Genre: Thriller
Premise: An inexperienced Coast Guard Captain is put to the test when a simple submarine drug bust nets her one of the most notorious drug lords in the world.
About: This script finished low on last year’s Black List and comes from newbie writer Alex Sohn, who adapted the story from a Men’s Journal article titled, “DRUG WAR ON THE HIGH SEAS: BEHIND THE COAST GUARD’S BILLION-DOLLAR BUSTS.”
Writers: Alex Sohn (based on the aforementioned article by Hunter Atkins)
Details: 116 pages
Hey, look at me. Look at me. I am the captain now.
Three cheers to any script that inspires you to say that out loud to your nearby confused pet. What’s happening right now? Are we really going to get two IMPRESSIVES in a row? What is this, 2010, when I loved anything that had time travel or a talking animal in it? Okay, I still love time travel and talking animals (has there ever been a script with time travel AND talking animals??). But usually when you get down to the Black List basement, you find a bunch of clingers (“clingers” – adjective – definition: screenplays desperately holding onto the bottom of the Black List despite displaying no inherent skill other than knowing how to use Final Draft).
I knew right away that this script had a chance from its logline: “An inexperienced Coast Guard Captain…”. Had the word “inexperienced” not been here, I wouldn’t have opened the script. Why? Because that’s the whole movie right there. That’s where you get your main source of conflict. And identifying a source of conflict that’s going to last you an entire movie is one of the keys to writing a great script. If this is just a regular captain who gets stuck in this situation – or worse, a well-equipped captain – well then we’re pretty confident that they’re going to figure it out. People watch movies to find out what happens next. If you already know what happens next, there’s no reason to watch the movie.
26 year old Andi Mitchell is an Operations Commander on a Coast Guard ship. After the ship picks up four members of a drug boat carrying 400 kilos of cocaine, Andi’s captain delivers her some bad news. A hurricane is coming down the pike and all Coast Guard ships will be needed for rescue. However, they can’t rescue anyone with 4 drug dealers on their boat. So they’re shipping in a first generation iPhone type Coast Guard ship to hold the passengers until they clear extradition.
In other words, while the Coast Guard gets to go off into the hurricane and be all heroic, Andi has to babysit a bunch of tired drug runners. So Andi is given a ragtag B-crew of 10 men and told to hang tight. Not long after the Coast Guard leaves, however, Andi spots a pipe sticking out of the water. It’s a narco sub. Once the sub surfaces, her and her men board it and capture a mysterious man who just happens to be carrying a million dollars with him.
Not long after they bring the man onboard, their radar picks up a dot. A boat coming towards them. Then a second dot. Then five dots. Then ten. Then twenty. Then thirty. Andi decides very quickly that THEY NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE. They redline the ancient boat but the drug boats are gaining. After a chat with the Coast Guard, Andi learns what all the hubbub’s about. They’ve just picked up Salvador Morales, the biggest drug lord in Guatemala.
Out of nowhere, their boat shuts off. It’s too old to handle this Miami Vice sh&%. And with it goes the radio. Not only are they cornered, but they’ve got no way to tell anyone that they’re cornered. Andi charges down to Morales to find out what’s going on. He informs her that these men are not his friends. They’re his enemies. And they’re going to do anything to capture him alive. And if that fails? They’ll just blow up the ship. It will be up to the inexperienced Andi to make sure that doesn’t happen.
When I read a script, I have to have at least one scene I know is going to play like gangbusters in the trailer, and one unforgettable set piece that’s going to play like gangbusters in the movie. “Coast Guard” aces this test. The trailer moment is when the dots start appearing on the radar. One, two, five, ten, twenty, thirty. I love that THAT’S when we realize who they just picked up. They’re not told at first. It’s those dots appearing. That’s when we know this is serious.
The set piece is when they realize they’re going to die unless they can call for help. And Andi gets the idea to swim to a small boat that they’ve managed to take out. Everyone on that ship is dead and they have a radio. So she swims there without being seen, gets on the boat, realizes one of the men is still barely alive, calls for help on the radio, only for the boat to be boarded while she’s on it, forcing her to hide under one of the bodies, and somehow, some way, gets off of the boat alive. A great tense 10 minute set piece.
There’s some fun character work as well. I’m all for big hidden character secrets that are revealed late. But if it’s a random secret, it won’t land. It has to connect with the story in some way. For example, if it turns out Andi accidentally killed her kid in a car crash a year ago – dead child reveal is a VERY COMMON reveal I read in scripts – that can be in any script because of how non-specific it is, and therefore it lands with a thud. But what we learn here is that Andi used to be a major drug addict and gang member. It works because the whole movie is her angrily wanting to take down every single drug runner. So when that reveal comes, we finally understand why.
KYSM. Know Your Subject Matter. I knew I was in good hands right away after reading this line. “They have to stay in international waters until their extradition clears. That could be days. Or weeks.” It might seem like a nothing-line to the casual reader. But I’ve read all the lazy writers who would write a script about the Coast Guard and have no idea what extradition is or how it works. That line gave me the confidence that the writer was on top of this world.
And guys, research isn’t just to placate readers like me. The more you know, the more plot avenues are available to you. Extradition creates a very unique plot situation here, which ends up getting them into trouble. They can’t leave international waters until the extradition clears. So they’re stuck here. Had the writer not known about extradition, then Andi can bring the criminals back to the U.S. and the movie’s over.
And finally, can I just say how great water is for a movie? It traps your characters, infusing your script with drama before you’ve even written anything. You just have to make sure when you write something on water that the execution is great, like it is here, since it’s really hard to shoot on water. There are men and women in Hollywood still scarred by the productions of Waterworld and Titanic. So make sure your script is killer.
[ ] What the hell did I just watch?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the price of admission
[x] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Whenever your script hits a lull (you can feel it as you’re reading it back to yourself), introduce a NEW TICKING TIME BOMB. This will create the script equivalent of a double shot of espresso. Here, we’d been in this standoff with the drug ships for 30-40 pages. It wasn’t getting boring. But the script definitely needed a spark. So what they did was they had one of the boat hands realize that the drug runners were waiting for the cover of nighttime. That’s when they were going to strike. This created an entirely new sense of urgency since they now needed to execute a plan before nightfall.
