LeftExchange
The Movie Script.
Hollywood, April 2001
“OK, guys here is a synopsis of the next big production:
It starts in Washington DC with a meeting of a few obviously filthy rich tycoons, a few highly placed politicians, one masked man and one mysterious looking guy who clearly belong to a very secret agency with affiliations to top government.
Chief tycoon shows on a map not clearly in sight: “Gentlemen, we need to control this area. We can then build a pipeline from here, where there is oil enough to keep us in profits for the next 20 years... to here. We also get a strategic transport route for the vast mineral resources in this... area. Any questions?”
Other tycoon: “How? We won’t get into that region without causing an uproar all over the Arab world, and the regime would rather go to meet Allah than allow us to build even a tent”.
“Easy, We create an excuse to send in our boys. We create an excuse to get backing from the rest of the world, and we create an excuse to get the president and congress to sponsor the venture. The taxpayers foot the bill, the boys in uniform pays with their blood and we get the proceeds from the oil and minerals production. As fringe benefits we’ll surely get some new laws that’ll put a stop to the liberals and commies and anti-globalizers over here and one of my subsidiaries gets to sell a lot of VERY costly advanced weapons to our military. It’s the perfect scheme. Socialize the expenditures. Privatise the profits. Well, gentlemen, let me introduce to you Mr... eeh... Smith!”
The mysterious guy acknowledges and starts to explain the “plan”. He finally receives a lot of money and some papers and leaves. I think we can get Anthony Hopkins to play Mr Smith. And maybe Max von Sydow would be right for the chief tycoon if he were still alive. We could even throw in a long legged blonde to liven it up a bit. Maybe as a “private advisor” or something.
Next is a scene in a sleazy nightclub in the downtown area. “Mr Smith” meets with turban-clad dark-skinned and bearded man and engages him in earnest conversation. Here we can get some sex into it by showing a hot stripper in between. Why not get Sharon Stone for that. Talks end again with money and papers changing hands and we get one last view of stripper. Bob de Niro would be perfect for the towel head part, I think.
Then we need a scene where “Mr Turban” meets with some Arabs. At least one should wear the uniform of an airline captain and it has to be a clearly Muslim setting with a lot of “Allah is great” shouts and prayers. We get to understand that “Mr Turban” is not in for the faith but for hard cash. But anyway, he gives the disciples instructions, account numbers and the whole lot.
Then comes the incredibly strong scenes of airliners hitting a few giant commercial buildings killing many thousands. The build-up to that, with interiors from the hijacked planes, terrorists taking over, screaming people, control centers and whatnot will be beautiful. Some flashbacks might come in handy here. We have all the opportunities in the world to fit in all we want. Maybe Kevin Costner could do one of the courageous passengers fighting the highjackers. Then he’ll at least be off our backs for the rest of the film. And we have to have a nun and some kids and the usual obnoxious character whose stupidity allows the crooks to succeed. And some sexy blondes. We got to show the terrorists, how they are preparing to die for Allah when they in reality will kill themselves for the good old dollar. We can have one of them as a nice kid who is just deceived by some evil imam.
Now we have the set up for whipping up a lot of patriotism, flag waving and presidential addresses and headlines. I have a strong line for the prez: "If you are not with us you are with the terrorists". Then the rest of the spiel with "freedom, democracy, God and civilization". Kevin Costner would be right in the role of president. Or... Shit, we killed him earlier. Perhaps Jack Nicholson? Whatever! We don´t linger on the political side too much. Anyone can see that we have been attacked by fiendish Arab cowards and we gotta go and bomb somewhere to get revenge. You know, empire strikes back! We create some elusive monster master muslim criminal like Saddam Hussein that we can blame it on and get the audience to focus on. Call him Ben Yussuf or something and let him be in a menacing background. Played by someone like Omar Sharif but uglier.
By the way, we don´t edit the scenes in this order when doing the final cutting. I just give you the plot as it would unfold chronologically. We´ll do a lot of flashbacking and jumping forth and back to confuse the audience as usual. Maybe some flashbacks of flashbacks even. Well, you get the idea?
So, the usual build up of troops and starting aircraft in the dark and bomb explosions and AWACs follows. Then we concentrate on a group of commandos out to get Ben Yussuf in the Afghan mountains. The commando leader is a big hero and soon gets dramatically shot. In his dying moments he orders private Don Steele to take over the lead and fulfill the assignment. Steele is strong and resolute and inventive but also wise and sensitive and poetry-reading. We can have either Sly Stallone for this part or maybe Kurt Russell. We throw in the usual fighting and hand to hand combat in next sequences until only Steele is heroically alive, finally saved by beautiful Afghani stripper Leyla, who performs at a night club and is at least half American as her dad was a Harvard professor spending many years in Kabul before the Russians got wise to his working for CIA. Some flashbacks here and we get a lot of tears. Anyway, Steele learns when his best friend gets killed, that there are rumours of a conspiracy. His friend was a former lover of the blonde at the tycoon meeting, and he decides to confide in Steele when he is snuffing it. Pamela Anderson would be perfect here in the stripper´s role, btw.
So Steele sets off to Washington to uproot the possible network of traitors. Now we can have a bit when Steele is hunted by the FBI and military for desertion and by the traitors who suspect that he "knows", after some papers have gone missing following a break-in at the chief tycoon’s residence. Lots of fights in dark alleys and shadows disappearing round the corner. In the end Steele gets his hand on solid evidence of the conspiracy and approaches the vice-president covertly as he doesn’t trust the underlings and the president himself is on a visit to Russia. I think Gene Hackman would be perfect as vice-prez, btw. Anyway, when Steele reveals the plot and hands over the evidence he is doomed. The vice-president was the masked man at the tycoon meeting and now two of his henchmen capture Steele and try to make him tell who else knows about the plot. Steele’s T-shirt in rags and muscles glistening of sweat will be fine here, I think. And we gotta have a dungeon with chains. What?? They don’t have that at the White House? So let the meeting take place someplace else!
In the end Steele is saved by Leyla, who has secretly followed him to Washington and we get some hot love scenes in the dungeon, wherever that is. Together the two then, after the escape from the dungeon... We can have a mother of a car chase here, btw. Yo, so! Anyway, Steele and Leyla then confide in Leyla´s uncle, a good Bruce Willis fit, I’d say, who is a big wheel senator with excellent connections in Pentagon. Those treacherous crooks, including the vice-president and his henchmen, who didn’t in time escape to China after transferring their wealth to banks in Switzerland, are apprehended by a detachment of troops loyal to the constitution and sent to court. Steele and Leyla get married and live happily ever after until Steele finds out that Leyla has converted to islam and he kills her out of compassion and to stop her from ever becoming a terrorist.
In the meantime other US forces forces the Afghan government to give up and to hand over Ben Yussuf and then installs a new government prepared to help building pipelines across the country if "properly taken care of". The whole gang of crooks gets sentenced to hard labor in a newly built Afghani pipeline factory owned by a joint US-Chinese holding company.
Last scene is really beautiful. Steele standing on the plains outside the rubble of Kandahar watching the sun set over the only unbombed minaret of the city with a pipeline in the background while a new imam intones "God bless America" from the minaret tower and people wave happily with their empty rice bowls.
Well gentlemen what do you think of it? It could be the biggest hit since "Pearl Harbor". A new "Independence Day"!!"
"Naah, the audience won’t buy it. It is too far-fetched".
"Whaddya mean, won’t buy it? They bought "Matrix," didn’t they? They bought the Warren-report, didn’t they? They bought Rambo, didn’t they???"
"Three things!
Who would believe that it is possible to whip up enough war hysteria among the American people to allow the president to attack, at his own discretion, any foreign country, and allow the principles of civilization to be trampled in the dust?
Secondly, who would believe there are any Afghani strippers left alive, if there were ever any in the first place?"
"And what the hell is the third thing?"
"Who in this world would ever believe that any American vice-president would jeopardize the lives or safety of the people of the nation in the interests of tycoons or big corporative interest, however lucrative?"
"Hmmmm, I see what you mean. Let’s drop the idea!"
It is rumored that the scriptwriter later emerged from his anonymity when he was employed as Chief Strategical Planner by one of the Oil-Giants. His name shall remain unknown, as the plot is clearly completely impossible.
- Jerre Skog
Conference on a possible coming production.
We can see that here is big conspiracy being cooked up. I mean really BIG. Here are some of the lines in the first scene, just to give some idea of the plot.
Maybe we should have Robert Redford here as imam.
