I don't really make New Year's resolutions, but I did tell myself, "Make an effort to blog more in 2010." Careful readers will know how well that's going so far. I've just been swamped, and unlike the last time I anticipated a swampy future, I didn't stockpile a bunch of boring script reviews to autopost so I could ignore my blog. Instead, I'm making do with the hallmark of the blogosphere: infrequent posts of dubious quality. I'm starting with the promised script review of Clive Barker's Dread, a movie that came out on the 29th for an extremely limited engagement as part of the fourth annual After Dark Horrorfest (as I understand it, after the theatrical engagements it'll be shuffled onto DVD fairly quickly).

Before I get to that, though, I'd like to toss out a cautious recommendation for Adam Green's Frozen, which opened over the weekend. As usual, I haven't actually seen the movie. However, I did read the script awhile back and was blown away -- except for the part where the third act was missing. Not like it was a complete, 120-page script that simply, structurally, lacked a third act. This was a 70-page script that ended with TO BE CONTINUED... right as it geared up for the third act. What a tease! So maybe the third act is a disaster, but the first two acts are as solid as the frozen urine that soils the characters. Might be worth checking out, despite the limited release, minimal promotion, and middling reviews.

On to Dread...

Let's start with the twist ending that I don't want to ruin for those of you who might actually take the time to see this (don't worry, I'm just going to draw an analogy to a movie you've seen). Longtime readers know that I'm not the world's biggest fan of twist endings. I don't get angry at every movie that has a twist ending -- but I do have a problem with twist endings that either come out of nowhere or are too telegraphed. Twist endings require a delicate balance of elements in order to achieve an "inevitable but unpredictable" moment of surprise, instead of a frustrating mindfuck or an eye-rollingly obvious moment.

Dread suffers from a twist ending that's obvious from, I dunno, page 20 or so. See, it opens with a flashback sequence in which a family comes home, unaware a killer is in their house. The lone survivor is a young boy, who may or may not grow up to be one of the main characters. The way the script is structured, though, it's clear early who the young boy has grown up to be, yet it wants us to believe this is a great, unsolvable mystery. Finally getting to that analogy, it's like if Psycho opened with a scene of young Norman killing his mother. Except for that one addition, everything else is exactly the same -- first trying to make us think it's some kind of thriller about stolen money, then trying to make us think the killer is Norman's mother before the big twist that she's long dead and Norman is dressing up like her and murdering people. Would you be happy about a movie that reveals its own big twist in the first scene but still tries to make a suspenseful mystery around it?

Dread even has the semi-subtle genre switch that Psycho has. Ignoring that opening scene, it starts out as a straightforward dramedy about college students struggling to move toward adulthood. Then, it shifts into a sort of bland combo of psychological thriller and torture porn fest. The story follows Stephen and Quaid, a pair of college students who form an awkward friendship in a boring ethics class. The first act isn't much more than pretentious philosophizing from the two of them, which I bought into because the endless pretentious philosophizing I both endured and espoused during my first two years of college. It's not terribly compelling, but at least it's believable. We find out the most relevant information about the characters: Stephen is an introverted nerdy type who's tethered to routine. Quaid is also pretty nerdy, but he's more extroverted and pompous about it. Stephen is quietly in awe of Quaid's misguided confidence, and that sets up the early conflict: Stephen wants to be more like Quaid but can't figure out how to make it happen.

Quaid catches on to this and decides to teach him, starting with a prank. After a night of drinking, Quaid walks Stephen to his modest suburban home. While Quaid fixes himself a drink, he sends Stephen upstairs to his room to grab a DVD. In it, he finds a husband and wife sleeping. They wake, terrified to see someone in their house. They don't know Quaid. Naturally, Stephen panics and runs. Quaid follows, amused. He explains this was a psychological experiment on both of them: when Stephen's afraid, he simply reacts -- that's something he needs to harness to get what he wants. Meanwhile, the couple will spend years in sheer terror as a result of two harmless idiots breaking into their house. Quaid's pleased with himself, but Stephen starts to see the cracks in his personality's façade.

Nevertheless, they team up with Zooey (a hot girl from their ethics class) on a class project that seeks to study the long-term effects fear has on people. Stephen and Zooey just want to interview subjects about their greatest fears, but Quaid is obsessed with taking the research to the next level. He begins playing terror-inducing pranks on the other two, which escalate to horror-movie proportions in the third act. Can you guess who the little boy was in the opening scene? Can you?!

Dread has a number of third act problems beyond the twist that isn't a twist. I don't want to get into them with too much specificity because of spoilers, although maybe I shouldn't care because the movie's already on DVD in the U.K. and is out in theatres here. But I do care, so no spoilers. The main thing is that the script pusses out on completing Stephen's character arc. Remember, he's the one who spends most of the script afraid to go after what he wants. Stephen doesn't overcome this -- in fact, the script brings in a red-herring character to do the things Stephen is too wimpy to do himself. This really undermines the script, but it's clear the writer was more interested in a nihilistic torture porn ending than allowing the character to finally stand up for himself.

That leads me to one of the more interesting aspects of the script, though. It portrays Stephen as the protagonist because, well, it follows him around and leaves Quaid an unmysterious mystery. And, of course, Quaid is the antagonist because he's nuts, right? Well, think about the protagonist-antagonist relationship, which in its simplest form is defined thusly: a protagonist has a goal that he struggles to achieve, mainly because the antagonist hurls obstacles in his way. In Dread, Stephen has some weak, ineffectual goals (mainly, wanting to get laid), but it's Quaid who has the real goal: he's hellbent on "experimenting" on innocent people. Stephen inhibits Quaid's goal by being a total puss.

It's an interesting reversal of expectations that would have been made much more interesting if the writer hadn't tried so hard to make Quaid an enigma. If the writer had laid Quaid's backstory out in the first act, let his behavior start escalating in the second act, the trajectory from "weird, semi-depressed nerd" to "psychopath" wouldn't feel so rushed. Building a mystery out of whether or not Quaid's really crazy, followed by building a mystery out of why he's crazy, doesn't do much for the story, and it does literally nothing with the themes about how fear can either cripple a person or force them into action. As mentioned, Stephen the scaredy cat is never really compelled into action, but it's not his fear that prevents him -- it's the machinations of the writing, which lets the character down. Maybe the writer, ironically, was too afraid to have his "hero" sac up and kill the "villain," because that'd make him just as bad, right? (Hint: wrong.)

Because Quaid is the true protagonist of the story, it simply feels like his character doesn't have the proper development. Whatever the protagonist/antagonist relationship, the script focuses on Stephen as the main character. Keeping the point of view with Stephen limits our understanding of Quaid, and the audience's inability to empathize with whatever Quaid's going through is the source of all the script's problems. When the writer finally reveals the essential information late in the game -- well, as mentioned, it's no surprise, which makes it all the more frustrating that he spends so much time trying to hide it. Quaid will never be the true hero of the story, but his character drives the narrative. Obfuscating his personality does the script no favors -- in fact, it's the script's fatal flaw.

I will reserve judgment, though. Producer/writer/director Anthony DiBlasi has had varying success bringing other Barker stories to the big screen (by which I mean the giant plasma TV on which you watch your favorite direct-to-video content), ranging from the meh The Plague to the pretty good Midnight Meat Train. I have no doubt DiBlasi remains faithful to the source material, which contains a lot of Barker's trademark grim atmosphere and unsettling imagery, but like many of the adaptations I've reviewed, it's the sort of thing that probably works better as a short story than a film.

Secondary Disclaimer: I refer to what follows as "coverage" by the loosest definition of that term. In keeping with this blog's tradition, I've crammed the notes so full of rancorous rants, it's 1/10th as concise as actual coverage, almost falling into the category of a review. However, since I've included the loglines and a detailed synopsis, it's close enough to coverage for my purposes. Deal with it.

Logline (provided by The Black List): "Based on the author's book of the same name. A young gangster goes to work in the LAPD as a mole investigating a crime against the head of the Mexican mafia but learns more about justice than he expected from his seasoned partner."

Synopsis

Rolling through the streets of South Central L.A., badass beat cop MIGUEL MARQUEZ (50s) and his rookie partner, RAMOS (20s), observe a bank robbery. They call it in, then move in on the robbers' van -- which is rigged with explosives. A wild action sequence follows. The robbers are clearly armed and well-trained. In the melée, Marquez is severely injured and Ramos is killed. An opening credits montage follows, intercutting the deplorable history of the LAPD with clean-cut 20-something BEN HALLORAN's progression through the LAPD academy. After the montage, Ben arrives for his first day in the 77th district, where he's paired up with an unenthusiastic Marquez after LT. VINTNER gives a morning roll-call speech about the increasing racial tensions in the area. Marquez tells Ben he looks soft and asks if he played any sports in high school. Ben says he was on the fencing team. Marquez shows Ben his many guns, including a non-issue .44, and suggests that Ben improve his weaponry. They roll up on TONY T, a wino. Marquez tells Ben to arrest him for public intoxication. Ben tries, but Tony T starts beating on him. It's quickly evident that this is a setup to initiate Ben. Ben responds to the assault by pounding Tony T in the crotch. Marquez is impressed.

Meanwhile, crooked patrolmen RISLEY and MAPES cruise around MacArthur Park, collecting money from the prostitutes they pimp and drug money from dealers like DEADEYE. Deadeye's friend and ex-cellmate, WIZARD, got high and killed one of Risley's hookers -- his "cash cow" -- which pisses Risley off. In retaliation, Risley breaks Deadeye's dope-dealing hand. On Crenshaw Boulevard, Ben tries to convince Marquez that he's a good officer. Marquez refuses to believe it -- any skills that Ben may have mean nothing in South Central. Among a bunch of black gangstas, they notice a guy, DEANDRE (20s), hanging back a bit. Marquez explains that he's the type to inform. Trying to look casual, Deandre steals a car that, it turns out, had already been stolen earlier that day. They chase him. Eventually, he abandons the car and Ben is forced to chase him on foot. Marquez also chases him on foot, and before long they corner him on a pedestrian bridge over a freeway. Left with no alternative, Deandre scales the fence and jumps onto the freeway. Against Marquez's orders, Ben follows him. Before long, they're up on rooftops, and Ben tackles Deandre. They crash through a skylight -- right into Wizard's apartment, where his bloated corpses lies slumped over the sink.

After they both vomit from the stench and the workout, Ben cuffs Deandre. Marquez shows up, trailed by their elaborate backup, and chews out Ben for ditching him. Later, homicide detective CHUIN examines the scene with Marquez. They find a ledger that indicates Wizard was the "tax collector" to drug kingpin JOE CARCOSA. Back at the station, Marquez and Chuin pore over the ledger and learn Deadeye has been short for the past several weeks. While the two of them interrogate Deandre (which results in Marquez beating him with a phonebook), the ledger mysteriously goes missing. Marquez finds out Deandre saw combat in Iraq and is an expert in explosives, which makes him realize Deandre was at the bank robbery in which Ramos got killed. Chuin presents Marquez with a theory about what happened to the ledger: Ben took it. Marquez doesn't believe it.

Marquez takes Ben to a club where Deadeye is known to hang. It's crawling with gangsters. When they're threatened by some of Deadeye's thugs, Ben pulls out his gun and shouts at them in perfect Spanish, surprising Marquez. They get into Deadeye's office. First, Deadeye denies knowing Wizard; then, he denies skimming off Carcosa's money; then, he denies that Carcosa would have Wizard killed, because Deadeye would have heard about it. He offers the MS-13 gang as the possible culprits. Meanwhile, Deandre calls his pot-growing pal GET SOME for help with his criminal troubles. Get Some says he'll handle it.

Marquez and Ben roll into MS-13 territory, Ben speculates that the best way to find Wizard's killer is to figure out who would benefit from his death. Marquez ignores him. They arrive at an abandoned building where an MS-13 gang member, SOMBRA, holes up. It's a creepy, filthy, booby-trapped place. Marquez and Ben have to fight their way through a bunch of MS-13 warriors in order to get to Sombra, but after a convoluted action sequence, they both end up on the bed of a flatbed truck. Sombra pursues, getting into the truck cab, and they all end up in the L.A. river. For some reason, Sombra recognizes Ben, but before anyone can make anything of this, Marquez shoots Sombra. Marquez asks why Sombra would be crazy enough to attempt to murder cops. Sombra tells him there's a "green light" on cops since cops "crossed the line" by killing Wizard. Then he dies. As the site of Sombra's death is turned into a crime scene, Ben is introduced to BEACHAMP, the head of Internal Affairs. Chuin speculates that Beachamp and Ben are in bed.

BIG BEN KAHN (50s), a charismatic attorney, arrives to bail Deandre out and ask him some questions. When Deandre mentions the bank heist, Big Ben takes pause. Big Ben visits DARIUS (20s), a gangster who also heads a notable hip-hop record label. He asks Darius if he had any involvement with Wizard's death, but Darius denies it. Nevertheless, Big Ben warns Darius that Carcosa may come after him anyway. Back at the 77th station house, the difficulty of the day has taken its toll on Ben. Marquez gives Ben a Glock .45 that belonged to Ramos and officially welcomes Ben to the district. Ben returns home, where he reveals that he did indeed take the ledger. A gangster thug shows up at Ben's apartment tells him "he" wants to see Ben.

Darius asks Risley, who has come calling seemingly as a friend or business associate, who was responsible for the Wizard's death. Risley says the rumor is that it was cops. Darius is uneasy -- he doesn't want to end up in a war with Carcosa. Risley and Big Ben admire a sword Darius owns that allegedly belonged to Nat Turner. Ben shows up at Joe Carcosa's house, asking about the ledger. Ben says they didn't find a ledger. Carcosa tells Ben he needs to find the cops who killed Wizard and, most importantly, find the ledger.

The next morning, Marquez, Ben, and Chuin learn that Deandre turned up dead shortly after getting released on bail. After dismissing Ben, Chuin tells Marquez he went through Ben's personnel file and found it so clean, Ben may not have existed prior to entering the academy. He urges Marquez to get rid of Ben. Marquez doesn't: if he's not dirty, Marquez will be hanging him out to dry for no reason; if he is, Marquez would rather have him close than far. Ben runs to the bahtroom and flashes back to a quinceañra at Carcosa's house. At the party, he and Darius are close friends. Carcosa and Sombra torture a man into signing some papers while Ben watches with some amusement. Later, in private, Big Ben complains that his son -- Ben -- should not be a part of whatever they have planned. Carcosa insists that he must.

In the present, Marquez and Ben visit the home of C-LOVE, a petty thug who posted bail for Deandre. Marquez grills C-Love until he gives up the name of the person who gave him the money: Get Some. C-Love warns that Marquez will never get near him. Marquez tells C-Love to get his pregnant girlfriend and be ready later that night, so Marquez can put them on a train to Barstow until the heat dies down. Big Ben warns Risley that Carcosa may have a man on the inside. Marquez and Ben surveil Get Some's crib. They spot an ice cream truck that drives around, only it doesn't sell ice cream: it's a mobile gun repair station. Marquez and Ben hold up the driver and force him to go to Get Some's crib. They use the ice cream truck to ambush Get Some's security force. After a wild action sequence in which Get Some nearly kills Ben, Marquez finally gets to Get Some. He threatens him, but Get Some is not easily intimidated. Get Some shows Marquez the business card of his attorney -- Big Ben.

Ben flashes back to a launch party for Darius's hip-hop magazine. Big Ben and Ben argue. Darius tells Ben he's going legit, until he's attacked on the red carpet. Ben, Darius, and his security force retreat. Later, they show up at the hotel of someone called CERTAIN DEATH, whom Darius blames for the attack and wants to kill. Ben tries to get Darius to listen to reason, but Darius lashes out on Ben. Ben knows where this is headed, so he disappears. The next day -- the day of the bank robbery -- Carcosa offers Ben a deal: if Ben enters the police academy and informs for him, Carcosa will make Ben Kahn, Jr., disappear.

In the present, Marquez and Ben have arrested Get Some, but Risley and Mapes show up and tell Lt. Vintner that he's their informant. Marquez tries to beat the hell out of Risley in the middle of the squad room. Marquez and Chuin explain the chain of evidence that led them to Get Some, and while Vintner believes them, he wants to proceed by the books. Marquez balks that there isn't time for that, but Vintner doesn't want to hear it. Later, C-Love and his girlfriend, RAYNEECE, are gunned down by men in a passing patrol car. On the way to pick up C-Love, Marquez outright accuses Ben of being IAD. Ben denies it. They discover the shooting -- and the crowd that has gathered, all aware that the police did this, none happy about it. Marquez and Ben call for backup. Rayneece is still alive, so she's rushed to the hospital. Chuin points out that Ben is one of the only people who knew Marquez's plan for C-Love. At the hospital, Ben is forced to comfort Rayneece's grieving mother. He reluctantly promises to make her killers pay for their crimes.

When Ben gets back with Marquez, Marquez sees something different about him -- after what he's seen, he's a real cop now. Ben speculates that Risley killed C-Love. Marquez tells Ben that Risley was the best rookie he ever trained, but he's gone bad. Marquez didn't believe it -- until he saw Risley at the bank robbery. Marquez says he hesitated when he recognized Risley, but he won't hesitate again. Ben wonders why they wouldn't just arrest Risley. Marquez explains that Risley has been involved in so many arrests, if he went down for his crimes, everyone would be turned loose on appeal. The LAPD wouldn't risk that. Marquez demands to know who Ben is. Ben explains he's the son of Big Ben Kahn and he was a mole for Carcosa -- until yesterday. Marquez tells Ben he needs to decide which side he's on.

Marquez and Ben pay Get Some another visit. This time, they torture him for information. Eventually, Get Some admits that Risley found out about Wizard's skimming, threatened to rat him out, so Wizard tried to bribe him with dope -- but it wasn't enough. So Wizard told Risley about the bank where Carcosa launders his money, they put a crew together and hit it. Marquez wonders where Risley could find such a well-trained crew, and Get Some explains that gangsters have been sending soldiers to Iraq to learn tactics for urban warfare. So they intend to pin the robbery on Darius so Carcosa will take him out, allowing Get Some to take control. An LAPD cruiser pulls up outside -- it's Risley, leading a pack of Crip commandos. They go after Marquez, while Ben attempts to follow and defend. After another wild action sequence, Marquez is seriously injured and Ben is attacked from behind.

Ben awakens in a creepy warehouse, filled with gangsters. Risley and Mapes appear just as Marquez regains consciousness. Risley tries to justify his criminal activities by offering that if he didn't do it, somebody else would -- and they wouldn't have the best interests of the city at heart. Ben tries to fight his way out, and when that fails, he announces he's working for Joe Carcosa, who sent him to find out who robbed the bank. That gets their attention, but it does little to save him. They hang Ben and Marquez over a pit filled with angry pit bulls and a jaguar. They're tied together on a pulley, so the heaviest one (Marquez) will be lowered into the pit first, followed (after he's torn to shreds) by Ben. Marquez is killed in grisly, leering detail. In an effort to save himself, Ben wraps his legs around Marquez's mangled body as it rises out of the pit. He retrieves Marquez's secret .44 -- which the Crips didn't find -- and starts blasting at Risley and the gangsters as he swings furiously in the hopes that the chain will break and release him. Eventually, it does, and Ben manages to narrowly escape to the trainyards outside. He leaps onto a freight train, waits until the tracks go over the freeway, then dives into a modular home traveling on the back of a flatbed. Risley and Mapes witness this. They scramble for their patrol car and pull the truck over, tasing Ben, arresting him, and claiming he's on PCP.

Risley and Mapes drag Ben back to Darius's place. They're surprised Darius knows him. Darius says they used to be friends, and Big Ben is his lawyer. This surprises Ben, but all the pieces fall into place: Big Ben was the one who told Risley to rob the bank, and he's the one holding Carcosa's money. Risley shoots Darius's security, then Darius. Ben manages to free himself, although he's still handcuffed, and Ben is quickly cornered. Before he dies, Darius grabs Nat Turner's sword and runs it through Mapes. Risley pulls another sword off the wall. He and Ben fight; thanks to Ben's fencing skills, he kills Risley.

At Marquez's funeral, Lt. Vintner gives a stirring speech about his courage and honor. Ben is surprised when Big Ben shows up. Ben flashes back to the previous night. He goes to Carcosa, tells him he's out, and hands him Wizard's ledger. He goes to a car where Chuin and Vintner wait. Ben's wired: they have Carcosa's confession on tape. Back in the present, Chuin and a couple of other detectives arrest Big Ben for his role in the bank heist and its aftermath. Despite what's happening, Big Ben feels some amount of proud redemption that his son is a better person than he is.

Notes

I don't know what I expected after violating one of my own rules. In doing a mild amount of research on the novel L.A. Rex, I discovered that author (and adapter) Will Beall is, in fact, an LAPD officer working out of the 77th district. After reading that, I can't honestly say I expected something like The Wire, but I did expect more than what L.A. Rex delivered. It both surprised and disappointed me that an actual officer working out of South Central doesn't have a more unique take on the cop thriller.

The end result of L.A. Rex is pretty much what you'd get if you jammed The Departed, Heat, and Training Day into a blender and topped it with tiny dollops of every other crime movie made in the past 25 years. I'm not generally one to harp on originality, but this script constitutes little more than a well-written series of genre clichés folded into a convoluted story that doesn't come close to satisfying. Keeping the list brief, here are the top five: wacky mismatched partners, the rookie paired with the veteran, the screaming lieutenant, the dirty cop who's convinced of his nobility, and the dirty cop who gains a conscience after What He's Seen.

I haven't read the novel, but I have a feeling the problem here is a result of distilling a dense narrative populated by dozens of characters into a script that, although it's both on the long side (127 pages) and cheating its length (with no rhyme or reason, 90% of conversations in this script are set as two-column dialogue, which makes it very difficult to read but also likely makes the true page count more in the 160-180 page range), is still about half the length of its source material. Novels have their own sets of clichés, but it's a little easier to get away with movie clichés when you can fill out the characters and the setting to create the illusion of uniqueness.

In a screenplay, it's harder to cheat that way. Beall's diction -- the words on the page -- is great, making this a quick read despite its length, but when you strip away the glitz, you're left with a steaming pile of moments lifted from many, many better movies. Worse than that, the elements Beall's novel may have used to make the cliché-ridden situations seem a bit more original -- compelling characters with offbeat points of view, for instance -- don't come across in the script at all. It's too dense for any individual character -- including the two leads, Marquez and Ben -- to stand out in any way. Hell, I'm shocked to discover Ben's supposed to be the protagonist. The story is so much about Marquez, and Beall finds himself forced to bury Ben during the first half because of the secrets his character hides, that it becomes somewhat disorienting when we learn Ben is the person we're supposed to be rooting for. At any rate, Beall introduces each of these characters with flashy, florid descriptions, but beyond that, they're just the familiar cardboard cutouts filling up a familiar storyline. They don't have any individual moments to shine, and they never rise above their stereotypical foundations.

In fact, like the similarly convoluted Prisoners, the characters feel more like plot point dispensers than real people. One of the surprising and unique character traits given to any of these people is Ben's fencing background -- but that goes from interesting trait to lame plot device when it becomes necessary for Ben to fence his way to freedom with a sword whose presence is acknowledged so clumsily early on, it could only mean foreshadowing.

To sum up, this script needed more dinosaurs.

The Bottom Line

The only way I can see this script working is if Beall peels back the narrative density that might work in a novel but feels, in this screenplay, like a well-written mess. The story isn't so mind-blowingly complex that it will elude audience members; rather, the script gets so wrapped up in the story that it loses sight on making the characters into three-dimensional people. The story can remain complex and have the same denouement, but excising about five or six characters will allow the remaining characters more breathing room to develop into natural, interesting characters instead of cardboard clichés.

Secondary Disclaimer: I refer to what follows as "coverage" by the loosest definition of that term. In keeping with this blog's tradition, I've crammed the notes so full of rancorous rants, it's 1/10th as concise as actual coverage, almost falling into the category of a review. However, since I've included the loglines and a detailed synopsis, it's close enough to coverage for my purposes. Deal with it.

Logline (provided by The Black List): "Based on the book by Alan Cowell. The story of the life and subsequent poisoning death of Alexander Litvinenko, a former officer of the Russian Federal Security Service, who escaped prosecution in Russia and received political asylum in the United Kingdom."

Synopsis

In voiceover, SASHA (Alexander Valterovich Litvinenko) explains that someone intentionally poisoned his tea with twice the radioactive dose endured by people standing at the center of the Chernobyl meltdown. A spectrograph view of what happens dramatizes this poisoning. Flash to London, a short time later, as Sasha struggles in a cab on the way to the hospital. His wife, MARINA, attempts to comfort him. In the emergency room, Marina declares Sasha has been poisoned. Per the laws, hey send a police inspector, BRENT HYATT, to file a report on Sasha's poisoning case. Doctors insist Sasha is suffering from food poisoning, but Sasha knows better. Hyatt asks who poisoned him. Sasha tells him it was the KGB. Hyatt tells him "all that" ended 20 years ago. Sasha disagrees and begins to narrate his story...

...which begins in 1984, in Siberia. Sasha climbs to a rooftop, attempting an assassination -- but in the Arctic weather, the metal of the gun sticks to his hand, and his struggles to get free give away his position. Fortunately, it turns out to be an exercise by the KGB. As Sasha explains in voiceover, every young Russian dreamed of joining the KGB. Even as an adult, Sasha would watch old movies dramatizing the glories of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, enraptured. In voiceover, Sasha explains the lifestyle of the late-period USSR: those who had power would take whatever they want; those who didn't knew better than to complain. Money didn't matter, so an integral part of their KGB training was learning the American way of doing things -- foreign, esoteric concepts like bank cheques and credit references baffled them. A mystery organization of powerful men, the Siloviki ("Men of Force"), were effectively the Illuminati of the USSR: they had their own private subway in Moscow, their own department stores selling American merchandise, and they have the power simply walk into a nice apartment and tell its tenants to leave.

After his training, Sasha is disappointed not to be assigned to the First Directorate -- the elite group who were sent to the U.S. to spy. Sasha's training colonel explains that he's actually too smart for his own good -- he'd end up getting undesired attention. As a result, he's assigned to the Third Directorate, which does counterintelligence within the Soviet Union. One night, while living it up at a KGB nightclub, Sasha sees his ex-training buddy MISHA has returned from America. He's drunk and talking up the American lifestyle, trying to convince his comrades of its superiority. Sasha and his new friends humor him until they pull over along the side of a highway and shoot him in the head. Sasha is sort of horrified at first, but he buys into the thinking that Misha had fallen prey to the enemy and deserved this.

In the present, a doctor tries to convince Sasha that all his tests show a case of mild food poisoning. Sasha pulls out hair and asks if that's a symptom of mild food poisoning. The doctor condescendingly offers that it's a symptom of middle age. Unnerved, Marina calls a mystery man known only as Boris, looking for help. Frustrated, Sasha returns to his story. He bitterly explains in voiceover that one morning in 1993, they woke up to found they had no country, and while the capitalist West perceived this as a victory, the Soviets found the loss of their empire tragic. Money became worthless, citizens starved, all prisoners -- even the ones who should have been imprisoned -- were released, and before long hundreds of organized crime syndicates sprouted up. Sasha remains with the KGB in an effort to clean up Russia. He and his friends wander Moscow attempting to defend poor businesses who are forced to pay protection to the various syndicates. One is a ballet studio, forced to pay protection to a corrupt police lieutenant. After talking with the lieutenant, Sasha starts to realize he must have the blessing of someone above him.

He accompanies his friends to a birthday party for one of the ballerinas--future wife Marina, who's annoyed and embarrassed by the presence of a KGB (now FSB) agent at her party. People start leaving, in fear of the KGB. Sasha dances with Marina and quickly wins her over, despite his abrasive attitude. She complains about the problems of the day, notably her inability to pass a driving test because the examiner expects a bribe that she refuses to give. Sasha accompanies Marina on her next driving test. He holds a gun to the examiner, who immediately agrees to give her a license. Perturbed, Sasha explains that he doesn't want him to give her one; he wants the examiner to do his job. Marina takes her test and gets her license fairly.

In the present, BORIS BEREZOVSKY arrives with bodyguards, a publicist, and a poison specialist. Sasha is grateful. Boris tells him he will never forget that Sasha saved his life. Back in 1995, Sasha saves Boris's life. After nearly dying in a car bomb, Boris decides he needs help. In voiceover, Sasha explains that Boris had quickly became an enemy of the old ways. A well-regarded mathematician, Boris embraced capitalism after the fall of the USSR and -- after struggling his entire life during the reign of the communist empire -- became one of the richest men in the world in five short years. This displeased the Siloviki, who couldn't adjust to a world where money mattered more than political power. As a result, attempts on his life became rather frequent. After the car bomb, Sasha arrives to help. Boris doesn't want to help, but Sasha offers that he'll need a cop eventually.

Not long after this, Boris is holed up in the office of his nightclub while the Moscow police attempt to arrest him. Sasha intervenes, sending the cops away. Boris attempts to pay Sasha to return the favor, but Sasha refuses. Sasha introduces Boris to Marina (to whom he is now married) and their new baby. Boris explains why the capitalist model is failing in Russia and how he strives to make it work. He believes Russia needs great men like Boris himself, but also great men like Sasha -- uncorrupted men to oversee the nation's security forces. Boris asks Sasha what he wants, and Sasha realizes Boris can make it happen: he owns enough media companies to force people to listen. After Boris leaves, Marina doesn't want Sasha to have anything to do with him. Sasha tells him he can't quit, so the only thing do is change things.

When the FSB finds out Sasha has befriend Boris, they order him to kill him. Paranoid, Sasha decides the only solution is for someone to speak out. He gathers a large group of ex-KGB agents he believes he can trust and explains what they need to do: go public with what they know about the corruption and atrocities being committed against their countrymen. Sasha has already made the decision to do this, but he leaves the decision to join him up to his friends. Many of these people do join him at a national TV news agency owned by Boris. However, the bulk of them disguise themselves -- all except Sasha, who bravely lays out the murdering, drug/weapons trafficking, extorting, torturing, and robbing state officials commit on a daily basis.

After the news report, Boris contacts Russian president BORIS YELTSIN for a face-to-face meeting. Boris wants to encourage Yeltsin to allow Sasha to run the FSB. Yeltsin agrees that they need an uncorrupted man to run things, but he's found his man -- VLADIMIR PUTIN. Yeltsin does allow Sasha to meet with Putin. After an awkward initial meeting, Putin orders the tapping of Sasha's phone. Shortly thereafter, police burst into Sasha's apartment, arrest him, and force him to endure a kangaroo court in which a shopkeeper alleges Sasha extorted money from him. Sasha manages to get the witness to recant, which forces the judge to dismiss the case. That doesn't stop the authorities, though -- immediately, still in the courtroom, they arrest Sasha again on a new charge, of extorting a can of sweet peas. Sasha sarcastically confesses and demand that they execute him. He scoffs at them, fully aware that they need to keep him alive because he's too famous to vanish. In voiceover, Sasha explains how difficult prison is for a member of the FSB -- prisoners' family members were killed, raped, and tortured.

After a few years, Sasha is released. He looks horrible -- emaciated and sickly. Sasha explains to her that he used the prison to his advantage, first doing all he could to try to get killed in general population, then starving himself in solitary confinement. They had no choice but to release him, because they couldn't let him die. Sasha gets his FSB friends to inform on him and leads a straight-arrow life, knowing he's now untouchable. One night, Marina receives a phone call informing her that either Sasha or their child (Tolik) will be murdered. Marina seeks help with some of Sasha's ex-colleagues, but she's told that he's reckless and she'd be smart to take her child and keep her distance from him.

After witnessing an alleged terrorist attack in Moscow, Sasha explains to Marina what he's pieced together through various international newspapers -- in short, the Russians executed these attacks to justify an invasion of Chechnya that would renew a spirit of patriotism in Russia. Marina doesn't care. She wants Sasha to play ball in order to save himself or Tolik. Sasha refuses. Instead, he flees to Turkey and sends for her. Marina refuses to leave Russia. Boris comes to plead Sasha's case, winning Marina over by pointing out that if she doesn't go to Turkey, Sasha will come back for her, and he'll undoubtedly be killed.

When they're finally together, Sasha tries to get political asylum at the American embassy. He's turned away. Finally, Sasha books a return flight to Moscow, insisting on a layover in London. While in London, Sasha seeks political asylum, and British law requires that he and his family get it. Meanwhile, Boris and several other capitalist oligarchs meet with Putin, who announces he's taking 50% of their resources. Because he claims everything they own belongs to the state, he feels 50% is a generous offer. Putin wants to know why Boris insists on weakening him with his media outlets reporting negative things about him. Putin quietly freezes all of Boris's assets to stop him.

In London, Sasha writes a tell-all book laying out everything he witnessed and tying Russia to the alleged Chechen terrorist attacks. Marina pleads with him not to release the book -- they're living a happy, anonymous life in England. If he publishes the book, the FSB will come after him relentlessly. Sasha tells her it's his job to put this book out. He has help from Boris and an underground syndicate, but to no avail -- they publish hundreds of copies, but Putin has them destroyed before anybody can read them. Left with no choice, Sasha is forced to find a real job. As a montage shows his efforts, Sasha explains in voiceover that the Soviet Union forced people to feel a sense of community by cramming them all together, while in the western world, he is finally able to feel alone -- and he doesn't like it.

In the present, Sasha is rushed into a quarantine area, where doctors wear radiation suits to protect from his poison. DR. HENRY, the man Boris brought with him, interviews Marina about Sasha's potential risk of exposing others. Marina doesn't believe anyone but her came into serious contact with him. Knowing Marina isn't long for the world, she visits Sasha in his private room. His hair has completely fallen out, and he's on a morphine drip. Sasha complains that nobody tells him anything, but he knows from her facial expression that it's not good news. Marina explains that he was poisoned with Polonium-210. Sasha knows the radioactive substance well -- back in the Soviet era, they used to manufacture it in an off-books, unmapped town, where the KGB quickly discovered its mostly untraceable effects as a poison.

Hyatt arrives with other police, trying to figure out the jurisdiction. Ultimately, they decide to pursue it as a murder case -- to Marina's consternation, considering her husband is not (yet) dead -- and a secret service agent, ACKERLEY, comes up with a surprisingly plausible theory. The poisoning was far too obvious and sloppy to be FSB. Since the amount of Polonium-210 ingested would have cost $10 million on the black market, they can think of only one person with the money, the connection to Sasha, and the personal grudge against Putin: Boris. Hyatt and the other cops troll the streets of London looking for evidence. They find nothing, so Hyatt is sent back to learn the details of Sasha's last days.

In the morning, Sasha leaves his apartment after a brief argument with Marina about where he's going -- he has a new job, but she doesn't like it. Sasha stops at a sushi joint, where a friend there informs him that he's on a KGB list of targets to kill. (As Sasha narrates the story, it's intercut with present-day police investigating crime scenes, talking with perps, making sure they aren't also poisoned, etc.) Sasha goes to Boris's London offices to wait for a fax, which he's tasked to deliver at a hotel. LUGOVOI -- ex-KGB and Boris's former security chief -- sits among a group of wealthy Russians. Sasha hands off the dossier and shares a drink with Lugovoi -- only Sasha doesn't drink alcohol. He insists on green tea.

Back at home, Marina insists Lugovoi is still one of the Siloviki and is not to be trusted. Sasha is determined to get into Lugovoi's good graces -- he has an opportunity to support his family, and he must take it. The following day is a duplicate of the opening scenes, minus the spectrograph: Lugovoi offers Sasha the poisoned tea, Sasha gladly takes it (although he comments about its bitterness), and they say traditional Russian toasts. After Sasha leaves them, he starts to feel weak and knows instantly that they've poisoned him. He stumbles home and forces himself to vomit it up.

In the present, a Scotland Yard delegation goes to Russia to interrogate Lugovoi. His prosecutor, BARSUKOV (it should be noted that Barsukov is the man responsible for imprisoning Sasha earlier in the story, but he didn't really merit a mention aside from the fact that he reappears here), explains to the police why Sasha's story makes no sense. Barsukov subtly implies that Sasha may have been a terrorist trying to kill Lugovoi and his men (as evidence, Barsukov points to a man named DMITRY KOVTUN, who is the only one they can find who has suffered at all from the Polonium-210), but Hyatt doesn't believe it -- especially after positively testing Lugovoi's hotel and Kovtun's plane for the radioactive fingerprint of Polonium-210.

Sasha, delirious and suffering from dementia, has a moment of startling lucidity. He realizes exactly how the plan worked: Kovtun was sent to London with the poison in a lead vial. He was tasked with merely delivering the package somewhere, but curiosity got the better of him -- he opened the vial, and thus was exposed to a small amount of radiation. Sasha insists that both the efficiency of the plan and the inability to factor in human nature are hallmarks of KGB tradecraft. Hyatt brings his evidence to Barsukov, but they will not extradite Lugovoi, Kovtun, or anyone else. Hyatt gripes about this to Boris, who explains that Russians won't change. They're more afraid of their own people than the international community; they know someone will take them down, but they don't know who, so everyone must die.

Sasha dictates his last words to Marina and has a photo taken to show what they've done. Shortly thereafter, he dies. In Russia, Putin explains that there is no evidence of foul play in Sasha's death. Marina prepares to address a phalanx of reporters. Hyatt cautiously tells her that she doesn't have to. Marina announces that the Soviet way of doing things was to rob everyone of joy, then imprison and/or kill those who were unhappy -- but they can't take her unhappiness away. She will fight to keep it and won't rest until the world understands why she's unhappy. She goes out into the crowd.

Notes

I've said it before: biopics and docudramas are pains in the ass to write. The reasoning is simple: in many cases, you have to boil down somebody's life into a short, coherent dramatic story. It's no surprise that the best of the bunch frequently take extreme liberties with reality. For all the people who balk, "Why don't they just make it about fictional people if they're not going to stick to the real story?" -- well, I don't have an answer. I guess it's just a lurid part of human nature that we'd be more interested in Mozart fondling some tits than some guy named Wolfsbane Nozart.

So far in my ill-conceived run of Black List analyses, I've read one bad biopic and one great docudrama. Londongrad falls somewhere between the two.

In a story like this, a writer has the well-nigh impossible task of toeing the line between documenting the facts of the story and delivering a compelling human drama. It seems like it'd be easy -- just lay it out like any other screenplay. You already have your elaborate backstory, and you know the events that occur in the story, so it's just a matter of structuring it effectively, right? Wrong. In a work of fiction, you control everything (until it gets to someone who tells you to change everything). If that elaborate backstory doesn't work, you can tweak it or just throw it out and start over, reshaping everything until you have a nice story.

You can do those things in a fact-based work if you have no interest in actually basing it on fact. If, however, you want to keep it mostly truthful, everything that should be freeing becomes a constraint, and cobbling together a dramatic story culled from years of research (on the part of The New York Times' Alan Cowell, whose book is credited as the source for David Scarpa's screenplay) turns into a daunting, unenviable task.

I'm saying all of this to assuage some guilt for what's going to happen next: unadulterated bagging on this script. I understand how difficult it must have been to write, and it's certainly more understated and less obnoxiously manipulative than The Muppet Man. But, as I said about The Muppet Man: just because it's hard to write doesn't make the final product any better.

The screenplay falls into possibly three unfortunate traps. One is a byproduct of the genre; the second is just kinda bad writing; and the third may exist only in my mind.

The first: the dreaded "surface-skim" plotting, touching on notable moments in post-Soviet Russia and their effects on Sasha rather than feeling like a natural narrative progression. (Look at movies like the fictional Scarface and fact-based Raging Bull as examples of films that span many years but feel like one cohesive story.) It's hard for Sasha to emerge as a truly compelling protagonist because the script doesn't read like the story of a Russian hero -- it reads like a series of set-pieces some executive told Scarpa needed to be in the script, whether it makes sense to have them or not.

The second: Sasha's relentless voiceover narration. Voiceover narration is justifiably considered verboten among newbie screenwriters, although many of them carry it too far and decide any movie that features even a single line of voiceover is a complete disaster. Some writers can use it very effectively (Woody Allen springs to mind, if you ignore the bad narration in the otherwise good Cassandra's Dream), but it's pretty common for green writers to use voiceover as a lazy crutch. Rather than finding more interesting ways to tell the story and/or express the characters' inner thoughts, they can just pop in a quick voiceover to explain everything. It's a clear violation of the "show, don't tell" adage.

Sasha's narration here is 100% lazy, on-the-nose drivel. Ostensibly, it bridges the gaps in time, but the voiceover technique is not used effectively. I'll give you a key example within this script that distinguishes the difference: early in the script, Sasha narrates, "In 1984, if you were a young Russian, there was no greater dream than to become a member of the KGB. These were the men who single-handedly defeated the Nazis during the Great Patriotic War. These were heroes." At the exact same time, Scarpa describes a younger Sasha sitting in a movie theatre, watching his childhood KGB heroes in a movie he's clearly seen enough times to memorize the dialogue. Doesn't this scene illustrate exactly what's in the voiceover in a much more compelling way? Doesn't that, then, render the narration unnecessary? Unfortunately, most of the voiceover cluttering the script is not accompanied by such compelling visuals, but the point is, a better way could be found to express everything that Scarpa lazily leaves to voiceover.

The third problem, the one that may exist only in my mind, might explain the first two problems: with no evidence whatsoever (I didn't read the book it's based on and only have a passing familiarity with the source story), I speculate that Scarpa tried way too hard to stick to the facts, and as a result presented a fairly uninteresting docudrama. As I mentioned, the rigid adherence to reality marks the death knell of too many biopics and docudramas. The truth just isn't that interesting. (And for those of you saying, "What about documentaries?" -- are you high? Has any documentary ever been 100% true?)

This, then, becomes the ultimate problem: Scarpa presents the truth, but does he provide us with any information we don't already know? Everything I know about the USSR, I learned from a combination of Red Dawn, Simpsons jokes, and that Head of the Class two-parter where they go to Moscow. That's to say, I don't know much. Despite my ignorance, this script contains few revelations: the Russians had a hard time transitioning to their new society?! The country filled up with corrupt mobsters?! Vladimir Putin is evil?! Scrape me up off the floor. Honestly, the only interesting revelation in any of this is the notion that KGB agents really believed in their society, and really believed they were doing good work. The Western perspective on this is that, at the very least, the people at the top knew they were doing bad things but didn't care. Did the lower ranks really believe in the cause, or were they brainwashed with propaganda? Heady concepts that the script sort of touches on but never explores with much depth -- too much voiceover, too little insight.

The other problem with sticking with the truth is that sometimes it's just not terribly clever. Scarpa takes his sweet time dramatizing Sasha's daring escape from Russia, but is there a single moment in that escape that anyone hasn't seen in other spy movies? The rest of the script is a similar pastiche of moments that could have just as easily come from James Bond or reruns of Mission: Impossible. It's hard to call the material "unoriginal" if Scarpa has indeed stuck to the facts -- but, really, the only thing that distinguishes this script from hundreds of others is the fact that it's based on a true story.

So what happens when the true story is much less interesting than one that's made up? Is that when the writers of docudramas start to stretch the truth, in an effort to make the overall product better?

The Bottom Line

I can see only one option for Londongrad: embrace the fake and make shit up. Otherwise, it's bound to languish as more compelling projects emerge (whether they're fact-based projects or not). Of course, all of this is predicated on the possibly erroneous thesis that everything in Scarpa's script is true. If he's already stretched the truth, then it's purely a disaster on par with The Muppet Man.