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Script Review: A Keen Eye for Eagle Eye
Written by Michael Dayspring
Wednesday, 15 August 2007
I had to laugh last time this guy sent us a script review because his "call sign" was Rolling Sabre. But, when he sent this review to us this morning I stopped laughing, he has sent in some cool ****!
DJ Caruso's newest project Eagle Eye has Shia LeBeouf, Rosario Dawson and Michelle Monaghan is a hot topic right now in the world of movies. Want to know more about it? Check out Rolling Sabre's look at the script below! Don't worry, he doesn't spoil the story for you, just gives a breakdown of the set up of the film. Really interesting actually. I wasn't really interested in this production before, but I sure am now! Check it out! Rolling Sabre here again! First let me ask, can life get any better for Shia Labeouf? Disturbia ,Transformers and Indy IV back to back to back (Surf's Up should be in there somewhere between Disturbia and Transformers but lets be honest, you probably didn't even know Shia was in Surf's Up, did you?) To top that, Steven Spielberg as good as Knighted Shia as the next big thing in Hollywood, practically ordaining Shia to be the highest paid actor in Hollywood. And I'm just going out on a limb here but I'm sure who ever Shia's banging is probably smoking hot! Not bad for a fella who just cracked his 20's and who at one point, seemed destined to the Adam Goldberg land of great Jewish sidekicks.
I'm not sure if Eagle Eye was written specifically for Shia, but the main character JERRY SHAW is the perfect role for Shia's delivery. There is some facetiousness to the character and Shia fits the role perfectly from the characters first lines. It's definitely not hard to imagine Shia in this role if you've seen anything he's done. He can slide in and out of this role with ease, although, the script describes JERRY as 30, handsome and roguish. It'll be hard to spin Shia as 30 because looking 30 is an important part to the character's motivation and choices. As I was reading this, I was finding it very hard to suspend my disbelief that this baby face kid can wind up with the babe who looks twice his age and is well out of his league! I'm sure the producers are taking that into consideration somehow.
Recently signed Michelle Monaghan will play RACHEL HOLLOMON and as the script describes her a 28, smart, beautiful, but fiercely independent single mom who's taken life's bumps. Has a short fuse that prevents her from being as cool headed as she'd like to be. There aren't very many scenes where I can find her hotness being used to its full potential but then again, they did a fine job with Megan Fox's loveliness in Transformers.
The latest addition to the cast is Rosario Dawson, who has signed on to play an agent that will pursue Jerry and Rachel, who have both been set up as terrorists, which I'll get to more in a bit. Dawson will play LATESHA SIMMS, a young looking 32, black Homeland Security Agent with little need for a personal life. There's never a time when Latesha pulls the race card or plays it ghetto so Rosario, who is Black-tino, can play it straight and still charm us. For those of you who involuntarily hit puberty when you saw Rosario strutting her stuff in Sin City, there'll be an extended water scene in which Latesha will be soaking wet, which would be an opportune time for some superfluous wet T-shirt action.
The story can be seen as Syriana meets WarGames. We open up in a desert in the Middle East somewhere. A heavily armed convoy is moving towards a small oasis outpost. But they're being watched. There's a recon team watching the convoy through scopes and predator drone planes feeding a live picture to a Pentagon Operations center. Through the feeds and laser mics, the team is trying to positively I.D. a certain terrorist. On the screens, the probability that this is the terrorist is flashed, 51%. That's a low number. Across the screen, someone recommends to abort the mission. An analyst says that it looks like a funeral is about to take place. Across the screen, Geneva Convention rules for engaging at a funeral are shown. Abort Mission blinks across the screen. We never see who recommends the abort mission, but it's clear that the brass want to see some action and so a weapons free order is given and the Predator fires its missile.
White out to Opening Credits.
Next we meet our main characters that I've already introduced you to, Jerry Shaw and Rachel Hollomon. The exposition period of the script tells us that Jerry still works a dead end job but doesn't feel bad enough yet to do something about it and Rachel's a single mom who's barely making ends meet but her son KYLE is the love of her life. Both not having a clue about the other or what lies ahead. Cue the ominous music.
Jerry receives a phone call from home. His brother Paul is dead. At the funeral, we only build up more exposition on Jerry's less than stellar life after graduation. People are surprised to see him and with good reason, which I won't spoil for you as it'll come up enough later.
Next, we find Jerry at the ATM trying to pull out money he knows he doesn't have but then the ATM flashes a balance of $750,000. Jerry's stunned to say the least. Thousands of dollars start pouring out of the machine, which now has a line of customers backed up staring at Jerry, who delivers a great line that I can already see and hear Shia deliver perfectly.
We return to Jerry's apartment. The landlady stops Jerry and complains to him about all the deliveries he's been receiving and how she had to let the delivery guys into his apartment. What stuff? Jerry's got no clue but he starts to peel open boxes and finds night vision gear, fake passports, scanners, body armor, guns with extended clips, laser sights, fertilizer, chemicals
just about everything a terrorist would need to do terrorist things.
His cell phone rings. He sees the screen, its says ANSWER NOW. He answers it. A creepy woman's voice is on the line. And in a very Neo/Morpheous sorta way, she tells him to look out his window, the cops are coming. Outside, a swat van pulls up! He has to run! But he doesn't, and just like Neo, he gets caught and again, deadpans a great line before he's arrested.
Who was that creepy chick? Who sent all that terrorist ****? Why does someone want the U.S. Government to think he's a terrorist? What does the opening desert scene have to do with this? And what the hell does this have to do with that Rachel chick I couldn't shut up about before? I won't go into anymore story details than that because I don't believe in ruining the story that the writers worked so hard to surprise you with. Some might say I've already done so and to you I say feel free to suck my left one! Go bug your own movie business friends for scripts and do whatever the hell you want with them.
I enjoyed this script immensely. The script has tight dialogue that suits Shia's style. He's gonna bring down the roof throughout the movie if his fellow actors can keep up. This is definitely Shia's movie. The script comes in a 128 pages, which we all learned on day one of film school means 128 minutes. One minute per page, get it? I'm sure you already knew that. But that 128 pages is a tight 128. There are large portions of the dialogue where two actors lines are side by side. For the life of me, I can't recall the name of this script technique, but you get the picture. The script could go on at least another 10 pages if wrote in traditional script dialogue.
The Acts and beats are well placed but the Second Act's discovery of who's pulling the strings did suffer a bit from the reveal yet it was delivered so well within the script, it didn't detract from the rest of the read. In other words, when I read who was actually pulling all this **** on my boy Jerry, it was a bit of a let down because wed seen it before but the script didn't let me rest on that too long cause that's when the **** starts to blow up in Act 3.
I have to finish up by saying that the casting of this movie along with D.J. Caruso directing has definitely pushed this script to the top of my production watch list. I'm very interested to see who else D.J. signs up as there are at least two other roles who can help make someone's career.
