| 08 October 2011
Based on a story by James Ellroy
“You know how you smoke out a sniper? You send a guy out in the open, and you see if he gets shot. They thought that one up at West Point.” – Samuel Fuller
What: It’s 1974 and the LAPD has concentrated its efforts in finding Donald “Cinque” DeFreeze, leader of the Symbionese Liberation Army.
Who: The officers of the 77th precinct, incorporating much of South Los Angeles, have been canvassing the neighborhoods in hopes of catching a lead on the hideout of the SLA. Officer Billy Burdette is a rarity, not just in the 77th but also in the LAPD. A well-spoken young black man, Billy is a law school graduate who eventually hopes to parlay his police experience and education into a seat on the city council or even further. His optimism is in direct opposition to the reality of his circumstances, recently made more complicated with the assignment of a new recruit, Chuck Lynley, as his trainee.
Lynley, recently discharged from the Marines, is highly skeptical of his black partner’s polite community relations ways, as he is from the LAPD roust-and-club-into-submission School of Hard Knocks. While Billy was out looking for the rapists of a neighborhood child, Lynley’s less polite approach led him directly to the drugged out rapists, whom he promptly dispatches with an untraceable straight razor. This direct approach has already caught the eye of several leaders in the department.
Franz: This is how it works: you're white, pushing thirty, got an okay collar record from NOHO-
Keefer: -- You take the exam... some friends backing you up...
Franz: ... You're third-grade before Christmas. Fuckin' sport coat and chinos.
Lynley: That's all there is to it?
Franz: Nobody's gonna cry for those boofers you wasted. We caught the case, and it's cold...
Keefer: For as long as we say.
Franz: (a thumb toward Keefer) This geriatric pulls his twenty soon... he's in Catalina, angling for Pike... I'm gonna need a new partner with stones.
Keefer: You wanna ride around with that jig, rousting hypes for the next two years?
Franz: Cream rises to the top... you're Robbery Homicide... we vouch for you.
Franz sticks out his hand... deal?
Lynley smiles, pumps it hard.
Franz: I'm your rabbi... you need anything, you come to me.
Burdette is a cipher to the blue collar Lynley. Burdette comes from a professional family; his father is a successful dentist and his beautiful sister a lawyer. Riding with Burdette is an education in dignity and class, an education that Lynley is not yet prepared to undergo; he is somewhat able to view Burdette as blue in color, but this doesn’t hold for the rest of the neighborhood on their watch.
When Officer Donny Miller is discovered dead, having first been tortured, in the garage of a house that Lynley and Burdette had earlier searched as part of their SLA investigation, the stakes are upped. Danny Miller was known as a sleaze on the take, with his hand in most of the criminal activities of the neighborhood, but he was a cop and the boys in blue close ranks among their own. Department policy – roust the locals.
Burdette and Lynley sit together in the sea of uniforms.
Murcott: You know why we're here. I'm handing it over to Lieutenant Rick Beddoes from RHD. He'll explain what we've got so far.
Murcott retreats.
Lieutenant Rick Beddoes, a tall white man, walks to the lectern. He taps the mike, raises static and speaks.
Beddoes: Miller was the daywatch floater. He always worked alone, and he always drove a Department F-car days, then switched to his civilian wheels at night. His F-car is back in the lot, pristine, and none of Miller's shit is in it. His civilian car's missing, along with all of Miller's canvassing sheets on the SLA.
A Cop raises his hand.
Cop: Have you checked Miller's recent arrests? Old arrests? Guys he sent to the joint?
Beddoes: Miller didn't make many arrests, so I don't buy that angle. Whatever the motive, he was tortured before he was shot. All his fingers and toes were broken.
The muster room rumbles. Beddoes taps the mic.
Beddoes: The SLA or black-guerilla fucks like that are our number one suspects, but we're staying open on our leads. We've got three teams from RHD to handle the black radical angle. Questions?
Burdette: (raising his hand) You thought about a personal angle? Miller was a scrounger and a freak.
The room freezes. Lynley grins. Partner's got balls.
Beddoes: Keep your character assessments to yourself, Burdette. (to the room) Miller was a brother officer. Don't be timid out there.
INT. 77TH PRECINCT OFFICE – DAY
Burdette and Lynley stand in front of Lieutenant Murcott's desk.
Murcott: (brusque) You're on Miller's car. Hit the chop shops and check the auto dumps and abandoned garages.
Burdette: Let us toss Miller's apartment.
Murcott: Nope.
Burdette: You said it's not personal... we'll inventory all his crap, free up manpower so you guys can work the SLA angle.
Murcott considers. He's heard worse ideas.
Murcott: Okay. But keep working your Oreo cover, and you come up with any SLA stuff you keep your dick in your pants and file asap. (to Lynley specifically) We want a strong presence out there. That means take no shit from God on down.
As the officers of the 77th pull apart their district looking for the SLA, the presumed killers of Miller, Burdette’s and Lynley’s investigation leads them down surprising and dangerous insider alleyways, a situation that will be fatal to life and career. There will be no winners here; only losers. But the quest for justice won’t be for Donny Miller.
No Meaner Place: This is the 1970’s, a less politically correct era where the cops still beat suspects with impunity and effective equal opportunity was still years away. Much like Ellroy’s other classic, “L.A. Confidential,” punches aren’t pulled in the portrayal of the Parker era police department, an era rife with corruption and racism, unaffected by the root causes of the Watts riots and the presence of an African American mayor.
Taut from start to finish, Matthews has vividly captured LA of the era and faithfully reproduced an Ellroy-esque tone to this visually vibrant thriller. Ironically, no less an “authority” as the New York Times has now anointed the present day LAPD a model force for the nation. Still, this story is an evergreen, standing the test of time. Whether set in LA during the Rampart Scandal years or in a present day rural Arizona border town, the substantive dilemma remains the same, regardless of whether the racist language is stated or implied. It’s a universal and tireless scenario: What if bad guys with guns are the ones who are supposed to be protecting us from the bad guys with guns?
Life Lessons for Writers: To paraphrase Captain Dudley Smith in “LA Confidential”: Don’t come to play in the City of Angels if you don’t have wings.
A Conversation with the Writer:
Neely: Great script! I wish I could have printed more, but I’m glad I could do this much. Did you get the option on the story or were you hired to write it?
David: Thanks so much. I was hired to write it.
Neely: Who initiated the project?
David: Dick Wolf and Tony Ganz at Wolf Films paid James Ellroy for an original script in 2001. For whatever reason, it wasn’t something they felt they could go out with because they needed it reworked. Then in 2008, I guess, they got in contact with me and asked me to do it.
Neely: It was an original piece that they hired Ellroy for, or was this an adaptation of one of his stories?
David: No it was the first original screenplay he’d ever tried his hand at.
Neely: I have to say that your ability to translate what the LAPD was like in 1974 is certainly the public perception of the old boys’ all-white network.
David: That was an important part of this – to play to the reality that it was a very different world then.
Neely: Tell us a bit about the producers. I now that there’s a Wolf Films division, but I didn’t know it as a viable entity.
David: What more does anyone need to know about Dick Wolf? He invented what we know as the police procedural, since the late 80’s. Nobody does cops like he does. And Tony is the head of Wolf Films.
This is the main project that they have been trying to get off the ground for almost a decade but they couldn’t find the right person to write it. I was the only other person they went to because they were just stymied. They’re putting all their weight behind it, not that Dick needs anything.
Neely: That’s the thing. When you’re working in a different medium, and film is definitely a different medium, it’s difficult. When you take someone out of their natural milieu, and for Wolf that’s television and more specifically procedurals, put him into a film that’s very character-based (because that is what you’ve produced – something very character-based), it doesn’t always work. Or, if it does work, it does take a long time.
David: Of course.
Neely: How did they find you?
David: I had written a movie for Tony’s wife, Gail Mutrux, with Ben Stiller originally attached as the star. George C. Wolff was going to direct it. I wrote that for them based on a recommendation by David Simon.
Gail is married to Tony Ganz and she left the script on her nightstand. He read it and wanted to know who wrote it. She told him and he asked, “Do you think he’d want to do this rewrite? We’re having trouble finding the right writer for this James Ellroy thing.” She said, “Give him a call.” And that’s how it happened.
Neely: Is Gail an established film producer?
David: Yeah. She’s at Pretty Pictures. They did “The Shape of Things,” “Kinsey” and “Nurse Betty,” and now they’re doing “The Danish Girl.”
Neely: Had you worked with any of them before?
David: No. I got lucky as hell.
Neely: How did Gail find you?
David: Through David Simon. She asked him to write the Ben Stiller movie for her. Simon had read one of my books and was a big fan, and he said, “I’m not the guy you want to write this. I just read the guy. Call him and see if he’ll do it.”
Neely: We’ll discuss those books a bit later. But let’s get back to “77.” They already had something (by Ellroy) but they felt it needed a change in direction. Did they give you any indication on what kind of change they were looking for?
David: There were many discussions. The plot needed to be simplified because the kind of plot complexities that Ellroy describes are good in a book but need streamlining in a movie. So it was really picking one thing that could hinge the action, following that through and building that up from the beginning; as opposed to having 5 or 6 different threads that could go off in different directions. That was mainly it. I knew enough to know that some of the characters had to be fixed, but the plot stuff was actually harder.
Neely: How closely did you hew to the Ellroy original? How did you decide what to take and what to let go?
David: Ellroy’s a master of the LA police procedural and is great at making very labyrinthine plots and he populates his work with a lot of richness and context. Sometimes that doesn’t play in a filmic sense because there’s just too much to digest in two hours. So I just really streamlined. We had to find what the plot was going to be about. There were many many strands in his version, so we whittled it down to something that had a clear thru line and was propulsive and people could follow, which is just as important.
I kept most of his characters, but whittled some plot stuff down to make the journey clearer. I also imbued it with a slightly different take on the events... it was a page one re-write, but still beats with that Ellroy heart.
Neely: Did you read any of Ellroy’s other LA crime novels? I’m a huge fan of Joseph Wambaugh’s complex portrayal of cops from that era. Have you read any Wambaugh?
David: I’m a big fan of all of Ellroy’s stuff, especially The Black Dahlia. And I grew up with Wambaugh... The Onion Field, The New Centurions, The Glitter Dome... those guys—along with George Pellecanos, Ross Macdonald, Don Westlake, Ed McBain, Dennis Lehane, Richard Price... they’re in my DNA.
Neely: What would you say was your greatest hurdle in adapting this for the screen?
David: I think the math – the plot math was the hardest to figure out. This happens and then this happens - making it have organic, thematic and character sense. That was really the hardest part.
A procedural is a procedural in some ways and you have to be true to some of the things in the genre because people expect it, because the world has to feel right. But you also want it to feel like they haven’t seen it a million times before.
Plus the plot and character stuff had to intersect in a way that didn’t dilute Ellroy’s unique vision of LA. It’s a tricky balancing act.
Neely: Dick Wolf is known for his mastery of the procedural and this is all character. This film is quite a major departure for him. What do you think attracted him to the project?
David: I think this is rich in detail, character and world in a way that few police films have been for the last several years... a kind of return to the 70’s feel of the cop movie. Dick loves the world of complicated men in blue, and the forces at work on them from within and without.
Neely: What kind of input did he give you at the various stages of this script?
David: I didn’t really ever deal with Dick, just Tony. Dick weighed in when he got the re-write. He was one of the last people in the process to read it and said it was the best rewrite he’d ever read. A week later they went out to their agents. Pretty soon after that, they got Russell Crowe on board.
Neely: In your dealings with Tony, because he was more your point person on this, what were some of the comments he had throughout the drafts?
David: It was a yearlong process. He just wanted to keep the vision of South Central authentic in time and place and have it be something that we hadn’t seen before on film.
Neely: What kind of research did you do to get that authenticity?
David: I went back and forth to LA. But besides that, if you’re steeped in the genre and you’ve done a lot of reading and watched a lot of cop shows and procedurals, some of that stuff just gets into your bloodstream and it’s easy to pull from that. I’m a writer so it’s my job to dream up stuff the way I think it should be.
Neely: I have books and authors that come to mind in terms of influence, but besides Ellroy, because obviously this is his milieu as previously explored in L.A. Confidential, who else?
David: Mostly film would have influenced me more than any books, but I’m sure Ross McDonald, George Pelecanos, Denis Lehane, guys like that; but not in an overt way. It’s a different muscle for me, writing movies. A lot of the literary stuff goes out the window in some ways. It would have been mostly movies that influenced me more than anything. And that would just be the whole 70s canon from “French Connection” to “Dirty Harry.” Any of the good stuff from back then.
Neely: And Joseph Wambaugh?
David: Absolutely. Filmically, I’m sure “The Onion Field” found its way into the script as well.
Neely: He’s my favorite cop writer.
David: He’s very very good.
Neely: One thing that was particularly intriguing is that Russell Crowe, who really caught fire because of his role as a corrupt cop in “LA Confidential,” is on board as director for the film.
David: Yup, this is a great thematic bookend to Bud White, his character from “LA Confidential.” It’s full circle in terms of theme and scope and cultural context. He’s also starring, which will be great.
Neely: Who is he planning on playing?
David: He’s going to be the lead, Lynley.
Neely: (emphatically) He’s too old for Lynley!
David: We’re rewriting the script. It’s actually a very simple fix. Instead of having a guy starting out and trying to get ahead, he’s a guy whose shot has already passed and who’s trying to have one last go at working his way up the ladder before it’s actually too late.
Neely: That is actually a better, more complex take on the whole thing. It deepens the character unbelievably.
David: We’re really excited about it. It’s fortuitous he signed on.
Neely: I’m aware that you are presently a story editor on “Law and Order SVU.” And by the way, they should have made you, at the very least, a producer.
David: (laughing) Producing comes with a whole host of headaches. This way I get to write my three, four scripts for the season and do anything else I want. The producers are the ones who are there at 11:00 at night.
Neely: Put that way, that’s a good deal.
I was unaware of any of your previous experience.
David: I’ve written two books, several scripts, and, like I just mentioned, I’m also Story Editor on “Law and Order SVU.”
Neely: What are those books and what are they about?
David: The first book is called Ace of Spades. It’s a memoir. Google it.
And the second book just came out in July. It’s called Kicking Ass and Saving Souls. Both are non-fiction.
Neely: Are they “you-centric?
David: The first one is me-centric and the second one is sort of an action-biography-thriller.
Neely: Who’s the central character of that one?
David: A kid I grew up with who grew up to become an international jewel thief, mixed martial artist and, ultimately, humanitarian.
Neely: (laughing) Wow.
I know you wrote several other scripts. How far along in the process did they get?
David: Most of them were right after I went film school in the late 90s. I wrote 6 or 7 scripts and made 20 pilgrimages out to LA. I always had great representation. But everyone was always like – “everything you write is too dark and too small. You have to write bigger.”
I was talking to my screenwriting agent, at ICM at the time, about my life story. My dad was a black militant and my mom was Jewish. So he said, “Let’s put a pin in the screenwriting because that story is way more interesting than anything you’re going to dream up. Why don’t you write a memoir?”
So I wrote a proposal; there was a bidding war; and then all of a sudden I was a “real” author instead of a screenwriter, and all I’d ever wanted to be was a screenwriter. Luckily because of the books, people then got interested in me as a screenwriter. I think they had the mindset – if you can write a book, you can certainly write a screenplay.
Neely: Which, as a matter of fact, is not correct at all; but in your case it is.
Has anybody optioned your two books?
David: The reason I may have to get off the phone soon is that there’s some studio interest in the book that just came out in July. A number of studios are setting up meetings with me to figure out who and where and when and all that stuff. The first book is very very literary and there’s no real way to make it into a movie. But the principal reason that I wrote Kicking Ass and Saving Souls was because I thought it should be a movie. So yes, the second one, I imagine will be set up somewhere fairly soon.
Neely: And with any luck and good agenting, you’ll be the one writing it.
I love “77” and have been chasing you for a while. What stage are the producers at with the project at this point?
David: Russell is shooting “Superman” in Vancouver or Chicago (I’m not sure which). As soon as he gets a break from “Superman” we’re going to be meeting up. I was going to fly out to New Zealand in July, but he literally got the job the week I was supposed to come out. He had to meet with Zack Snyder.
So we’ve pushed to October or December because Russell just wants us in a room together for a week to nail down the new version of Lynley who’s a little a bit older. He wants some personal Russell things in there – like what kind of car would Lynley drive or how the character might do this or that. Having certain details in the script helps him lay things out because he’s directing.
Neely: Who has taken charge of raising the money?
David: Geez, that stuff is above my pay-grade. I just write, and they tell me when to get on a plane or answer a phone call. They’re all confident we’ve got a great film on paper, and a great leading man/director, so they’re making all the right moves behind the scenes. I really don’t involve myself in that end of things. If it’s not writing, it’s a distraction.
Neely: Come on. You have to have more interest in the process than that.
David: Well… going back to the movie that was set up with Ben Stiller and George C. Wolfe, I was pretty involved very early on in the process. Who were we going to cast and who would be the co-star and when were we going to shoot? The producers had already started drawing up a schedule for it.
And then there was a series of Hollywood misadventures. Ben had just finished a film called “Greenberg,” where, for the first time he played someone middle aged. The part he was going to play in my movie was someone much younger – a young, sort of yuppie coming-into-adulthood. He just realized that the days of him playing a 30 year old were over.
So, despite the fact that we had had a big table read in LA with a bunch of very big potential co-stars and character actors, complete with the carved fruit table and the lobster and the sparkling water, it just wound up not happening. One minute it was there, and we were trying to figure out what month we were going to shoot. The next minute it didn’t exist.
So I determined after that that anything that isn’t writing is none of my concern. I wasted months and months and months. And the producers were heartbroken because they had been working on it for years before I even got involved. It’s just a situation where I have no control. It’s like waiting for a meteor to hit the earth. There’s nothing you can do about it, so live your life.
Neely: That’s a very sane position to take. It could, eventually, still happen. Obviously there are so many things that can go wrong along the way, but in features, nothing’s ever dead completely. It’s more like a long hibernation.
David: That’s true. But I just learned, especially from that, that when it’s star-driven vehicle, if Russell goes skiing and breaks his hip, there’s no more movie. I’m grateful for the interest anyone and everyone has shown in it. I’m pretty confident that once they go out with it they’ll be able to raise the money. But it’s nothing I allow myself to think about because otherwise I’d be online shopping for cars and figuring out where my house in the Hollywood Hills was going to be. I will only do that once I’ve bought a ticket at the multiplex for the movie that I wrote that’s playing there. Until then… nothing exists.
Neely: Does having Russell Crowe on board facilitate the fundraising?
David: I dunno. I mean, he’s one of the biggest stars in the world, so I imagine it’s not a bad thing...
Neely: Will you be going to AFM to sell distribution rights?
David: Again... no idea... I don’t even know what AFM is... I hate to sound thick, but I’ve found if you start getting too involved with that end of things, then you ain’t writing... and if you ain’t writing... you get my drift...
Neely: I definitely do. I’d like to continue this conversation and get into some of your background. So stay tuned.
