Genre: Comedy
Premise: When Tom Hanks, the nicest guy in Hollywood (and arguably the world), finds his life stolen by a Tom Hanks impersonator, the only way to get it back is to do the one thing he’s never been able to: stop being nice.
About: This script finished with a respectable 12 votes on last year’s Black List.
Writers: Kirill Baru & Eric Zimmerman
Details: 111 pages
One of the co-writers of today’s script is a Scriptshadow fan which always makes my job harder. Contrary to popular belief, I don’t like giving negative reviews. I want to prop up everything I read because I know how hard writing is.
One of the main reasons screenwriters give up on their dream is the emotional component. You spend a lot of emotional capital when you write a screenplay. You’re putting a big piece of yourself into a story that takes 6 months, 12 months, 18 months, or longer to tell. It’s hard to spend that amount of energy on something and not be destroyed when people don’t like it.
So I root for every script I read. The only time I truly dump on a screenplay is when I feel that the writer didn’t try. The second I sense creative laziness, I’ll turn on a script faster than it takes Rachel Zeigler to bash the latest movie she’s in.
In “The Great Pretender’s” opening scene, we watch Tom Hanks go to Starbucks, spend half an hour taking pictures with everyone, then, after getting his coffee, head back to his car where he hands the drink to… his assistant. This is Tom Hanks. He’s so nice, HE GETS HIS ASSISTANT coffee.
But one day Tom runs into the wrong person. Tom Hanks! Or, at least, a Tom Hanks impersonator named Gene. Gene asks Tom to come back to his hotel to do a quick viral video and because Tom can’t say no to anyone, he obliges. But not long after he walks inside Gene’s room (and sees the giant piano from “Big”) he wakes up with the top of his head shaved and a snake tattoo on his back. What the heck just happened?
It turns out that Gene is now living in Tom Hanks’ house with his wife. And when the real Tom Hanks tries to come back home, he’s labeled as a crazy stalker. They even prove he’s “Gene” because the perenially incarcerated Gene’s records show he has a snake tattoo on his back.
Tom is forced to go to Gene’s apartment where he meets Gene’s pregnant girlfriend, Connie. After some persuasion, she finally believes he’s the real Tom Hanks and reluctantly decides to help him. Their initial plan is to get Connie into Tom’s house where she will relay to his wife Rita things that only the real Tom Hanks would know. But Rita doesn’t buy it and they’re back to square one.
Things get more complicated when Gene heads to Fiji to film Cast Away 2. Tom and Connie must find a way to the island to finally expose the evil impersonator. But shenanigans keep getting in the way and it looks like Tom Hanks may have to accept being Gene forever.
A decade ago, I was reading an article that covered longtime CBS and Paramount head Sumner Redstone, who competitively challenged an exec to pitch him an idea he hadn’t heard before. “I’ve literally been pitched every movie idea ever. There’s nothing you can pitch me that I haven’t heard.” And he was right. Neither the exec nor anyone else could surprise him with a fresh movie idea.
I feel like I’ve gotten to that place myself. Nobody can pitch me an idea I haven’t heard before. Case in point, I’ve read somewhere around a dozen of today’s idea, where some famous person or political figure is swapped out for an imposter who has to take their place and pretend to be them.
For a while, I thought similar ideas were a problem. But it turns out the opposite is true. It’s the execution that matters. So even though I’ve read versions of this story before, the job of the writer is still the same – execute the best version of this story possible. Did The Great Pretender achieve that?
Well, I believe Baru and Zimmerman gave their best effort.
However, they made a slight miscalculation in that execution and it sent them down the wrong path. Something I continue telling you guys is to mine what’s unique about your script. The less you’re mining the unique components of your script, the more generic your script will be.
This script is built on one major factor: Tom Hanks being too nice.
So, that’s what you want to build your characters and plot around. In order to succeed in this story, Tom Hanks must learn to be mean. The opposite is true for his doppelganger, Gene. Gene is too mean. So, in order to succeed, he must learn to be nice. If your story beats exploit these two things, you’re going to get lots of laughs.
But the script doesn’t do that. Instead, Tom Hanks has to learn to be… “tough” I guess? For example, Tom and Connie need money to execute their plan. So they go to a drug dealer Connie knows for help. This is one of the major set pieces in the script and it’s not about being nice at all. It’s more that Tom Hanks must act ‘rough around the edges’ so that the dealer believes he’s Gene. That’s not the same as needing to be mean.
I wanted way more instances of Tom Hanks having to be mean. That’s where your humor’s going to come from: The nicest man in the world having to be an a-hole.
Ditto with Gene. Gene is an asshole. So, to convince others that he’s Tom Hanks, his comedic journey as a character should be that he has to be nice to everyone despite it being so hard for him.
For example, maybe one of the plot lines is that China is starting a new movie studio in Hollywood and they’ve hired Tom Hanks to be the frontman. They know they have a sketchy public image in the U.S., which is why they hire Tom. Cause he’s the nicest guy in the world. The American public trusts him.
So there’s a huge final meeting involved where all the big Chinese players are coming to the U.S. to finalize the deal with Tom. And it’s Gene who has to put on his nice guy act to get the deal done. But, during the sequence, some people are pissing him off. The Chinese CEO is being a dick to him. He’s getting angrier and angrier yet has to continue to be nice. There are many humorous opportunities there.
Instead, we get a Cast Away 2 production storyline. It’s not bad. Gene has to act out a few scenes as Tom Hanks in this silly sequel idea. But it has nothing to do with the theme of the movie! Which is the contrast between being nice and being mean.
That’s the thing about writing comedies. Oftentimes, you’ll look at the end result and say it’s either “funny” or “not funny.” Which is all that matters when it comes to comedy. However, there are choices you make long before you get to your scenes that will have a big impact on whether they’re funny or not.
Leaning into the unique setup of your concept (Tom Hanks, the nicest guy in the world, is forced to be mean) is one of those choices that, if you don’t do it, you’re not getting the most out of your idea.
One of the most successful comedies ever is Liar Liar, about a lawyer who, in order to win his cases, always lies. He is then forced, for one day, to only tell the truth. Imagine if you wrote that movie and had the major scenes deal with Jim Carrey trying to be more respectful to people.
If you do that, you are not taking advantage of what’s unique about your concept. What’s unique about your concept is that a pathological liar is forced to tell the truth. So, every major comedic scene should put your protagonist in a position where telling the truth makes his situation worse. That’s where the comedy is going to come from.
I don’t want to paint an entirely bad picture here. There were definitely some funny lines. Two of my favorites subscribe to the above-mentioned formula. At one point, Gene gets frustrated and blurts out, “I’m Tom FUCKING Hanks. A NATIONAL GODDAMN TREASURE. You can’t find a remote island on this planet where people don’t know who I am. Remember Covid? Nobody gave a shit about that until I got it.”
And one of the funniest running gags in the film is that Connie isn’t a fan of Tom Hanks’ movies and takes every opportunity to tell him so. TOM: “Connie, have you ever thought about forgiving your Mom?” CONNIE: “Hey, we’re not talking about my Mom. We’re talking about movies and why yours all suck.” Again, this joke stems from not being afraid to be mean. Not being afraid to say what you really think.
We do finally get a legitimate moment like that from Tom, where he’s torturing Gene at the end. But it’s something that should’ve been explored throughout. Not just at the end.
“The Great Pretender” has some shades of “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” in it. So, if you liked that movie, you might like this. But, personally, I thought we could’ve gotten a lot more laughs out of the premise, specifically by forcing Tom Hanks to be meaner.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Even if I thought this could’ve been executed better, I give props to Baru and Zimmerman for their 4-dimensional thinking. This isn’t just a fun concept. It’s a clever pitch to someone who has repeatedly said in interviews that he’s wanted to play bad guys but that studios won’t let him. This is an inventive way to allow Tom Hanks to play that bad guy (Hanks would play both parts).
