Column #16 - From Script to Screen, Part 1: The Basics

This is the first part of a two-part column examining the differences between the written word and the finished film. I picked two films that both entertained and intrigued me, watched them and read them just so you, the loyal reader(s), could benefit from my vast cinematic acumen. Okay, that's not exactly correct, I did enjoy both flicks and liked both scripts, but I did it more for personal curiosity than to write a better column. I could've chosen from The Lord of the Rings, Spiderman, or Mindhunters, which keeps getting pushed further and further back until its inevitable fall DVD release in Estonia. Which is too bad cause it's a pretty good script. I could've chosen The Italian Job, The Cooler, or Kill Bill Vols.1 & 2. Instead, I decided on works of such towering cinematic achievement that the mere mention of them is enough to make the average viewer go weak in the knees and eagerly hand over their ten bucks and line-up for homogenized butter-like artery-hardening popcorn spread. I speak of course of Basic and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Let's begin...Basic-ally.

Basic is a flick whose script provides interesting insight into the movie. In this case, I watched the movie then read the script. The script was not identified by date but most likely in the early draft stage given its darker tone and more interesting ending. If you haven't seen the movie stop reading right now (like I could stop my loyal fan(s) from doing that, cause "here there be spoilers", or some such similar nautical jargon). Basic is the story of a night from hell, a particularly brutal military training exercise gone bad. Do military training missions ever go good in the movies? No, that would make for some really boring cinema. "Excuse me, Private?" "Yes, sir?". "How did that exceptionally brutal life-changing danger-filled obstacle-course of death go?" "A breeze." "Excuse me?" "It was a breeze, sir." "Very good. Carry on." Yep, that's some compelling Shakespearean drama. In Basic, one soldier is dead, another shot and wounded, the commander's missing and nobody's talking. That's the set-up to a pretty entertaining tale. John Travolta's the cop, Connie Neilson's the rookie, and Samuel L. Jackson's the hardass. Two for two - strong set-up, strong cast.

Basic is anything but, a movie with more twists and turns that a frisky monkey in a barrel of pimentos (think about it, there just might be a funny in there...or not). John Travolta plays a thinned-down John Travolta alongside Samuel L. Jackson playing a variation on his angry-military-man-who's-had-enough-and or is-the-best-at-what-he-does-so-sumbitch-better-watch-out-cause-he's-looking-to-firmly-plant-foot-in-ass...exhale. It's almost too clever for it's own good, constantly turning around situations and events, juking left - Travolta's an ex-Ranger, the military kind not the woeful hockey franchise; juking right, Jackson's the cruelest Master Sergeant ever, pushing the training of his platoon of Ranger-newbie's past abusive and into the masochistic. As expected, his men hate him. He may make them better soldiers but one of them, or all of them, the movie's not really clear on this point, want him dead...or not...or want him dead but didn't do it...or want him dead, did do it, covered it up in the guise of a "training accident", vernacular for possibly avoidable deadly mishaps brought about by malice, greed, or evil corporation, or possibly a malicious, greedy, evil corporation. (Is there ever any other kind in the movies, I challenge you to name one benevolent, all-powerful force. Lucasfilm does not count).

Basic has a Rashoman-like narrative told in flashbacks and half-truths, a tried and true storytelling mechanism that Hollywood never grows tired of. Personally, I'd like to see a flick about seven-points-of-view told in increasingly elaborate flashbacks, each time a layer of falsehood removed like bad stucco after a hurricane...In case it was unclear, I was trying for sarcasm right there, trying but not always reaching. But it works in Basic simply because the flashbacks are themselves elaborate missteps designed to confuse Travolta's intrepid though possibly corrupt army investigator. It turns out that Travolta, a corrupt DEA agent (again, in the movies, is there ever any other kind? Except for the doggedly determine, incorruptible FBI-CIA-DEA-IRS agent whose a rebel-outlaw-maverick-do-it-his-own-way-kinda-guy and follows the leadership of a gruff-angry-repressed sergeant. In Basic, Hardy and West have a history, since all action movie heroes and villains having a history is mandated by law. West was Hardy's instructor when he was in training and Hardy was his unit bitch. Translation, Hardy hates him, hates him with a passion, with an intensity, with an animus that borders on the murderous (or does it).

Basic the script differs from Basic the movie, basically, in that Hardy, Travolta's character, is far more inscrutable and a lot more corrupt, but in a good, more interesting realistic character-study kinda way. To put it in perspective, in the flick, Hardy's really a good-guy pretending to be bad. He's so deep undercover not even his momma knows him anymore. He's part of a military investigation into drug trafficking in Panama. The soldiers that relay the tale of West's fatal accident, with the exception of Giovanni Ribisi's Kendall, are all "in on it", part of a sting operation to get base commander and Hardy compatriot Styles (the always underrated Tim Daly, say what you want, Wings was an underrated sitcom, try comparing it to the current crop of s**tcoms) whose been facilitating the drug sales. West was the good guy caught in the middle, Hardy was the cavalry, and Connie Neilson's Osborne was the dogged, or do I mean intrepid, military policeman given the task of trying to explain the events of that hurricane-caused-destruction-rainy-night (this is what is known in the know as 'sub-text' - the events on the surface have multiple meanings, in this case, the crazy weather is reflective of the crazed actions of the platoon).

In the script, which I prefer, Hardy isn't playing corrupt, he is corrupt, under investigation for drug smuggling by the DEA and suspected by West. The men of the doomed platoon are all his protˇgˇs, engaged in the big score, under the watchful eye of military intelligence (an oxymoron if there ever was one) and the DEA. The events, as told to us by the survivors, are a combination of outright lie and massaged half-truths, manipulated the entire time by Hardy's investigating technique designed to elicit responses he expects and answers he wants. Styles is killed in both versions, but here he's off-ed to protect Hardy's involvement. Osborne is still the dogged investigator, but rather than being offered a job with Hardy's super-secret-super-duper unit, Hardy offers to sleep with her. Or maybe just take her out, but remember that sub-text thing, here it is again. Rather than find West eating dinner with Hardy and crew, West now resides in the trunk of Hardy's car, killed by the Hardy himself who figured out a way to exact a measure of revenge on West by besmirching his good name by laying the blame on him for all the drug smuggling at the base, he's gone forever, living fat off the hog on his drug profits, and by taking time out during the hurricane to confront and kill West. You gotta admire that Hardy's Army mentality: "We do more by six a.m. than you do all day". Apparently it applies to crimes, too.

I liked the darker nature of the script. The film entertained and had enough twists and backtracks to make the DVD a good purchase. But the script took it to that next level, by having a seemingly straight-laced-though-maverick-hero investigate an unrelated crime, and then revealing that he wasn't a maverick, wasn't straight-laced, and was far from heroic. Also, isn't it about time that a thoroughly repugnant and manipulative character triumphed. The last one that really sticks out was Kevin Spacey's Keyzer Soze from The Usual Suspects. Now that was a brilliant script and an even better movie.
Jess Nakaska is an aspiring screenwriter always on the lookout for the next great script idea. He'll let you know if he finds it. Feel free to contact him at jessnakaska@hotmail.com.