Genre: Biopic
Premise: The story of an eccentric bank robber who captured the nation’s sympathy in post-Communist Hungary.
About: Today’s script made the 2008 Black List. It was adapted by Rich Wilkes, who wrote the original Vin Diesel vehicle, “XXX.” Normally, that would be cause for concern, but Wilkes wrote a funny draft of Neil Strauss’s Motley Crew biography, “The Dirt,” which I reviewed on the site at the beginning of the year. What’s interesting about this project is that the Russo Brothers commissioned the draft. This was before Captain America and, later, Infinity War. And while you’d have to assume they’ve moved on, I’m curious to see what got them interested in the first place.
Writer: Rich Wilkes (based on the nonfiction book by Julian Rubinstein)
Details: 125 pages
As a professional screenwriter in Hollywood, one of the most common assignments you’ll be up for is book adaptations. More specifically, biographies. In this world, books like “Ballad of Whisky Robber” appear to be gold mines. One look at the Amazon summary (bank heists, ice hockey, pelt smuggling) and you’re thinking, “How can this NOT be entertaining?” But it’s easy with books like this to get lost in the zany, and forget that you’re writing a character piece. If we don’t love and root for your main character, it doesn’t matter how many wild stories he was a part of. We’re going to be bored. Was I bored with Ballad?
Back in the early 70s, Attila Ambrus was born a bastard child of Romania and Hungary. Unfortunately, he was forced to grow up in the lesser of the two countries, uber-Communist Romania, and therefore spent most of his early life trying not to starve to death. Once he was 20, he snuck across the border to the more Westernized Hungary, a place where he assumed all of his dreams would come true.
Instead, he spent his first year in Budapest homeless. A former hockey player, Attila convinced the local minor league team to take him on… as a janitor. While this may seem like hell to you, to Attila, it was like winning the lottery. Finally he had a place to sleep (the janitor’s closet) and enough money to buy a meal.
But Attila’s dreams were always bigger than that, and when the U.S.’s number 1 import – CRIME – started sweeping through the previously communist nation, Attila became an early adopter. By merely donning a cheap wig and some sunglasses, Attila realized he could walk into any post office in the city – all of which were run by women – and rob them. Soon, Attila was rolling in the dough, and getting the respect of the hockey team.
The crime boom necessitated that a new police division be erected, which was led by a man named Laszlo Juszt. Laszlo didn’t really know what he was doing. Nobody did. But he set his sights on this Post Office Robber, figuring that a high profile bust would give the division legitimacy. The whole thing was a bit comical, since Attila was notorious for being drunk during all of his robberies. But eventually, he’d get caught, putting an end to the ballad of the Whiskey Robber.
This was pretty much a giant mess. And if you read the full book title (“Ballad of the Whiskey Robber: A True Story of Bank Heists, Ice Hockey, Transylvanian Pelt Smuggling, Moonlighting Detectives, and Broken Hearts), you might have guessed that was coming. The problem with these “whole bunch of crazy shit happens” biopics is that it’s very easy to lose focus. I was just talking to a writer about this a couple of weeks ago. He’d written a story about this guy with a really eccentric life and my problem with the script was that I didn’t know what it was about. The character’s life – and with it, the story’s focus – kept changing every 15 pages.
Ballad of A Whiskey Robber wasn’t as unfocused as that script. But it bounced around enough that I lost interest in the hero’s journey. Which is too bad because the writer does a great job setting up a likable hero. Attila is half-Romanian and half-Hungarian, yet ironically, neither country will claim him. So he’s essentially a nobody. From his very first breath, he has no place on this earth.
His mom disowns him. His dad is an asshole. He doesn’t have any particular talents. He starves. He falls in love, gets his girlfriend pregnant, only for her to abort the baby behind his back and then dump him. It’s hard not to sympathize with this guy.
But once he overcomes the initial obstacles in Budapest, the whole thing becomes silly. He’s the wacky wig-wearing bank robber who drinks and gambles a lot. It was like his whole heartbreaking character assembly was for nothing. Now he’s the clown. Once that happened, I completely lost interest.
And I’ll be honest. I started skimming. I would read a page, have to re-read it to understand it, then read the next page, the same thing would happen. I’ll take you behind the curtain for a second. If a reader finds himself doing that for more than a few minutes, they’ll start skimming. They’re not going to put themselves through torture to try and understand a script that they’re not enjoying.
So I read the last 40% of Ballad, but I was only half paying attention. And since little of my brain was occupied, I had time to wonder why the Russos attached themselves to this project in the first place. When has there ever been a successful biopic made in America about a communist (or post-communist) character? I’ve said this before. Any Eastern European accent is a box office killer. Some recent examples: Child 44, Red Sparrow, K-19. So why did they think this had any chance of getting made?
Could the script have been saved? Maybe. I find with biopics, you need to identify the key relationship in the script and build everything around it. Because, remember, human lives don’t have the perfect three act structure required to keep a story focused. So you need to find your focus elsewhere. That tends to come through a main relationship that you keep coming back to. In Catch Me If You Can, it’s the relationship between Frank Abagnale and Carl Hanratty. In The Wolf of Wall Street, it’s the relationship between Jordan Belfort and Naomi. Ballad didn’t have that. Leaving it too goofy and wily for me to give a shit about what was going on. It’s not surprising, then, that this never got made. It wants to have it both ways (super deep and emotional… but also wacky and hilarious!). No thanks.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: When you jump forward in time, you need to make it clear. I’ve been reading a lot of scripts lately where the writers haven’t been clear about where we are in time. Early in Ballad, we get this slugline…
EXT. VILLAGE SMOKEHOUSE – ROOF – DAY – NINE YEARS LATER
Seems clear on its own. But in the middle of a script, it’s easy to miss. Particularly because a lot of readers skim sluglines. A simple fix here would be to BOLD the “NINE YEARS LATER.” Any reader would see that. Another option is to do a title card, which I ALSO would recommend bolding. So it would look like this…
EXT. VILLAGE SMOKEHOUSE – ROOF – DAY
Title Card: Nine Years Later
