Blitz

No time to chat. Busy putting together the Top 100 loglines. Announcement will be made tomorrow (Monday) at 12:00pm noon Pacific Time. Here's Roger with today's review!

Genre: Thriller, Crime Noir
Premise: A serial killer nicknamed “Blitz” is targeting cops in different beats around London, inciting the ire of the sociopathic Detective Sergeant Brant and his notorious anti-87th Precinct Unit.
About: The screenplay comes from Nathan Parker (“Moon”), adapted from the novel of the same name by Irish noir writer, Ken Bruen. Jason Statham has agreed to play Brant, a crude, sociopathic cop while Paddy Considine will be playing Sergeant Porter Nash, an openly gay cop that works with the homophobic Brant. The director is Elliot Lester (“Love is a Drug”). Bruen also struck cinematic gold with “London Boulevard”, which is being adapted by Oscar winner William Monahan.
Writer: Nathan Parker (based on the novel by Ken Bruen)


To continue along this crime and noir vein without looking at a Ken Bruen project would be a disservice to all you readers jonesing for a crime fix. After all, ask any modern crime writer who they’re paying attention to in the world of crime fiction, and they’ll all point their fingers across the Atlantic at Ken Bruen.

If you like journeying to the Jim Thompson dark-side every now and then (and believe me, you’ll want to space ‘em out, these babies are grim ), look no further than his Jack Taylor novels.

But if you want a hit of pulp mayhem followed by rails of dysfunction, casual violence, and black humour, then may I suggest the anti-87th Precinct (did you know that Shane Black sustained himself on a diet of Ed McBain novels) Tom Brant novels?

Because “Blitz” is an adaptation of the novel of the same name, just one in a series of short ammo-clip novels that all started with Bruen’s “White Trilogy”.

So what’s the skinny on Brant?

Detective Sergeant Tom Brant is the UK’s answer to Vic Mackey. Or maybe it’s the other way around, because Brant was created four or five years before Mackey, and he sort of makes Vic look tame and unstylish in comparison.

When we first meet Brant, the Southeast London police shrink is attempting to counsel him about his “violent urges”. As a matter of principle, Brant suggests the doctor is gay, physically assaults him, gains the psychological edge, and rubs salt in the wound by ratting out the alcoholic doctor to a Detective Inspector (whilst impersonating the nebbish constable, PC McDonald).

All this he does with brutish style and Celtic panache. Brant is the type of good bad cop (or bad good cop) who sleeps with prostitutes turned informer, murders criminals who escape the system, drugs fellow police officers for sport, and isn’t above watching pitbulls tear apart a man for the purpose of revenge. In other words, Brant is just undiluted, sociopathic fun.


Did I also mention that Brant’s breakfast is always two Club Milks and a tea with two sugars, which he calls a Sid Vicious because in “Sid and Nancy” there’s “this scene where Gary Oldman, wrecked on every chemical known to man, shouts at his record company rep, who’d asked him what he wanted to drink, ‘Cup a tea, yah cunt, and two sugars.’”?

The Bad Lieutenant could take lessons from a man like Brant.

And more importantly, Jason Statham now has a role to sink his teeth into where he doesn’t have to take off his fucking shirt. I’m sorry I’m not sorry, ladies.

The 87th Precinct has an ensemble cast. Who are the rest of our London players?

There’s Chief Inspector Roberts, whose wife dies in a car accident at the beginning of our story. One of the things that Bruen seems to do so easily, and which Parker captures perfectly in the script adaptation, is that he smudges the lines between comedy and tragedy. How many writers can take a sequence where a man whose wife of decades has just died and capture the blunt shock, pity, sadness and humour that humans are privy to in the face of life trauma?

Just look at the scene where someone steals his wife’s urn. It’s fucking brutal, but you can’t help but laugh.

This script shifts and weaves and paints in so many emotional tones you can’t help but marvel at the deft character brush-strokes. A master has been at work, and we know it because it all seems so effortless.

Porter Nash is the handsome, openly gay sergeant who takes the reins from Brant. He’s a new arrival, but he earns the respect of the men and Brant because he’s just that good. There’s an uneasy partnership of necessity and respect between the two men, and it’s cool to watch them work together.

There’s WPC Falls, a black female investigator who is trying to find her place in the unit. She’s failed to make sergeant, and she copes by drinking hard and relapsing into substance abuse. Her favorite past-time in the hellish third act is robbing dealers. Ironically, she’s protective of a teenage punk with the British National Party, AKA Hitler Youth.


PC McDonald is the Superintendent’s star pupil, but more entertainingly, he’s the squad’s scapegoat. It’s fun to watch him blunder. It could also be argued that it’s fun to watch his sanity and resolve disappear as he struggles to stay above water in the real world of cops and murderers.

When The Blitz crashes the party, our notorious unit is cast further into limbo and they all must embrace their personal demons if they want to stop him.
Who is The Blitz?

He’s a hammer-wielding serial killer that targets cops.

It’s bad business, killing cops. Not only are you going to incite the ire of an entire police force, but you’ll have to go toe-to-toe with Brant, and you better be fucking committed to your art if you have to deal with a wild Celt with a badge.

Yet this is the perfect recipe for entertainment, as there aren’t many things more entertaining than watching two psychopaths drunkenly chase each other around London with bullets and hammers.

Add Brant’s seriously disturbed co-workers to the mix, and well, if the resulting “investigation” doesn’t entertain you than I don’t know what will.

How’s it go down, Rog?

Like a shot of Jameson, straight up.

These are good characters, and they have a combustive family dynamic where they support each other’s addictions and bad behavior. They take care of their own, and you can’t help but bond to these people when their life outside of police work crumbles around them.

Or maybe all they have is their police work, their job, and when threatened with “leave”, “time off”, or “vacation” (which any normal person would take considering the personal circumstances), they snarl their way back onto the beat or the chase because life outside of their job is too rough.

It’s too scary to have to face those demons alone.

And capturing The Blitz is exorcism, it’s a grail that justifies their loneliness, their anger, their sadness. Their brokenness.

Brant suffers from some old-fashioned Tennessee Williams blackouts. There’s a scene in the script where he does nothing but stare at a blank wall, his mind and heart numb.

Blank.

A human being whose fuse has burned down on both ends and in this rare moment of vulnerability, where we see something other than the sociopathic bull, we realize that Brant really is human.

He’s paying a price for his sins, and he pays it gladly.

If “Blitz” can be criticized, it’s that at its heart, the plot is pretty familiar territory. This coupled with its ensemble cast makes it feel like an arc or storyline off “The Shield” (or the novel and movie, “Red Dragon”) or any other television procedural.

But this baby is about the characters. It’ll be Jason Statham’s best role and it should appeal to the “Layer Cake” and crime noir crowd. It plays like a crime procedural force-fed through a wood-chipper with a stack of pulpy Raymond Chandler, Jim Thompson and Ed McBain novels.

Simply put, it’s lethal stuff.

[ ]What the hell did I just read?
[ ] barely kept my interest
[xx] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: Shoot for ironic relationships between your characters. Blitz is full of ‘em. The most noticeable are the twin satellites of Brant and Nash. Brant is homophobic; Nash is openly gay. They have to work together. Instant conflict. PC Falls is black; yet she looks after a teenage Nazi. Instant depth. Brant kills with a badge; Blitz kills outside of the law. Instant battle of wills. Ironic relationships: They kick things up a notch.

Top 100 Loglines Announced Monday at Noon (Pacific Time)

We got very close to the big 1000 logline mark. Almost made it there! Considered leaving the contest open another couple of days to make it an even thousand. But I'm still happy with the turnout. Expect the official Top 100 post Monday at noon, pacific time.

Mute

Genre: Noir sci-fiPremise: A mute bruiser living in futuristic Germany goes on a desperate search for his missing girlfriend. Along the way, he learns about her secret life.
About: Duncan Jones is the recently announced director of the number one reader rated script on Scriptshadow, Source Code. You may have seen ads for his eerie indie sci-fi film “Moon” this summer, a movie I’m desperately awaiting on DVD. “Mute” was supposed to be Jones’ follow-up to that effort before he was offered Source Code, which I’m sure he chose in part because of certain financial incentives – mainly that there were some. Jones is the son of David Bowie.
Writers: Mike Johnson & Duncan Jones
Details: 2006 draft = 103 pages. 2009 draft = 109 pages.


So I’m doing something a little different today. Instead of a regular review, I’m going to review two drafts of the same script. The last time I did this was back during the Moneyball fiasco, and I still feel bad about manhandling the Soderbergh draft (though I contend he ruined a solid script). Luckily this time around, we don't have to pit any writers against each other. Both of Mute's drafts were written by Duncan and his partner, Mike Johnson. After perusing the first five pages, it appears the two drafts are shockingly different, but if you continue on, you'll find that they're almost exactly the same.

Duncan Jones is quoted as saying that he chose Source Code over his own project, Mute, because Mute was a “hard sell.” After reading it, I’m thinking that might be the understatement of the century. This is a very challenging and alienating script. At times it’s as smooth as a baby’s bottom, and at others as rough as a piece of sandpaper. Mute is one of those personal projects that probably won’t appeal to anyone outside a tiny niche audience. It appears that Jones knows this, and is perfectly okay with it. “Moon” was never going to light up the box office either, yet it already has a rabid fanbase. The question is, does Mute satisfy on any level? Man, that's a really hard question to answer.

Believe it or not, the 2006 draft is set in present day Berlin and plays out like a very straightforward drama. It's only when you pick up the 2009 draft and see "2046" in the slugline that you realize how drastically Jones decided to change his story. Or did he? Keep reading and you'll find that most scenes have stayed exactly the same, leading me to realize that the only change Jones made was a visual one. From a directing standpoint, this new Blade Runner vibe will surely please the hardcore sci-fi demographic. But what about the story? How did the new futuristic setting change that? Sadly, it doesn't at all. And that's a shame.

Duncan Jones' previous film, "Moon."

"Mute" centers on a brutish 40 year old man named Leo, who lost his ability to speak in a childhood boating accident. The cautious and perceptive Leo lives in Germany now, where he’s fallen in love with a striking Afghan woman named Naadirah. The two are inseparable, both working as waiters at a sketchy local club.

In another part of town, an obnoxious American named Cactus Bill is looking to acquire a fake pair of passports for his foreign wife and daughter so he can finally go home to the United States. Although it was never quite clear to me how Bill got stuck in Germany, he seems hell-bent on getting out. His journey is complicated, however, by the debt he owes Germany’s large Russian crime syndicate, as well as the suspicious behavior of his closest confidant, who may or may not be a pedophile targeting Bill’s daugther.

Back in Leo’s world, he wakes up to find that Naadirah is gone. At first he assumes she’s at work, but when she doesn't answer a series of texts, he becomes suspicious. An investigation turns into a slow and purposeful pursuit, as he does a toned down imitation of Liam Neeson, and raises hell in future Berlin's shady underbelly. Along the way, he finds out a shocking secret about her that changes everything.

Mute bounces back and forth between Leo's pursuit and Cactus Bill waiting for his passports. And this, I believe, is where Mute really falters. The story is called Mute. Leo is the mute. Yet we spend what seems like an endless amount of time watching Cactus Bill and his assistant sit around and talk about nothing. Their storyline is so passive compared to Leo’s, that it's really a labor to get through. They’re essentially waiting around for passports to be made. I wanted them to do something, to go after something. But the story doesn't seem to know what to do with them. They're just...there.

Duncan Jones

The other major problem I had was that Leo’s disability didn’t play into the story in any way. His being mute didn’t help him in any situations, nor did it hurt him. Every conversation he got into would be hampered because of his inability to talk, but both sides easily worked around it. Imagine a film like Memento, where Guy Pearce’s memory impairment doesn't affect him. Where it's not really an issue. I kept asking, “Why does this main character have to be a mute?” What was the point?

Duncan may be smarter than me because the answer to that question could lie more in the production of the film than the screenplay. Actors love a challenge, and who wouldn’t want to play someone who doesn’t speak the entire film? Who can only communicate with their eyes and their facial expressions? Are you kidding me? I can hear Johnny Depp running to his phone right now.

There seem to be a lot of images that Jones wants to capture here. He writes about subtle moments - the way they appear, the way they feel. In those brief passages, Mute really shines. Jones clearly understands what he wants to do with the film visually. In fact, this will probably be one of the coolest fucking trailers ever to hit the geek community. The film nerds that have unopened Blade Runner DVDs, Blade Runner Special Edition DVDs, Blade Runner Director’s Cut DVDs, even Blade Runner Super Edition HD-DVDs, will be swimming in a soupy ecstasy of barely-lit futuristic noir til they can't tell themselves from their shadows. This film will no doubt look awesome. But if Jones doesn’t figure out how to integrate his main character’s handicap into the film, or do something more interesting with the Cactus Bill storyline, or get some urgency behind the story, I fear this will only please the kind of people who know the names of the world's top ten cinematographers.

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] barely kept my interest
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: To me, this was another reminder of the mine-field you step into whenever you have a passive character. Cactus Bill has a clear goal - get the passports for his daughter and wife, but for 90% of the time we're with him, he's not doing anything about it. He's just hanging out and talking to people. If there's nothing going on there, nothing that your character is actively pursuing, we're going to get bored fast. Now as you've seen in previous "what I learned sections," I by no means think a passive character is a death sentence, but it's best to steer clear of them unless you have a damn good reason. Because they're a lot harder to make interesting than active characters.

The Black List Website

So as many of you are probably aware, the 2009 Black List is coming soon. On December 11th to be exact. And now they have a website to tantalize and tempt us until that forever-away date arrives.

A few reasons why you might want to check it out. First, they have a mailing list which I hear will be announcing some things about the new directions the list is going in. Second, there's a blog that will keep you updated on all Black List related info. And third, there's an opportunity for some of you artists to be a part of Black List history, as they're looking for someone to come up with the cover art for this year's list. If you're interested in submitting, head over to that section of that site.

Can't wait for this list to finally hit!

The Sea Kings

The last time Michael Stark (real name) reviewed a script for me was the Freeman/Willis action project, "Red." Well Michael is back again with a script by screenwriting legend William Goldman. There was a time when Goldman sold every piece of paper that came out of his typewriter. And some of those were grocery lists. As for Michael, he's no chopped liver either. He sold a couple of specs to Hollywood a decade ago, then up and left. Only recently, after finding Scriptshadow, was he inspired to start writing again. Hey, that's why I started this thing. To get you guys writing dammit. Now sit down, read this review, then read the script. You can work on your script some other time. :)

Genre: Swashbuckler
Premise: Basically Butch and Sundance as buccaneers.
About: Unproduced William Goldman script from 1978. Sean Connery and Roger Moore once attached. Part one of a three-picture deal with legendary producer, Joseph E Levine. None got made at the time. Goldman, Hollywood’s Go-to-Guy for over three decades, did not get work for five years after that.
Writer: William Goldman

William Goldman

Okay, Shadow Poppets, Professor Stark has set the Hollywood Way Back Machine to 1978, a simpler time when screenwriters were no longer mere schmucks with Underwoods, but yet to command the hyper-inflated, paychecks of the Shane Black Era. It was an age when Scribbler Gods like Robert Towne and William Goldman walked the Earth and our planet was a much better place for it.

William Goldman, for those born after the Bruckheimesozoic Period, was the master craftsmen behind Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid, All The President’s Men, The Princess Bride, Magic, Marathon Man and Misery. In those frontier days before Syd Field nailed his 95 theses on the studio doors, Goldman’s published screenplays and autobiography, “Adventures In The Screen Trade”, were the only compasses out there for us young scripters. He was, for many of us, our first mentor.

According to legend, The Sea Kings would have teamed up Sean Connery and Roger Moore as the famed pirates, Blackbeard and Bonnet, a rather neat, doubled Bonded hook if they had pulled it off. Unfortunately, this swashbuckler never set sail because the producer, Joseph E. Levine, financed all his movies out of his own pocket. By the time this script was budgeted, movies just became too expensive (damned cattle salaries) and Levine refused to go begging the studios for assistance.

I’ve always wanted to read this script. Thanks to loose lips, Xerox machines and Script Shadow’s vaster than the Vatican’s network of spies, I finally got my hot little mitts on it! For a fan, this was like finding buried treasure.

But, alas, like the Legend of Curly’s Gold, some treasures were meant to stay buried. I ain’t saying The Sea Kings is bad, it’s just not the perfection I expected from one of my idols. It’s kinda like a bootleg album: quite good -- great maybe if you are an obsessed collector -- but probably left unpolished, unproduced and unreleased for a reason. And, like much of the other works of art in Script Shadow’s storehouse, who knows what draft I’ve even read.

I had pretty sky high expectations for Goldman tackling the sea-faring genre. Wouldn’t you? Hell, the man wrote The Princess Bride, one of the most romantic, quote worthy, fantasy, adventure flicks of all times.

So, why am I disappointed? Well, the first real spot of action scene doesn’t take place till 30 pages in. The first sword fight doesn’t happen till page 52. And, the first wench doesn’t even appear till page 60. Now, pages 100 – 132 are totally golden and magnificent and redeems the earlier flaws, but one wishes Richard Lester had given Goldman some Musketeering notes for the first two acts. There just really needed to be some more swashbuckling!

Okay, remember that this is 1978. The language of both film and screenwriting was different back then. Goldman didn’t employ the shorthand we’ve since grown accustomed to. He uses long, long paragraphs to describe the main characters, their ships and all the geography around them. There are so many historical sources referenced, you wonder if he’ll eventually resort to Ibids and Op. cits at the bottom of the page.

He uses almost a whole page to describe our first encounter with Blackbeard. I know this breaks all the rules your books and teachers and script coverage services have taught you. I don’t care. I totally ate it up! I’m not gonna reprint his intro here, so, please, download the link and at least get to page 4. Yup, it’s way too much information. Today, the young tots who wrote Medieval would merely have said: “He was a bug fucking dude with a big fucking sword and a fucking big beard.” Goldman is a wee bit more classy. Such were the 70s.

The Sea Kings is a tale of two buccaneers. Blackbeard, the notorious menace of the high seas and Major Steed Bonnet, who turned to piracy pretty much out of misplaced romanticism, a near death experience and simple boredom. Give a rich guy a beautiful but mean wife that withholds sex and constantly degrades him, no doubt he’ll buy an eye patch, build a ship and head for the Barbary Coast too. Now, according to legend that was exactly the reason Bonnet turned to the Pirate’s Life. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem too believable. Sometimes truth is too far damn whimsical then fiction.

Today, all action movies start with a nice set piece to get the blood pumping and the sphincters kept on the seats. Although we get a mystical money shot of Blackbeard’s empty ship scaring a trading vessel into surrender by his terrible reputation alone, the first action sequence doesn’t come till the second act when the sea sick novice Captain Bonnet actually commits his first act of plundering.

Bonnet’s beginner’s luck is simply amazing as he takes down five ships pretty much in a row. Then, he tries to steal some Pirate’s Booty away from Blackbeard himself. The Beard spares Bonnet’s life for no better reason than pure whimsy. For a pirate that was pretty historically cruel, this doesn’t ring quite right. But, Black, tired and broke, sees a way to turn a profit off his pesky new competitor, thus the beginning of a beautiful friendship between Sea Dog Mentor and Sea Dog Protégé.

They become fast friends like Butch and Sundance or Michael Caine and Sean Connery In The Man Who Would Be King. They get along splendidly. Too splendidly perhaps. I mean, Blackbeard was a total, psychopathic badass. There would have been more tension if we really believed that Black could turn on his new best friend at any moment. Thus, our first missed opportunity at some really high stakes.

Both pirates are just a bit too cute. Cuter than Captain Jack Sparrow. Cuter than Geena Davis in Cut Throat Island. Cuter than Graham Chapman in Yellowbeard. Cuter even than Jean Lafoote’s Cinnamon Crunch. I imagine pirates to be far more treacherous, lecherous and fugly.


Black’s Fence in none other than the Governor of North Carolina and we are given another detailed history lesson about colonial life with again too many Ibids and Op. Cits. Blackbeard may be a ferocious buccaneer, but he’s not the hottest businessman, so Bonnet saves his ass as they auction off their stolen goods and even helps get his buddy laid later that night by posing as a pastor. There is blue skies, clear sailing and zero tension till an aside mention that the colony of Virginia has put a bounty of the Beard’s infamous head. AHHHH, we finally spy in the distance the black flag of conflict!

The boys stay a wee bit too long on dry land and when they finally return to the Atlantic near page 80, they kidnap some rich Virginians and must return to those hostile shores to collect their ransom. Here, we get some much needed swordplay and Blackbeard’s scorpion and Frog betrayal of Bonnet.

It is this betrayal and Bonnet’s subsequent revenge that makes the last 30 pages of this script so action-packed and awesome. If the whole picture had that kinda juice. I would have given Sea Kings an impressive rating. Or, as it was 1978, a few shots of Jacqueline Bisset walking the plank in just a T-shirt might have worked too.

I guess I would have liked a little less high jinks on the high seas and a lot more Captain Blood. Thankfully, Goldman would get the mixture perfect a few years later in The Princess Bride.

How perfect?

“Are you kidding? Fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, miracles... “ Peter Falk, The Princess Bride

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] barely kept my interest
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

So, what did I learn? I love to do research. In the old days, I would camp inside the New York Public Library and order many rare, out of print books that took weeks to arrive. Now, with Wikipedia, I have everything I need in the matter of seconds. Seems kinda unfair, but I can now write period pieces in less than a century.

Research is fun, but don’t knock that inkwell over all your pages. We don’t have to know why pirates swabbed their desk so often or what kind of wood was used for someone’s wooden teeth. Goldman’s factuals would be great in a novel and totally a coup for the set designer, the costume maker and the DP, but it really bogs down the script’s readability.

Source Code Gets A Green Light

Hip hip hooray! You guys did it. By putting Source Code at the top of the Reader List, you convinced Hollywood to take the project seriously and put it into production. All jokes aside (or am I joking) this is really exciting. In one month, my two favorite scripts both got green lights! Today, Source Code nabbed Gyllenhall for the lead, which is a great choice. I think he's perfect for the role. Also "Moon" helmer, Duncan Jones, will be directing! Now we just need to get Brigands of Rattleborge made and all will be good with the world. Here's the story in Variety.

Learn More About Scriptshadow

So, there have been some new people to jump on the site recently (probably due to the Top 25 List) and it's been awhile since I've really talked about Scriptshadow, so I figured it was a good time to recap how you can get the most out of the site.

Facebook and Twitter - I have both a Facebook Fan Page and a Twitter account. It's a good idea to become a fan for a key reason. I announce new blog posts the second they go up, and since occasionally writers and producers will ask me to take a script link down, you may be able to get to that link before it's removed. So stop messing around and join my Facebook and Twitter pages!

Comments - My original vision was to have Scriptshadow become the de facto site for discussing screenplays. Although I believe I've achieved that, not enough of you know about or visit the comments section. I know it may be annoying initially, but go sign up for a "Disqus" account so you can start commenting! Since your e-mail is then shown to me, if you leave a comment or ask a question ("I'm looking for this script. Where do I find it?"), I can e-mail you directly with an answer. It's an alternative way to get in direct contact with me.

I know for some of you, you've had trouble with the commenting system. I've tried four major commenting programs now, and this is the one with the least amount of hassle. If it's not working for you, try another browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Google Chrome, or Safari). My experience has been that Mozilla Firefox on a PC works best. Macs have had the most trouble in the commenting department, but trying alternative browsers seems to solve most of the problems. I apologize that the comments are such a disaster for some people, but I've spent many hours on it and this is the best I've been able to come up with.

Scripts I'm Looking For - This site cannot exist without the generosity of its contributors. Over to the top right there is a list of scripts I'm looking for. If you have anything on the list, help out and send it along so I can review it. If it makes you nervous, send from a fake e-mail.

More About Me - I don't talk about myself much on the site, but I did do an interview with Kristy at Matriarchal Script Paradigm awhile back. Looking back at it now, I come off as a sex-addict for some reason. So if you can get past that, you might learn a thing or two about me.