Rites Of Men

Genre: Drama
Premise: A working-class single father's world comes crashing down when his son goes missing.
About: Herman just sold the bank heist spec "Conviction" to Universal last month, which opened up the door to sell "Rites Of Men" a couple of weeks later.
Writer: Jonathan Herman

Rites Of Men is about a single father, Rett, and his introverted teenage son, Billy. Rett's a bit of a screw-up. Doesn't pay his taxes, much less his bills. But his saving grace is that he loves his son more than anything. When Billy starts growing up, gets himself a girlfriend, and starts spending more time with her than him, Rett is predictably hurt. His son means everything to him. But when Billy stops talking to Rett altogether, his hurt becomes concern. Something bad is going on in Billy's life and Rett tries to pry it out of him. But Billy won't budge. Whatever's going on, he's keeping it to himself.

After Rett gets Billy a car for his birthday, Billy heads down to Florida to spend the weekend with his mother. Unfortunately, he never gets there. Billy and his car go missing for weeks. It's every parents' worst nightmare. A few days later, they find Billy's body in some bushes. Rett's world comes crashing down. He is destroyed.

Months pass and Rett's life is one big alcoholic binge. The only thing he feels is hate. The cops gave up on his son's case a long time ago and it's left Rett with nothing but bitterness. It is by complete chance then that he happens to spot the very car he bought Billy. With a little investigation, he discovers the identity of the driver, a beautiful nurse named Carla. He cons his way into meeting her, discovering early on that she had nothing to do with Billy's disappearence, and starts to fall for her. He also befriends Carla's high school son, a teenager who reminds him a lot of his own son. Rett once again finds himself playing the role of father, and the three of them become a weird dysfuncitonal family with a hell of a lot of baggage.

But when Rett finds Billy's old girlfriend and realizes he may finally get some answers to his son's death, he charges blindly into a world that's much deeper than he could've imagined. As the pieces come together, a disturbing chain of events surfaces - the decisions his son made that led to his execution.

Rites of Men nearly made my Top 10. It's an excellent screenplay by an excellent writer. Technically, it blows most screenplays I read out of the water. The characters are all memorable, the emotion is real, the dialogue is great, the story never slows, it hits all the beats and yet it never feels structured. It's just a really good script. Remember "The Low Dweller," the script I reviewed a few weeks back? This was like that script, except entertaining. Herman really really knows how to entertain.

What yanked it out of my Top 10, and even my Top 25, was a late twist that was too convenient, followed by an ending that was too messy. I see this happen a lot with these scripts. A really smart set-up that loses itself in a blur of stabbing and shootings and geographic confusion - the writing equivalent of when a director shoots a fight scene in super close-ups so you can never tell what the hell is going on. It just didn't quite live up to the rest of the script, which always had me guessing.

But still man, this script was really good. Herman crafts tons of lines like this one, where Rett responds to an officer telling him to stay strong: "Maybe put your own child in a hole sometime. Throw a little dirt on top. See how strong it makes you."

Really top-notch stuff. This one's a keeper. Check it out.

[ ] trash
[ ] barely kept my interest
[ ] worth the read
[x] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: This is a good lesson. Too many writers try to break in with their low-concept scripts. But the reality is, even if these scripts are great, agents and producers know they'll have a tough time selling them, particularly if the person's a first-time writer and doesn't have the track record to justify the gamble. Herman busted in with a way more commercial bank-heist spec a few weeks earlier - something an executive knew he could sell. Now that Herman had a track record around town, he was able to bust out the less commercial "Rites Of Men," and people trusted him enough to buy it. Go in first with your high-concept or highly marketable idea. Once you've made the sale, then bust out the character piece. There are cases of doing it the other way around, but they're few and far between.

Odysseus

Genre: Historical Action/Adventure
Premise: A forgotten king fights to take back his kingdom.
About: These days it's hard to find bidding wars in Hollywood. Studios are getting cheap. But Friday was an exception as Warner Brothers battled it out with Paramount for the spec script, "Odysseus". I'm not sure how much it sold for but I assume it's a lot. Now an interesting little tidbit. The script is being directed by Joseph Liebesman, who also happens to be directing another script I reviewed on Scriptshadow. A little script called "Battle: L.A." I'm not going to go any further than to say Liebesman might want to get Peacock to rewrite that one.
Writer: Ann Peacock

Sometimes The Scriptshadow must wield his power over The Hollywood. He must show them that his fingers can reach deep into the center of the beast, and rip from its body any organ he so chooses. Today's organ of choice? Odysseus, a script that was sold less than 16 hours ago! Reviewed for you here. On a Saturday. On a fucking Saturday! A day I was supposed to have off!!! Damn you Hollywood! DAMN YOU ALL TO HELLLLLLLLL!!!

I guess this is what happens when you receive a script on a day when you've already read three. So before I fall into a heap of exhausted slumber, let us get in our time machines, and head back to the ancient times. To Greece (or somewhere near there anyway).

Ithica is a beautiful island off in the middle of the sea. Its people have lived without their king, Odysseus, for 20 years, as he never returned from the Trojan War and is assumed dead. But the peaceful Ithicanians (?) are in for a rude surprise, as an army of bloodthirsty warriors, led by the Ancient Greek version of Darth Vadar, ANTONINUS, arrive on the island. The Ant Man is both a mystery and a terror. And his horse will piss on your face (no seriously, he will).

This army of ancient douchebags slaughter the locals like chickens in a chicken pen and overtake Odysseus' castle without so much as raising a finger. There, Antoninus captures Odysseus' wife Penelope, and his son, Telemachus, and begins his rule over the land.

After years go by, a starving weak bearded man washes ashore, a man who it doesn't take long for us to realize is Odysseus. He's finally come back to his kingdom. But what he finds there instead, is an island destroyed and decimated. If Odysseus wants his kingdom and his queen back, he's going to have to fight for it.

The first thing that struck me when I opened this script was the page count. It comes in at a lean 90 pages. Yes! 90 pages! I can't remember the last time I read a 90 page script. It seems like every script these days is 117 pages. But this wasn't done to appease my lack of sleep. It was done to keep the story moving as fast as possible. This is the first script I've read in awhile where there were no unncessary scenes. Every inch of real estate here had a purpose and it's an awesome decision. The script flies like a Greek eagle.

Every character here is compelling. Odysseus' people hate him because he never came back from the war. Why didn't he? Queen Penelope must live with the sadness that her husband never loved her enough to come back. Telemachus, Odysseus' son, must serve Antoninus or his mother will be killed. And there are many great secondary characters sprinkled throughout the script.

I think the moment I really knew I was dealing with a professional was when Odysseus began planning how to take back the kingdom. Soonafter, Antoninus orders a child from every household to be murdered in 24 hours if Odysseus is not captured. This does a couple of things. It turns his own people against him. But more importantly, it forces Odysseus to speed up his plan drastically - in effect, giving him an impossible timeframe to acheive his task. This is what good writing is about. Creating an extreme sense of urgency where the stakes are incredibly high. So few writers do that these days. I was very impressed.

Another nice surprise was Antoninus, who could have easily been a stereotype villain but who we learn actually has a pretty compelling reason to be doing all this to Odyssesus.

I don't know if you're a Braveheart lover like me. But remember the scene where William Wallace comes back to the village after his wife is slaughtered? Well the final 40 pages are like an extended version of that.

As you know, I haven't read anything that's really excited me in awhile. Sloshing through these top-selling scripts of 2008 all week, I was beginning to think that nobody at the studios knew what the hell they were talking about. But Odysseus definitely deserved the bidding war it received. Great script and very impressed.

[ ] trash
[ ] barely kept my interest
[ ] worth the read
[x] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned from Odysseus: This script is the perfect example of no wasted space. Every scene is important to the story. There are no vanity scenes. Every scene has momentum and purpose.