TITLE: THE ILLEGAL AMERICAN GENRE: THRILLER AUTHOR: JAMES MCQUEEN CIRCA: 2014 FORM: PDF LOCALE: N/A DRAFT DATE: 2/10/16 BUDGET: N/A DRAFT NUMBER: 3 ANALYST: STEPHEN SCHROEDER DATE: 2/15/16 LOGLINE: A washed up, ex-military man is on the run after taking a stand against a notorious Mexican drug cartel. COMMERCIAL POTENTIAL: This script has all the necessary elements to be an effective and entertaining action thriller. However, structural flaws may hinder the process. EXCELLENT GOOD FAIR POOR PREMISE X CHARACTERS X DIALOGUE X STORYLINE X STRUCTURE X COMMENTS: The story is intriguing; however, rewrites would be necessary to fix the structural flaws that exist. RECOMMENDATIONS SCRIPT (Recommend/Consider/Pass): PASS WRITER (Recommend/Consider/Pass): PASS

SYNOPSIS: A notorious drug cartel has just burnt “Casino Real” in Guadalajara, Mexico. Police begin investigations with few leads and no suspects. NICK GARRISON returns home to his apartment and drinks himself deeper and deeper into a trauma induced depression. He works at a shipping yard but lately he’s been skipping work to drink and visit his girlfriend KARLA who is a stripper at a local night club. Nick spends most of his time with Karla, although they sleep together, their relationship appears disfunctional at best. While walking home from work one day, Nick comes across a burning building. One of the survivors, who is been severely burned, stumbles over to Nick and whispers something in his ear that he doesn’t understand. EMT officers arrive and tend to the burn victim. Nick is shaken by this experience and confides in Karla. Officers ALEJANDRO RAMIREZ and a man titled OLD COP, sit in a patrol car. Here they meet EL JUDIO, henchmen for the Mexican drug cartel. He gives them an envelope full of cash for their cooperation with the cartel. El Judio meets up with OSO and PERALTA, the cartel leader and his righthand man, OSO. They plan their attack on a local café. Nick and Karla are enjoying lunch together when El Judio and his men raid the café. Here Nick takes a stand against the men after El Judio approaches Karla. Nick kills two of El Judio’s men before police arrive at the scene and arrest El Judio. Nick is detained for killing the men at the diner. While at the police station, Nick meets DETECTIVE RAMIREZ the brother of Alejandro Ramirez. Detective Ramirez commends Nick for his bravery and thanks him for saving his brother by allowing Nick to leave. Nick is happy to be leaving but he knows that he is no longer safe. After Nick leaves the station Detective Ramirez confronts his brother about his apparent involvment with the cartel. He threatens his younger brother. Meanwhile, Nick and Karla continue to get to know each other better. Nick finally agrees to meet some of her relatives. They meet her cousin, JAVIER and later meet her grandmother ABUELA. Abula spends time with Nick and approves of him. Javier seems found of him as well. They leave Abuela’s house feeling closer than ever. Days later, El Judio has been released from prison and is greeted by Oso. Oso escorts him to Peralta who chastizes El Judio for drawing so much attention to the cartel’s opperations. Peralta commands El Judio to kill Nick and anyone close to him. El Judio immediately goes to the night club to take Karla. Nick is dropping her off at work when he sees El Judio approaching. He tries to protect Karla but they are broken up by El Judio’s thugs and must fend for themselves. While Nick takes on El Judio’s men and tries to get to Karla, she must fight El Judio’s men. She eventually wards off the men and Nick finds her. He calls Detective Ramirez who tells him he must flee the country to escape El Judio. Karla realizes that they must warn Abuela before the cartel gets to her. Alverez and his men arrive at Abuela’s house and confront her. They call Karla and let her speak to Abuela before burning the house to the ground with Abuela inside. After hanging up the phone, Nick realizes that they are being trailed by El Judio’s men. A dangerous car chase insues. Nick and Karla barely escape thanks to help from Detective Ramirez. Detective Ramirez helps plan Nick and Karla’s escape from Mexico. After the car chase, Karla appears to be in some discomfort. Nick takes her to a hospital where they learn she is pregnant. El Judio and Peralta plan their next move after nearly disposing of

Nick. They call in THE INQUISITOR, who uses his technological skills to learn the current location of Karla and Nick. After learning of the pregnancy, Nick proposes to Karla. She accepts, and the two are married. However, El Judio and Peralta are close behind. They have tracked Nick and Karla to Monterrey and they are positioned outside the hotel in which Nick and Karla are staying. Thugs infiltrate the room and Nick battles with Peralta and his men. He fights gallently trying to keep Karla safe but he is forced to leave her in the heat of battle. Nick eventually escapes the fire fight and flees the scene. He receives a call from OFFICER GONZOLO who informs him that they have arrived at the hotel and detained Peralta and his men. He also tells Nick that they have recovered Karla’s body and that she and the baby are dead. Nick then flees the country for good, making his way and crossing into America illegally.

Although this story has the desired qualities of an effective action thriller, there are a number of structural flaws that make this a difficult script to recommend. The script suffers an identity crisis throughout. It fails to balance the action and romance that exist in the plot of the story. The opening is effective in that it leads us to believe that we will be seeing an action thriller similar to SAVAGES or SICARIO. However at after the opening the audience is lulled into a love story between an alcoholic and his girlfriend. These are not bad storylines to include in a script but the story fails due to its lack of structure. We are introduced to far too many one dimensional characters who do nothing other than move the story from point A to point B. Even main supposed main characters like OSO, El JUDIO, and PERALTA don’t have enough motivation in the script to warrant any negative or positive feelings from the audience. These characters simply show up with no effective entrance and no real reasons why the audience should dislike them other than the fact that they are “bad guys”. Too many of these characters (some that I didn’t even mention in the synopsis) fail to contribute anything throughout the course of the script. They are present one moment and gone the next leaving the audience unable to form any sort of connection with them. Although, the chemistry between KARLA and NICK is strong, they spend countless scenes together talking about repetative information. Most of their interactions further their love story without furthering the overall plot. We spend the entire script with Nick and Karla and we are still left wondering whether or not Karla dies in the end. There is too much ambiguity to make this script sellable in its current state. In addition to its plot structural flaws, the script suffers from countless formatting issues. Its long blocks of dialog make for a slow read and confusing narrative. Characters names are not even capitalized upon entrance. These are simple flaws that made the script appear juvinile at best. The script did however possess desirable elements of suspense and action with the well constructed car chases and fights between Nick and Peralta’s thugs. Unfortunately, every time there was an effective action sequence it was followed by a long conversation of little importance that slowed the momentum of the script. As of now the script is a mess of romance and action thrown together in a story that is clearly first draft quality. In conclusion, this script possesses positive qualities that would work great in any action thriller. Action, suspense, sex, love, and violence are all present which makes for an enticing beginning to the script. However, the script lacks a definitive voice and a sellable structure in its current stage of development. If this concept is to be pursued any further it must be restructured and rewritten by someone with more experience.