TITLE: SOCOM: SPECIAL OPERATIONS COMMAND DRAFT DATE: April 2004
AUTHOR: William Davis COVERAGE DATE: 11/15/05
4
ICM STORY DEPARTMENT COVERAGE
TITLE: SOCOM: SPECIAL OPERATIONS COMMAND / LOCALE: Kentucky / Misc. USA/ ColombiaAUTHOR(s): William Davis / SETTING: Military Base / Jungle
WRITER A CLIENT?: No / PERIOD: Present
STUDIO: n/a / FORM: Screenplay
PRODUCER: n/a / BUDGET: High
PURPOSE: Packaging / DRAFT DATE: April 2004
ELEMENTS ATTACHED: n/a / COVERAGE DATE: 2/15/06
AGENT REQUESTING: Yablans / PREPARED BY: M. Johnson
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GENRE / PRIMARY: Action / ThrillerSECONDARY: Military
CHARACTER BREAKDOWNS:
TYLER McGEE (M/30s)
Handsome, brave Special Forces major who undertakes the missions no one else can handle. His work ruined his marriage, but he remains committed to fighting for his country.
CHARLES VINCENT GAULT (M/40s)
Rugged, amoral ex-soldier turned international terrorist who harbors a deep dislike for the United States and is willing to kill millions of innocents for the right price.
GEORGE “DOC” HAYES (M/30s-40s)
Tough, laconic Special Forces soldier and Tyler’s right-hand man. Would rather spend his days alone on his remote wooded property, but is willing to put his life on the line when his country needs him.
COLONEL BENJAMIN CROSS (M/50s)
Gruff, athletic older man who calls on Tyler to lead a squad to bring Gault to justice. Willing to bend the rules, and the law, to ensure the nations’ safety.
LAURA WINSLOW (F/20s-30s)
Beautiful, spoiled British rich girl who tired of the socialite’s life and has become Gault’s partner in crime, ruthlessly carrying out terrorist operations worldwide.
PETER HAYES (M/30s)
Cool, eagle-eyed sniper on Tyler’s squad. His calm demeanor belies his fighting spirit.
LOGLINE:
A crack team of Special Ops soldiers is sent in to stop a soldier-turned-terrorist who takes over a military base and threatens to use a deadly biological weapon.
SYNOPSIS:
Soldier-turned-terrorist CHARLES GAULT blows up a commercial airliner using a high-tech energy weapon. Meanwhile, Special Ops Major TYLER McGEE meets with Colonel CROSS at a military base. Cross asks McGee to assemble a team to hunt down Gault, who has become the world’s most dangerous terrorist, masterminding dozens of operations around the world. Gault works with spoiled English heiress LAURA WINSLOW, who helps to finance his operations. Tyler and Gault share a history: Gault ratted out Tyler’s covert ops team during a mission in Iraq, resulting in the death of two of Tyler’s men. Tyler calls his young son BILLY to say hello, but his ex-wife JENNIFER forbids him to contact Billy again without her permission. Gault and Laura plan an assault on the FORT CRAIG bio-weapons research facility.
Tyler finds his old friend DOC REEM kicking trespassing hunters off his remote property. He talks Reem into joining him in the hunt for Gault. Gault and his team of mercenaries break into Fort Craig and take it over with the help of a traitorous sergeant on the inside. Tyler and Doc watch a long-range shooting contest at a gun range, won by eagle-eyed sniper PETE HAYES. Pete joins the mission. Col. Cross calls Tyler and tells him that Gault has taken over Fort Craig. Cut to the jungles of COLOMBIA: Captain BOB KELLER leads a relief mission to a remote village, but he’s picked up by a chopper and flown out to join Tyler’s team. Tyler debriefs the assembled team in a hotel room, where they’re joined by fellow soldier HARRY LANDERS. In an extended flashback we see Hayes and Doc narrowly escaping from the Colombian jungle years before. Gault betrayed them, having been paid off by a drug cartel. Back in the present Hayes tells Tyler that the fight against Gault is personal, but Tyler warns him not to jeopardize the mission by pursuing his own vendetta.
Cross tells Tyler that American troops can’t be deployed on American soil without congressional approval, so the mission must be kept top-secret. Gault is threatening to launch a bio-weapon into the atmosphere that will kill millions on the East Coast. Gault and his men fight off an attack on the base by Army Rangers. Tyler and his squad rendevous with Cross and plan their attack on Fort Craig. Cross has sent Keller ahead to scout the base, so Tyler and his men arrange to meet up with him. Hayes finds a hilltop near the base to set up his sniper rifle, and the rest of the team approaches the base from the heavy woods around it. Doc begins the assault with his grenade launcher while the others cut through the base’s perimeter fence. A furious firefight begins as Tyler’s team advances on Gault’s mercenaries. Gault radios Cross and warns him that unless the attack stops he will detonate the bio-weapon.
Tyler fights his way into the building containing the bio-weapon launch controls, while Hayes continues to pick off mercenaries from his hilltop sniper position. Gault kills Harry and surrounds the bio-weapons building with his mercenaries, trapping Tyler and Keller inside. The two soldiers blast their way out, surprising Gault and his men. Gault tries to detonate the bio-weapon with a remote, but Hayes shoots his hand off from his sniper position. Gault retreats to a weapons depot with Laura. Laura shoots Doc as he approaches the depot with Tyler, but Hayes kills her from his sniper position. Tyler enters the depot, but Gault kills himself before Tyler can stop him. Doc reveals that his Kevlar armor stopped Laura’s bullets, and the team walks away from the base having saved the country from disaster.
COMMENTS:
SOCOM is an unapologetically high-testosterone action script that relies heavily on Tom Clancy-esque military detail and macho camaraderie to tell a story that is light on complexity but long on action. Unfortunately, the stock characterizations and uninspired plot rob prevent the script from becoming anything more than a pale shadow of countless other military action flicks.
The script wastes no time getting to the point as we watch Gault blow up an airliner using a vaguely futuristic energy weapon. We meet Tyler racing to the Army base in his sports car, the stereotypical lone wolf with a heart of gold who will do anything for his country. Cross’ description of Gault and his operation sounds too far-fetched to be believed, making him sound like the mastermind behind every bad thing that has happened anywhere for the last few years. The inclusion of Laura as a spoiled rich girl-turned-international terrorist only strains credulity further. Gault’s takeover of Fort Craig is too easy, lacking the ingenuity of other “impregnable fortress” movies like DIE HARD and THE ROCK. The script fares better when it focuses on Tyler’s recruitment of his team, but even then the plot is sacrificed in favor of extended flashbacks to past operations that rob the current scenario of any narrative momentum. The plot unfolds in predictable fashion once Tyler and his team arrive at Fort Craig to take out Gault, and the script lacks any surprising twists to make all the firefights worthwhile.
The characters are for the most part standard action movie archetypes, with the good guys all introduced as handsome and athletic, and all possessed of superior fighting skills. Doc is the only character who makes an impression, particularly when he disarms the hunters in his introductory scene, but his moments of levity don’t do much to alleviate the deadly serious tone of the script. Gault is a bland villain whose motives aren’t very interesting, and we never believe that Laura belongs at his side. The dialogue is passable, but relies too much on tech-heavy military lingo.
Overall, SOCOM keeps the action going at a steady pace, but unfortunately it’s in the service of an uninspired, predictable plot that feels like a throwback to earlier films like NAVY SEALS and DELTA FORCE. SOCOM fails to introduce compelling characters to compensate for the story’s shortcomings, and for this reason it does not warrant further consideration by International Creative Management.
PASS
EXCELLENT / VERY GOOD / GOOD / SO-SO / NOT GOODArtistically /
/ XX
Commercial / XX /
Premise / XX
Story / XX /
Main Characters / XX /
Minor Characters / XX /
Dialogue / XX
Visual Elements / XX /
Title /
XX
(SCRIPT) RECOMMEND: / CONSIDER: / PASS: (XX)(WRITER) RECOMMEND: / CONSIDER: / PASS: (XX)