MIAMI VICE: THE ABRIDGED SCRIPT™
By Rod Hilton
FADE IN:
INT. CLUB - MIAMI
JAMIE FOXX and COLIN FARRELL walk around a club, acting COOL. They nod toward each other a lot and point toward BAD GUYS.
JAMIE FOXX
Sweet. Most action movies these days open with a huge action sequence to establish the heroes. This must be ours.
Suddenly, COLIN gets a phone call.
COLIN FARRELL
Yeah? You want us to abruptly abandon this scene in favor of a boring one? It involves characters we don't know yet and therefore don't care about? We'll be right there.
They leave and meet up with SOME FREAKED-OUT DUDE
SOME FREAKED-OUT DUDE
She's gonna die, man, she's gonna die! They took her! It's not going to work! He did it!
COLIN FARRELL
How about not conforming to the "guy so anxious that he only speaks in pronouns" cliche and just telling the audience what the hell is going on?
SOME FREAKED-OUT DUDE
I was working undercover. The bad guys took my wife. I need to go to her.
Suddenly, JAMIE gets a phone call.
JAMIE FOXX
Actually, you don't need to go to her anymore.
SOME FREAKED-OUT DUDE
Wow, a witty quip delivered dramatically to maximize shock value is definitely the best way imaginable to tell someone their wife is dead. Thanks Jamie.
(kills himself)
With nobody left on screen, JAMIE and COLIN have nobody to talk to except each other. Worried that this would possibly create an ounce of chemistry between the two leads, DIRECTOR MICHAEL MANN ends the scene.
JAMIE and COLIN go undercover as drug runners to get close to JOHN ORTIZ who works for LUIS TOSAR, who also employs the ARYAN BROTHERHOOD, who ran the deal that FREAKED-OUT dude was working undercover on.
COLIN FARRELL
That's it? That's the what links the thing that happened earlier to the whole working-as-drug-runners plot?
JAMIE FOXX
Are we just going to ignore the fact that the Aryan Brotherhood is working for a Spanish guy?
COLIN FARRELL
Oops, did we just talk to each other?
JAMIE FOXX
End the scene, quick!
FLASH CUT TO:
INT. SOME UNDERGROUND LAIR
JAMIE and COLIN meet with JOHN ORTIZ. It almost seems like an action scene might break out, but it never does.
JOHN ORTIZ
Why should we hire you to run our drugs? Who the fuck knows you?
COLIN FARRELL
Well, my mommy and daddy know me.
JAMIE FOXX
Er...
JOHN ORTIZ
What? Was that supposed to be a clever comeback? That sounds like the kind of line that gets put into a script with a note next to it saying "Fix this placeholder Line - have Colin say something witty here!"
COLIN FARRELL
I am rubber. You're glue, baby.
JOHN ORTIZ
Whatever. We'll hire you, but only on the condition that you stupidly get romantically involved with my partner Li Gong, who both I and my boss apparently have a crush on.
JAMIE FOXX
Done.
LI GONG
Oooh Colin, your mullet is so cute.
COLIN FARRELL
Let's visibly flirt in front of John Ortiz as much as possible.
JAMIE FOXX
Let's go meet Luis Tosar, who serves no purpose that John Ortiz couldn't have served.
They DO. It's uneventful. COLIN and LI go to Cuba for a while to hang out and waste time.
LI GONG
I can't believe that this movie is forty-five minutes in and there hasn't been one single action scene. No shootout, no fistfight, no car chase, no boat chase, nothing.
COLIN FARRELL
And now the movie isn't even taking place in Miami.
LI GONG
Let's have sex. There will be some weirdness as to who is manipulating who, but it's not like anyone cares.
COLIN FARRELL
Look, boobs!
Eventually, JAMIE'S WIFE is kidnapped!
JOHN ORTIZ
That's for sleeping with my girl, Colin!
COLIN FARRELL
What? You kidnapped Jamie's wife, what the hell do I care?
JOHN ORTIZ
Oh. Well, I have your wife, Jamie Foxx. Bring the drugs where I want or she dies.
JAMIE FOXX
You managed to look up who my wife is and where she lives, but still failed to find out that I'm a cop? Is it even possible to be that stupid?
They go to RESCUE JAMIE'S WIFE. Everyone busts into the trailer where she is being held.
BIG THUG
Oh no, the good guys! Perhaps it's finally time for an actual gunfight in the movie.
He is SHOT in the HEAD and DIES. That's the entire action sequence. Then it ENDS, for fucksake.
EXT. SOME FIELD
JAMIE and COLIN meet JOHN and his HUGE GANG OF THUGS.
JOHN ORTIZ
Looks like it's finally time for a huge gun battle. And, conforming to the cliche, the good guys are hopelessly outnumbered and must outwit and outshoot the bad guys to survive.
Suddenly, thirty million extra good guys show up and kill the crap out of the bad guys.
JAMIE FOXX
Well, it looks like everyone is safe and all of the bad guys are dead.
COLIN FARRELL
Well, except that main bad guy that John worked for that we met. He's still around. Oh, and Li of course, who was a druglord, even if she was cute. Oh, and that bad guy from the beginning of the movie that we stopped chasing so we could watch our friend kill himself.
JAMIE FOXX
Did we just talk to each other again?
COLIN FARRELL
Shit, end the movie!
END
Copyright 2006 Rod Hilton. All Rights Reserved. This document may be reproduced verbatim (allowing censorship and translation) as long as the author's name is preserved and this notice is either preserved or referenced.
