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Openings

In my quest to perfect an homage to Steven Seagal, I have to consider the importance of the opening. In his earlier, better movies, he always had something resembling a prologue to establish his character and, often, establish the story. In Hard to Kill, there’s a pre-coma sequence in 1983 showing him as (a) a bad-ass, (b) a cop/surveillance expert, (c) a loving family man, all prior to getting shot and ending up in a seven-year coma. In Out for Justice, there’s a shorter, better sequence where he asks his partner if everything’s all right (this foreshadows a plot point — seriously!), then throws a pimp through a car windshield.

I knew I’d need a similar opening, but I couldn’t figure out how to work it in. As the story stood yesterday, it started with the main character arriving in Nigeria, but he doesn’t want to announce his bad-assiness right away. He has to build up to it. At first, I thought, What if he foils a terrorist attack on the airplane? Almost immediately, I thought, Too soon! So then I started thinking that something has to happen at the U.S. airport. It reminded me of Marked for Death, which hilariously implies not only that Seagal and Keith David sneak duffel bags loaded with handguns, shotguns, and high-powered assault rifles into Jamaica…they come back to Chicago with said bags of guns plus a decapitated head.

So yeah, that’ll be it: he gets into it with a security person over the massive quantity of weapons he’s trying to carry on to the plane. That seemed lame, though. My annoying penchant for satire reminded me of the often-reported incompetent TSA workers, leading me to consider opening with a style-establishing joke — building suspense as we think he’ll get busted, but then the glazed-eyed TSA worker doesn’t even care. And he goes and kicks some ass in a Chili’s Too (fulfilling the barfight quota). I’m still mulling it over, but I think some variation on this will end up opening the script.

Tags: action sequence, Chili's Too, decapitated head, Hard to Kill, Marked for Death, Nigeria, opening scene, Rolling in It: The Movie, Steven Seagal, TSA

Posted by Stan on April 13, 2008 1:30 PM  | Permalink  | Print-Friendly  | Career-Based Rambling | Digg It