Today, I do something that I’ve never done before in all my history of reading scripts. And it’s because this might be one of the best action scripts ever written.
Genre: Action
Premise: After a bank robbery gone wrong, two brothers attempt to use a stolen ambulance as a getaway car.
About: This project came together last week with Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Bay signing on. It’s based on a Danish film. Screenwriter Chris Fedak has an interesting past. He’s written/created a bunch of solid TV shows (Prodigal Son, Chuck, Legends of Tomorrow) but nothing to indicate he was capable of this level of awesomeness.
Writer: Chris Fedak (based on the film “Ambulancen”)
Details: 131 pages.
We’re going to get straight to it. No fluff in this review!
Will Sharp is a vet who’s trying to make as much money as is possible since his wife’s cancer bills are through the roof. And what little money he has left from her illness, he has to find a way to feed and clothe his daughter. Despite all this, Will refuses to go back to the life of crime he was once part of. He’s going to do things right.
But during a routine check-up on his older convict brother, Danny, he learns that Danny and his gang need a driver for a bank robbery. Will says no way until Danny gives him the number. $32 million. Holy Schnikees. That would solve everything. Okay, Will says, when is it? Next month? Next week? “Right now,” Danny says.
We then cut to several other players in the story. There’s Camille (Cam), an EMT who nobody’s able to get close to. There’s Mark and Zach, two cops. And there’s Kathy, a news helicopter person who’s just been told that her dream job, working the news desk, was handed to someone younger and prettier. By the way, this all takes place in Los Angeles.
Just before Will, Danny, and the team get to the bank, we cut to our cops, Mark and Zach, who just left the bank. Mark is mad at Zach because he likes this teller at the bank and, once again, Zach didn’t ask her out. We’re going back to the bank and you’re going to ask her out now, Mark says. He spins the car around and back to the bank they go. Back to the bank THAT IS BEING ROBBED they go.
Of course, Zach doesn’t know the bank is being robbed when he walks in. He only sees the bank manager, who we know is actually Danny the bad guy but Zach does not. Danny says they’re doing some emergency cleaning and the bank will be open again in 30 minutes. Zach sees the teller he likes, though, and asks if he can quickly open an account. Not wanting to spook a cop, Danny tells him ‘sure.’ And that’s when the poop hits the fan.
Zach sniffs out there’s something wrong with the teller. But Danny is on him within seconds. “Don’t do anything and you’ll get out of this okay.” Meanwhile, outside, Mark senses something is off. He goes around back and sees big men carrying big bags. It’s a robbery. Mark warns them and a shootout begins. Back inside, Zach is able to get loose from Danny and now there’s a firefight in the bank as well.
People start running. The plan is falling apart. Meanwhile, Will gets to the adjacent parking garage where he runs into Zach. It’s kill or be killed so he shoots Zach. Oh shit. He’s a cop killer now. His brother joins him and now they’re moving through the parking garage as cops surround the building. Then Camille’s ambulance pulls in where Mark is now carrying his almost-dead partner Zach towards her. Camille and her EMT partner put him in the ambulance, which is then cut off by you-know-who, Will and Danny. They realize this thing is their only shot out of here.
So they jump in, with Danny killing Camille’s partner, pushing her in the back with the dying Zach, and Will taking the wheel. The irony is not lost on Will. The cop he shot is now being kept alive in the ambulance he’s using as his getaway car. The cover of the ambulance allows them to get past the cop brigade outside but it doesn’t take those cops long to realize they’ve been duped. And that means we’re in for a good old fashioned car chase through the car chase capital of the country, Los Angeles.
They’ll be chased by a raging Mark, who wants to save his partner, and a determined Chopper Kathy, who realizes this is her only shot to become the big successful newswoman she’s always dreamed of. There are many others who join in as well, as the chase quickly turns into national news, with bigger and bigger people injecting their hand into this crazy event. Will Will and his brother come out of this alive? I honestly don’t know. And that’s the first thing I want to talk about.
This script is so good, my friends, that I did something I’ve never done before. I STOPPED READING before the final act. Why? Because this was such an amazing script that I didn’t want to spoil the ending for myself. I want to wait until the movie comes out to see what happens. This is really amazing stuff.
Right away, I knew I was dealing with a good writer. Fedak conveyed that Will was a vet, that he needed money, that his wife was sick with cancer, that he had a kid, that he was desperately looking for a job, and that he had conflicted feelings about his brother, all within the first two pages. And not in a “just the facts ma’am” boring way. But within the flow of the story. It never felt like exposition. That’s when I knew, this writer is for real.
From there, two things happened that solidified how good of a writer Fedak was. When Will goes to see his brother and his brother tells him about the bank robbing job, Will asks him when it’s going to be. Danny says “now.” I know so many writers who would’ve pushed the robbery 20-30-40 pages ahead. Fedak understands that you don’t have time in a spec script. You have to keep things moving. And what moves faster that RIGHT NOW.
The next thing was the bank robbery. Let me throw this scenario at you. You’re writing a bank robbery scene in your script. Go ahead, imagine how you’re going to write it. I’ll wait a second. Think the whole thing through. Okay, did your bank robbers storm into the bank and tell everyone to get down on the ground? If so, you’ve already failed the test. Never ever do that. Why? Because I’ve watched 2000 bank robbery scenes and every one does that. Do your characters then tell everyone to shut up and not to be a hero today? If so, you failed the second test. The characters in these movies always say the same thing.
What happens in “Ambulance?”
THEY DON’T EVEN SHOW THE ROBBERY!!!
We don’t see it. Instead, we only see the tail end of it when Zach comes in to ask the teller out. Fedak understands that you already know how bank robberies work. He doesn’t need to show you something you already know. So, instead, we cut to it in progress, which allows for a great little dramatic irony scene where we know a bank robbery is going on but Zach does not.
But the moment where I knew I was reading somebody who was on another level from your average professional was the moment when our brothers get in the ambulance. I thought to myself, “Wow.” Fedak did such an amazing job setting up all these characters with just a little bit of time that when they all collide at this ambulance, we sympathize with every single one of them. Think about how difficult that is. Most writers can’t make you sympathize with their protagonist. Case in point, yesterday’s movie, Superintelligence. You have one of the most likable actresses in the world playing the lead and I couldn’t give two craps whether this superintelligence killed her or not.
Conversely, we have these two brothers, both of whom are in this robbery for completely different reasons, allowing for natural conflict between them. We have Camille, who’s this mysterious figure who’s great at her job but who nobody really knows. Most importantly, we have Zach, the guy Will shot, who is dying. Which means that during this getaway, which is going to last the entire movie, we’re going to have a secondary storyline of keeping him alive. Two dramas for the price of one. Genius.
I don’t think I’m conveying how great of an idea this was. Most writers wouldn’t have put anybody in the back of the ambulance. They probably would’ve had the ambulance be the vehicle they rode into the robbery in from the start and they wouldn’t have placed anybody back there, dying. The fact that Fedak created this whole storyline with an EMT and dying patient that one of our protagonists shot? That’s next level story construction. When you’re talking about what separates average writers from really good writers, it’s stuff like this.
And, on top of all this, Fedak breaks the rules. I say it here all the time. How you break the rules is the key to making a script great. No script where you follow all the rules is going to be good. It might be okay. But to separate yourself, you have to break the rules somewhere. The rule broken here is that there isn’t just one protagonist. There are six. Normally, I hate that. But Fedak does such an amazing job setting all these people up and making you care about them, that you’re invested in each one of their stories. There’s this moment near the midpoint where Mark is chasing the ambulance and trying to do that cop swerve-spin maneuver, and Will and Danny are trying to fight him off, and I couldn’t decide who it was I wanted to win. I was rooting for everyone. That is so rare in a screenplay.
As much as I want to give this a ‘genius’ rating, I can’t because I haven’t read the final act and the final act has to live up to the amazing first two acts to achieve genius status. So I’m going to give it a double-impressive. If you are an action writer, READ THIS SCRIPT. You will learn so much about screenwriting.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[xx] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: This script taught me that the main action in an action script might not be enough. You should ask if there’s a secondary storyline you can add to the main action. So here, we could’ve stopped at using the ambulance as a getaway vehicle. It’s an admittedly cool idea all by itself. But it only gives you so much story to see them try and escape in an ambulance. By adding a dying person in the back of the ambulance, you give the reader a secondary storyline that makes a good idea even more exciting.
