Fascinating reading - this was a first draft of the script and on one hand you go "that was nominated for an Oscar?"... but on the other all the elements are there which eventually made the final film so memorable - the story is basically the same, so is the structure, it's got the same brilliant opening with a bunch of people wiped out including an innocent maid and child.
All the changes made in subsequent drafts were improvements - this draft features the wife's father, an abusive Vietnam vet who has his own subplot but it isn't that interesting (I get the thematic links but he basically just wants to reconnect to his daughter and that's it - when he dies you're kind of relieved). There's also some not very good on-the-nose dialogue between the married couple and between the family.Here Ritchie is a childhood friend who was left behind a la Angels With Dirty Faces and not a brother - brother is much better.
A comment I will make about this script and subsequent film - I don't really classify this is a searing indictment of violence because all the baddies in this film who die so clearly deserve to die. I had the same issue with The Unforgiven - the goodies don't kill any innocent by standers or people who may or may not be innocent. They're all bad even the horrible bully who picks on the kid.
Olson is a familiar face/name out there because of his "I will not read your f*cking script" rant and his many appearances on Trailers from Hell but he has a weird lack of credits.
No comments:
Post a Comment