* time. So it’s just a really hard type of script to get right. I am not saying it can’t be done. It has obviously been done before. I like these types of movies and have even tried my hand at a couple myself. But you just have to know that you’re stacking the odds against yourself when you do it. My advice is, if you’re still in the early stages of your writing, try to write a script that has a single compelling character for 120 minutes. If you can do that successfully first, and you still want to tackle the ensemble, then go for it. God be with you.

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Edge of Darkness

Posted on January 27, 2010 | by admin

Genre: Thriller
Premise: A straight-laced but depressed cop goes on a mission to find out who killed his daughter.
About: On the eve of the announcement that Mel Gibson is reteaming with Shane Black, we get his thriller, Edge of Darkness, an adaptation of an old BBC mini-series, in theaters this Friday. This is the first project Mel’s starred in in a long time, and there were whispers it was because he was blacklisted in Hollywood after his drunken rant a few years ago. For awhile, DeNiro was actually attached to this project, but dropped out a few days into shooting because of “creative differences.” Usually, we never find out what these “creative differences” are, but in this case, we learned that it was because DeNiro didn’t memorize his lines! How cool would that have been, seeing Gibson and Deniro work together? Aww man, what could’ve been.
Writer: William Monahan
Details: 127 pages (undated)

Monahan holding up the little gold guy, looking as uncomfortable as I’ve ever seen a man.

Let me start off by saying I have no idea which draft this is because there’s no title page. Its 127 pages implies it’s a draft from earlier on in the process though, so this is likely a little different from the final film.

Surprising as it may sound, I’ve never read a William Monahan script before. “Surprising” because if there’s one writer who I’m continually told other writers are in awe of, it’s Monahan. The thing is, I haven’t been impressed enough by his movies to seek out any of his scripts. Despite a few nice scenes and a couple of good performances in The Departed, I thought the story was all over the place. I know some people think I’m batty for saying so, but look at Kingdom of Heaven, which also supports the case that his stories are unfocused (and yes, I saw the extended cut as well – which turned unfocused and short into unfocused and long). Body of Lies would’ve been a bad direct-to-video title had it not been for Scott, Crowe and DiCaprio’s involvement. So I was struggling to figure out just why people were so impressed with this guy.


Ten pages into Edge of Darkness, I found out. I don’t know exactly how to explain it, but Monahan has a command over his words that brings even the most mundane passages alive. The thing about Edge of Darkness is it’s so relentlessly depressing that you want to give up by the end of the first act. But Monahan’s writing – the way he builds mystery, the way he builds character, the way he writes dialogue – keeps you pushing down deeper into the darkness…and enjoying it. Make no mistake, this script is about one thing – death – and never has the subject matter been so exciting.

Craven is one of those salt-of-the-earth blue collar honest Boston guys who happens to be a cop. Problem is, he’s Irish. And us Irish aren’t very good with emotions. So when his beautiful MIT-educated daughter, Emma, comes home, there are echoes of an un-nurtured relationship there, but neither of them are able to express it because of that damn Irish DNA. The irony is, this is the last chance they’ll get to break the code, to give in and emote, because there is something wrong with Emma, something very wrong.


Less than a few hours after getting home, she’s vomiting worse than a coed after her first keg party. Even now, Craven can’t muster the courage to ask her what’s wrong, and it isn’t until she’s barely able to walk that the two realize, maybe we should get you to the hospital NOW. The two make it on to the front porch when a man in a ski-mask and a shot gun screams out “Craven!” and pumps a couple of shots into Craven’s daughter. She dies instantly. He runs.

Initial investigation presumes a botched attempt on Craven’s life. Happens to cops all the time. Criminals they put away come back for their own brand of justice. But there’s a problem. Craven doesn’t have any enemies. He’s one of the good ones. As Monahan writes in his dialogue, Craven could “put you away for life and you’d agree that he had a point.”

But Craven knows what these men don’t know. His daughter was the target. They did something to her. But why?

It’s no coincidence this script is titled Edge of Darkness. As far as Craven is concerned, his life is over. He just has one more thing to do before he crosses over to the other side – find out who killed his daughter, and make them pay.

The reason a non-procedural fan like myself enjoyed this procedural is because it’s not another Mel Gibson driving around kicking the shit out of a bunch of deadbeats snoozer. The mystery here, which involves Emma’s employment at a secret nuclear government facility perched atop Boston, clashes blue collar with big government, and watching a nobody cop take on an establishment that normally eats nosy guys like Craven for dinner, is, for lack of a better phrase, funner than shit.

Come on! There are clearly too many edges and too much darkness in this picture.

Some of the story devices used here are as old as the medium itself, but boy do they work. These government officials are used to being able to make one phone call. “Chief, tell your guy to back off.” But Craven’s not answering to the Chief anymore. He’s gone rogue. So watching him inch his way up the company ladder, discovering the truth behind why his daughter was on the verge of dying when she came back to him that day, and outsmarting everyone in his path, is like watching dawn turn into daylight.

Now I’ll be the first to admit, what they were covering up wasn’t as cool as I wanted it to be. (Spoiler) My advice to anyone writing this kind of story. Please, for the love of God, don’t include tree-hugging environmentalists in your conspiracy. The second you involve any sort of environmentalist group into a hardcore thriller, it’s like asking the Backstreet Boys to play halftime at the Super Bowl. It weakens everything. But in the end, it doesn’t matter, because the real reason we’re here is to watch Craven get revenge, one asshole at a time. And in that respect, Edge of Darkness is a 70 yard touchdown.

“You talking to him? You talking to him??” ‘Uh no Mr. De Niro, it’s “You talking to me?”

Lots of things to like in this script. A risky but neat device Monahan uses is to have Craven talk to his daughter during the mission, even though she’s not there. We hear her voice, helping him along, and it’s a great little tool that both strengthens our understanding of how much he loves her, and constantly reminds us why he’s doing this.

Also, Monahan’s style reminds me of Esztheras’ in that once he hits a conversation, he doesn’t gum it up with unnecessary description. When a reader says, “It was 125 pages but it read like it was 90,” this is what they mean.

Edge of Darkness is still hard to read because of the thick stench of death around every Bah-stan corner. Everybody here is either dead, dying, wants to die, or trying to avoid death. It’s a little overwhelming at times and would probably be too much to take if the story weren’t so entertaining. I guess I should be happy that I’m still alive after reading it. And I am. It’s a tough and depressing script to get through, but worth it.

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

What I learned: Edge of Darkness combines two key storytelling devices that work extremely well. Revenge and the Underdog. We like to follow characters who fight back after they’ve been wronged (Taken, Gladiator, Kill Bill). And we love watching an underdog take on a much stronger opponent (Rocky, Braveheart, Die Hard). Combine that with a highly sympathetic character (he just lost his daughter), and you’ve got a winning formula.

Watch only if you want to see the entire movie.

Completely unrelated comment of the day: I do not have a single solitary need for the Ipad. It would not improve my life in any noticeable way whatsoever. I don’t even understand why it was made. It doesn’t do anything that other devices can’t already do. And yet, I want one. I hate my consumer side.

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