'Strawmen' Feature Film Coverage

TITLE: STRAWMEN. WRITER: N/A COVERAGE FOR: INCOGNITO PICTURES ASSIGNED BY: SEAN RICHARDSON COVERAGE BY: CASSIDY HAYNES

GENRE: CRIME DRAMA SETTING: AMERICA/NEW YORK PERIOD: PRESENT DAY PAGES: 103

LOGLINE: After a chance encounter with a kind stranger, a young woman is swept into a world of kingpins and dirty cops, and with the help of a rogue detective, must walk the line between justice and the law.

SYNOPSIS: BLAKE, a battered young woman, is face down on the tile in a deli, in the midst of a busted holdup. Cops and SWAT swarm around her.

It cuts to an interrogation room. She sits at a table with a detective, recounting the situation, beginning with the start of the day.

Blake is walking along the street and runs into SAUL, a businessman in the middle of the phone call. The two make a brief connection and he’s gone again. Later she sees him enter a deli across the street and follows.

Blake and Saul discover a pool of blood on the floor of the deli, and BENNY, hops out from behind the counter, drawing a gun and taking them hostage. Officers gather around the building and open fire, while MOSES and CHUCK, Benny’s accomplices, help him drag the two hostages into a back room. A third hostage, SAM lies against the wall, wounded.

Meanwhile, on the other side of town, DETECTIVE ROMA seeks information from a street kid, The kid warns him that a big crime boss has scared off the competition, and is likely planning something. Roma gets a call on his radio about the deli hostage situation and leaves.

In the deli, the police outside have them trapped with no plan. LORENZO, Portuguese and panicked, jumps out of a walk-in cooler and opens fire on the other three thugs. He escapes the deli but collides with Roma’s car, as he arrives at the scene. The other officers cuff Lorenzo and CAPTAIN O’BRIAN asks why Roma’s there. Roma gives him background on Lorenzo’s criminal history and implies that there may be bigger players involved.

In the deli, Benny discovers a briefcase of money hidden in the floor of the cooler, and DETECTIVE PEIRCE calls and attempts to negotiate with him. Benny is uncooperative.

Meanwhile, Detective Roma sneaks a word in with Lorenzo, who confirms his suspicions of a kingpin. In the deli, Sam fights to get free with newfound energy until Moses beats his face in.

Sam tells them that the money belongs to GABRIEL before Benny knocks him out. The fear in the room is palpable.

In the interrogation room, the unnamed detective plays voicemails to Blake that Gabriel has left to Detective Roma. The crime boss uses a voice-disguiser, has evaded police for years, and has a complicated history with Roma. Blake says she knows nothing about him.

In the deli, Benny makes a phone call to his boss, DUKE, who reveals that the entire job was a set up, intended to draw Gabriel from the shadows and out into the police’s line of fire. Duke means to use Benny and his boys as bait to catch his own boss, Gabriel, and get him killed.

Detective Roma realizes its a trap for Gabriel at the same time, notices Lorenzo has escaped, and ventures past police lines to negotiate with Benny. Benny is cooperating, but Sam wakes up and begins fighting with him. Sam accidentally shoots himself in the head. The police and SWAT teams charge the building. Officers race inside, from the back and front, driven back by Moses and Chuck’s gunfire.

One SWAT officer evades the bullet spray and slips into the back room with the hostages and the money. He kills Benny and fatally wounds Chuck before disappearing with a flash grenade. Saul and Blake agree they need a cop’s help to get out alive.

Outside, a reporter reveals what happened to the last witness testifying against Duke, and Blake attempts to speak with the cops and plead for help, stepping out with hands up.

Roma fears for her life, because she is now a witness, and shouts for her to return inside even as the police call for her to come out. Blake is confused, and a rooftop sniper shoots her in the leg.

Saul drags her inside and Roma hobbles in pursuit of the sniper. When he reaches the rooftop, he shoots the sniper he thinks did it, and receives a call from Gabriel, taunting him and insisting he’s got one more trick.

Saul and Blake speculate about taking the money, gather the remaining weapons in the room, and declare themselves in control.

Roma is detained by the NYPD on the scene, but an unnamed cop lets him go. Roma escapes and follows instructions that were given on Gabriel’s call: an alternative entrance into the deli.

Roma makes his way into the deli but the SWAT officer from before jumps out of his hiding place. A shot in the dark. Saul falls onto his back. WILKINS, the SWAT officer, steps forward and declares his allegiance to Duke, but Roma shoots and kills him. Moses snatches a gun and shoots Roma in the throat. Blake shoots and kills Moses, and Saul sits up again.

In the darkness, Saul confesses his true identity to Roma, pulling a trac-phone and a voice disguiser from his pockets. He is Gabriel. He places the voice recorder and phone into Wilkins’

vest as the man takes his last breath, and lays down where he, was just as police burst through the doors and into the room. Blake sees it all.

In Blake’s interrogation room, she recounts Wilkins’ death, and the detective tells her that the SWAT officer must have been Gabriel all along. Blake just nods, and the two agree that Roma is a hero.

She’s released, and the same officer who let Roma go and cuffed Lorenzo returns her large purse to her. It is heavy with the briefcase money.

When she arrives home, Gabriel and his assistant are waiting outside her house. The two share a tender moment, he returns the money and he gives her a bit to keep. They go their separate ways.

SCORE:

10

9

8

CONCEPT

*

CHARACTERS

*

PLOT

*

7

PACING

*

DIALOGUE

*

6

5

4

3

2

1

TOTAL SCORE: 39/50 ANALYSIS: The script is similar to THE USUAL SUSPECTS, and HEIST, with thematic elements of HEAT and a bit of RESERVOIR DOGS. Although the base concept in itself isn’t particularly unique, the writer works hard to add in twists and turns, and the jumps back and forth through time work well to maintain audience interest and keep them guessing. The final third of the script, including its last reveal, isn’t incredibly surprising, but it is are intriguing, and the story’s journey to the truth is well laid out.

As each straw-man in the sequence fell, stakes heightened and drama increased, though they were skewed toward the latter end of the script.

Blake and Roma are well established leads, but Blake’s depth is lacking in some respects. The audience is told little about her background, aside from her past smoking habit, her workingclass status, and her dancing. Should be more meaningful, more specific, and inform her personality and her overarching desires/motivations. There’s a real opportunity there to make her someone special. Roma is interesting and dynamic—the viewer knows the type of man he is almost from the first page he’s introduced, through his interactions with Javy and the style of his dialogue.

The side characters—Gabriel, Moses, and Chuck— are also handled well, and made sympathetic. Moses and Chuck’s relationships and past were even better written than Blake’s, although there were moments they felt slightly forced/cliche’d (i.e. the crowd chanting Moses’ name). Saul is interesting from the start as well, if only because of his snarky manner and his fondness for Blake, and he’s written with enough mundane charm that his kingpin status isn’t at all obvious.

The action and intrigue in the story lend to its momentum, and even during the slower parts, (Pacing lags around pages 25-40) the viewer is still engaged. There’s still reason to keep reading/ viewing and the writer uses time so effectively that it keeps the stakes building.

The story is entertaining throughout, and though one finds themself rooting for Blake, Saul and Roma, it’s practically impossible for all three of them to come out unscathed. Although Roma discovers the truth, finally, he doesn’t get what he wants, and most likely will never be able to share what he knows. His fate is bitter, and maybe too harsh.

In the end, it’s Blake’s story, and while she and Saul/Gabriel escape with their money in the final scene, there is a slight needling feeling that maybe she’s just made a deal with the devil. With all the injuries, emotional, psychological, and physical that Detective Roma has sustained in this process, it doesn’t feel quite right.

Thematically, emphasis on loyalty, rules of criminality, vendettas, and moral gray areas make this a successful crime drama—familiar without being utterly predictable—and humanize the characters with a gritty realness. The neat wrap up in the end is very reminiscent of a TV police drama like NCIS or LAW AND ORDER, but it’s fitting and appropriate for this story.

OVERALL ASSESSMENT: WRITER: CONSIDER SCRIPT: RECCOMMEND