Genre: TV Pilot – 1 hour drama
Premise: A Russian fund manager educated in the UK must deal with the fallout of his fund when rumors begin to swirl that he operates in dirty Russian money.
About: AMC’s doing this new thing where they partner with BBC One to deliver a show that plays in both countries. So far the collaboration has given us two strong shows: Humans and The Night Manager. This series is also scripted by one of my favorite screenwriters, Hossein Amini, who, as long-time readers know, wrote that kickass draft of Nicholas Windng Refn’s “Drive.” After that film, Refn started writing his own screenplays and… well, I think we can all agree how valuable good screenwriters are on projects.
Writer: Hossein Amini
Details: 60 pages
Let’s get the most important thing out of the way. They have to change this title. “McMafia” sounds like a new cheeseburger at McDonald’s. Cheese, pepperoni, olive oil, spaghetti noodles. And it so happens McDonald’s is, indeed, the inspiration for the title. A mobster wants to run his crime business like the biggest fast food chain in the world. What does that mean? Let’s ask the script… “What’s the difference between McDonald’s and Burger King?” one of the characters’ inquires. “What?” the other character asks. “There’s more of them.”
That’s great that they drew inspiration from that exchange, but nobody’s going to take a show seriously that’s called McMafia. Titles are a funny thing. While it’s rare that a title can kill a movie/show before its release, it happens. Look no further than, “Gigli.” We’ll leave the title changes up to the producers. In the meantime, let’s figure out if this latest AMC offering is any good.
30-something Alex Godman has lived a charm life. His extremely rich Russian family sent him to America and the UK to be educated, and he took to it so much that he now identifies as British, running a well-known hedge fund that’s allowed him to keep his distance from his family.
You see, Alex has always resented being Russian. It’s only led to others making fun of him, pitting him as an eternal outsider. With this fund, he’s finally independent, finally carved out his own niche in life.
Alex’s family’s history is complicated. His father, Dmitri, had to leave Russia after a fallout with Putin. And Alex’s uncle (Dmitri’s brother), Boris, followed him to the UK. Boris is a bit of a black sheep, and you get the sense that his business dealings are as legitimate as a Chinese iphone. So when Boris comes to Alex asking to invest some money in his fund, Alex delicately lets him down.
But then things change. Alex’s fund becomes plagued with rumors that it’s filled with dirty Russian money – a blatant lie as Alex has worked hard to make sure all his money is legitimate. But before he knows it, most of his investors are dropping out. In order to save the fund, you know what he has to do. He must go to Boris and ask about those investors of his.
Boris assures him that the money is legit. It comes from a wealthy Jewish man so it won’t go on the books as Russian money. Alex flies to Israel to meet the would-be investor who, unsurprisingly, is shadier than a lamp store. Alex knows he’s dancing with the devil, but what can he do? He needs to save his business.
(spoiler) Then, right after he decides the Israeli money isn’t worth it, Boris is killed, a present from the man who exiled Dmitri back in Russia. The implication is clear. Boris the little brother first. Dmitri (Alex’s father) is next. That is unless Alex can talk the nasty Russian mobsters out of it. But what does he have to offer them? Oh yeah. A hedge fund that can potentially hide large sums of money, just the sort of thing an international mobster might have need for.
We’ve got a clever setup here. The pitch is: The “international modern day” version of The Godfather. You’ve got your big mobsters trying to run their crime businesses and the outsider son who doesn’t want anything to do with crime getting pulled in anyway.
And, truth to be told, TV is a better format to tell Godfather-like stories. These stories are about the characters more than the plot. It’s more natural for storylines to be drawn out. There are always lots of characters as well, requiring more time to get to know all these people. So I can see why AMC jumped on this.
And the central plotline is good. The hero, Alex, who wants so badly to steer clear of crime, is faced with a crippling reality: To stay afloat, he must accept dirty money. That’s something I’ve talked about before. The best drama revolves around good people being forced to do bad things. If you’re struggling with finding a script idea, that setup is a great place to start.
The plot of the pilot is pretty good itself and utilizes a popular trick born from the feature format – a midpoint twist. (spoiler) Alex is trying to figure out who started the rumors that his company is using dirty Russian money. The midpoint twist rolls around and the culprit turns out to be… Boris! His uncle. Boris knew the only way Alex would accept his dirty money is if he was desperate. So he started the rumor of dirty Russian investments so that he could, ironically, get Alex to accept dirty Russian investments.
The plot point is a reminder that the best twists are personal. If the rumors had been started by a rival company, so what? The fact that they were started by a man Alex was able to trust is what ignites the story. That’s what gets us juiced up.
My only issue with the pilot was that it was a bit… high-brow. It feels like the kind of thing rich 60 year old well-educated men might watch on a flight from Dubai to New York. There isn’t a lot of accessibility here. That was the secret ingredient of The Godfather. Despite us not being a part of that world, we felt close to those characters. For whatever reason, these characters feel further away. Maybe it’s the international thing. The financial thing. I don’t know but something’s keeping me from really caring about these people.
With that said, the script is well-written and well-researched. I mean everything sounds so specific to this world. Take this quote late in the pilot, where a character is being offered caviar: “This is Iranian Beluga. Much better than the caviar from our country. Less pollution on their side of the Caspian.”
To the untrained eye, this is a throwaway line. Who cares? To people who know their shit, this is the kind of detail that transports readers into the writer’s world. Great writers are not going to use stock dialogue and stock details. They’re going to do research and tell the reader things they don’t know. That line could’ve easily been, “This is great caviar. You’re going to love it.” That’s the kind of thing you see in amateur scripts. Seeking out the specificities of your world is a key component of transporting readers into your universe.
To summarize: a solid pilot if a little dry. And a title that needs a whopper of a change.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Complicate your character relationships. Especially in television, where the character storylines are elongated. You need to sustain tension and conflict in those relationships for as long as possible. You achieve this by looking for ways to dirty up the relationships. For example, Alex is engaged to a woman with a rich father. Think about that for a moment. How could you use the father to complicate Alex’s relationship with his fiancee? Amini does this by having the father invest in Alex’s fund. When the fund starts to tank, the father is pissed and wants answers. This small detail makes Alex’s relationship with his fiancee a lot more more complicated.
