Movie Script #1
“Archipelago”
by Robert J. M. Henderson
Synopsis: American (tall, good looking, stoic, athlete, weapons expert, linguist, similar in demeanor to Eric Bana’s character in Blackhawk Down) uses his cover as an legitimate oil trader/businessman based in Singapore to work as a pirate captain in the SouthChinaSeas, mostly based out of Thailand, but with a Philippino/Thai crew. An action movie with international spice, a love interest and a little introspective brooding into the hero’s thoughts/feelings.
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INTERIOR AIRPLANE – BUSINESS CLASS SECTION –MORNING
Steve, atall, good-looking mid-30’s Westerner(American accent) in a business suit, puts on his sunglasses, stows his Economist in his flight bag, flashes a winning smile as he takes a phone number from the very attractive stewardess.
STEVE
“I’ll be sure to give you a call next time I’m in Singapore”
STEWARDESSS
Giggling, “Sounds good, so nice to meet you.”
Steve then quickly walks off the Thai Airways flight moving towards Customs. Once there he flashes his well-worn U.S. passport.
CUSTOMS AGENT
“Purpose of visit?”
STEVE
“On holiday, plan to be here for about a week”
CUSTOMS AGENT
“OK, go ahead.”
Afterexiting customs, he heads out and grabs a cab.
CABBIE
In heavily-accented English “Where to buddy?”
STEVE
“Downtown Hilton Hotel.”
Sights and sounds of Bangkok traffic and streets. (credits rolling) Within sight of the Hilton, but before reaching it.
STEVE
“Drop me off here.”
CABBIE
“But Hilton is up there”
STEVE
“It’s okay, this is far enough.”
Steve waits for the cabbie to drive off, looks around briefly, then walks back down the main street to a quiet side street and lets himself into a triple locked, nondescript door. Inside is a sparsely furnished apartment. He looks around and ensures that the place is undisturbed, then drops his bags and sighs. After that, it’s all business; exchanging cell phones, stashing his passport and other valuables in a floor safe, selecting a fake German passport, making a few short calls in German, Thai and English on different cell phones, losing the business suit and putting on jeans, boots, long-sleeved shirt, etc. including a holstered 9MM and a knife in his right boot.
Stepping outside with different shades on and a well worn non-descriptbaseball hat. Walking down the side streets for a ways before grabbing a cab to Pattaya.
STEVE
Speaking in German accent to cabbie, “Take me to 45 luaise Pehneumr street”
CABBIE
Trying to strike up a conversation, “Where you from?, you want girls?, what kind of bar are you looking for?”
STEVE
At first ignoring the cabbie and then tersely saying, “Just shut up and drive!” in fluent Thai. The cabbie gets the picture and drives in silence the rest of the way.
They enter a seedy bar district and Steve gets out on a corner. Waits for the cabbie to drive away and then walks back a bit towards a non-descript dive bar, walks in,and two young girls (the proprietor’s daughters) run up to him,
DAUGHTERS
“Hello, hello Uncle Mikie!, did you bring us any presents?”
Sure enough he’s got lollipops and some other small treats for them in his backpack. Walks to the backroom, where the proprietor is sitting reading the paper by himself.
STEVE
“So, Johnny, how’s business?”
JOHNNY
“not so bad Mike, busy tourist season as always…”
STEVE
“Good, good. Are we all set?”
JOHNNNY
“Yep, fueled up and ready to go. Looks like you’re all business. So, what’s the plan?”
STEVE
“Johnny, you know better than to ask me that here…Hey Mei, grab me a Coke!...let’s head out.” Coke signs are there on the wall in the bar.
Johnny and Steve drive in a small beat up van down to the dock, hop onto an older ~35 foot fishing boat, brief glimpse of 2-3 Thai crewmen,some very nice engines in back and a few extra drums of fuel. Boat quickly heads out of the crowded harbor and Steve heads below.
STEVE
“Okay, let’s see what Santa Claus brought to us this Christmas....” he says, as Johnny and a second man slide over the bunk beds belowdecks and open the crates secreted below. He pulls out eight AK-47’s, an RPG, and a few hand grenades,
STEVE
“excellent, these are straight from the Chinese military, right?”
JOHNNY
“yep, just got them in from Burma last week, totally clean, Chin came through good.”
STEVE
Steve grunts, “for the money I pay him, he better!” “let’s make sure we only use the right ammo too.” Steve’s all business and extremely emotionless.
JOHNNY
“Yeah, yeah, all set boss.”
Boat heads south out of the harbor and twelve hours later (nighttime) pulls up in a small fishing village alongside a larger oil freighter which is anchored a bit offshore. Johnny and Steve climb up the ladders, watch the crates start getting pulled up and then head down to the galley. Funny heavy Philippino chef greets them,
CHEF
“hay bass, you goin’ eat my hot pepper curry again?, everybody else ‘fraid of it! You only white man who have iron stomach for it!”
STEVE
“sure Lok, just don’t be givin’ the crew the shits before a big job like you did that one time!!”
CHEF
“Ha Hah, good one bass! I be careful!”
Some more banter back and forth, etc. Motley crew said hello to and checked up on by Steve. One guy wants to get his cousin on-board,
CREWMEMBER
“Hey Johnny, we’ve been going real good on these trips now, making good dollar and I want to get my cousin hired on, what you think?
JOHNNY
“I think you’d better keep your mouth shut around your cousin! All that your cousin needs to know is that you’re a journeyman sailor, nothing more, nothing less! Only Mike makes decisions on who joins the crew and he wants no talking about it at all, is that understood!”
Meanwhile Steve hasheaded down to a locked cabin, pulls out a separate GPS, satellite phone, etc. from backpack. Quick call to someone in broken English, checking co-ordinates on GPS. Goes outside to find Johnny
STEVE
“Let’s ship out and then get some rest, you need to stay fresh.”
Steve then heads back to the cabin and takes a nap himself as the ship sets sail.
Later on Steve heads down to engine room, character of an old Thai guy there, banter… used to work on Navy boats during Vietnam era, so many children has to keep working, etc. Reviews the status of the massive engines, it becomes clear that this freighter can haul ass when needed. (Millennium Falcon comparison) Small fracas in mess room between the guys, Steve busts ass to clear it up, makes it very clear who’s boss and that there’ll be no more b.s.
The boat sails on at night now in rainy weather with itsidentification covered by tarps. It moves in near an Indonesian oil tanker, Johnny speaking into the radio;
JOHNNY
“Come in Shell 32. Come in Shell 32. We got sick man on board with heart problem. We’re working on engine and need to get him to Singapore to hospital, what’s your destination?
VOICE ON RADIO
“This is Shell 32. Ten four, we’re heading to Singapore, can transport sick man. Send over a boat.”
The tanker pulls up and sends a launch towards the other boat with a man on a stretcher. The six man crew is dressed in very non-descript rain slickers. A couple of guys go on board to help lift the guy up (the chubby cook), then quickly pull out Chinese-made handguns to cover the welcoming crew, while six more men quickly scramble up the far end of the ship from another dinghy with AK-47’s and make it to the radio room before the crew can issue a mayday. No shots fired, and it’s all done very professionally. Steve was with the second group of men and they all have balaclavas or camo makeup on their faces. Stevereviews the paperwork, checks the crew log to make sure that they’ve found everyone. He looks up and barks;
STEVE
“One’s missing!, find him!”
They start hunting and then find a crewmember all the way forward on the boat, who attacks one of the boarders and is wielding a knife, they rush forward and Steve shoots him expertly with an AK just as he was about to get the better of one of his guys. They quietly slip his body over the side.
Steve confirms which tanks they want to pump out. He then gets the guys starting on the pumping operation to remove ~20K barrels of sweet Indonesian crude.
STEVE
“Looks like Shell Singapore will be running a little short this week.” he dryly jokes to Johnny.
The job is very quickly done, radio sabotaged, officers locked up and then they head out changing directions a few times as they steam through the night towards points unknown.
Next scene: offloading the oil to a Chinese-flagged navysupply tanker off the coast of Indonesia. Standing on board the ship with a “Captain Huang”, looks like a very shifty guy, clearly not trustworthy.
STEVE
“500,000 Euros.” “Let me check them first.”
HUANG
“Yeah, they’re all here Anton, don’t worry, no counterfeits this time, ha ha.”
STEVE
“There better noe be Huang” Steve glares at him back. Finishes counting, then “Alright, all square, say hello to the North Koreans for me....”
HUANG
“You know I could get you a lot more money if you took dollars…”
STEVE
“Yeah, right, I don’t need those counterfeit U.S.bills from North Korea, I don’t care how good they’ve gotten at making them…”
The boat then heads back to the Thai village, the guys are paid a portion in Thai cash (not too much though as he’s worried that they’ll blow all of it and/or bring untoward attention to themselves), and then he and Johnny head back to Bangkok. Steve returns to thesafehouse/apartment, calls thestewardess from his other cell phone, arranges to meet her next time she’s in Singapore. Heads out to the airport.
In Singapore – Steve runs a small oil trading operation out of his apartment which is on a high floor in a luxury building. He takes a break and walks around Singapore a bit, cool and calm, wearing shades, being admired by Filipino maids out sunningthemselves and tourist women walking by. A couple of days later meets up with the Thai Air stewardess (attractive, smoking hot, but intelligent and not too slutty), has some drinks and some laughs, at some point she asks him;
STEWARDESS
“C’mon Mike, what makes you tick?”
He laughs off her questions, then they leave and go back to her hotel.
STEWARDESS
“I’d ask you up, but I don’t know if I’ll ever see you again....” He just gazes into her eyes and then leans in and kisses her strongly. They turn and she draws him onto the elevator and up to her room. One thing leads to another and then sweaty bodies lie glistening in the moonlight, etc... Leaves her asleep with just a quick note saying goodbye. Back to his place, works through the night workingoil trades with Houston/New York on legitimate deals. Meanwhile arranges the next hijacking with a shadowy contact who he talks to in German.
Later ongoes for a run through the streets, movie audience catches a bit of the sights, sounds and smells of an early-morning Singapore street market, etc. Stops and buys some fruit, dickering with the locals. He’s brooding a bit, thinking about the next job, and maybe something else. The audience should bebeginning to wonder what makes him tick. Why would this guy who obviously can have it all legitimately,want to turn to crime? Is it the money, the thrill-ride, an attempt to use adrenaline to block out something in his past?
The next scene shows the team heading out under cover of darkness from the secondary port on another mission. This time they’re on the smaller boat though (which has been disguised, they change the name/markings once they get out into the open sea) Going after different quarry this time…from the earlier arrangments and discussions with Johnny it becomes clear that the target is cash being smuggled on a legitimate freighter from jewelers in Singapore back to Burma, payment for illegally mined emeralds from Burma.
They silently pull alongside a large freighter at night from their two rubber boats using silent trolling motors, climb up the sides, and surprise the crew. Steve and all of his men remained hooded with balaclavas the entire time that they’re on board. The captain protests;
CAPTAIN
“we’re carrying machine parts only, what do we have that’s valuable on-board?”
STEVE
“Nothing that you’d know about”, and he grabs the first-mate as he goes for a hidden gun, “but he does!”
Drags the first-matedown the narrow metal stairs, beating him until he confesses where the >$1MM in cash is hidden, (within some equipment in a container in the hold),
FIRST-MATE
“How’d you find out about the transit?”
STEVE
Laughing, “If you ever see your bosses again, you might want to remind them to change their habits every once in a while as they’ve gotten quite sloppy lately…”
FIRST-MATE
“They’ll kill you when they hunt you down.”
STEVE
“I don’t think soand, just for fun, I’ll tell you why....one, I’m very hard to find. Two, I’m even harder to kill!”
FIRST-MATE
Sulkingly; “What about me hey? You’re not gonna kill me, are you?” “You might as well since my bosses will hunt me down for losing this money. What if I can trade you something else for my safety?”
STEVE
“I’m listening”
FIRST-MATE
“Look, I’ve got valuable info, but you gotta drop me off somewhere safe, okay, so I can make a run for it.” Steve nods in approval. “Okay, look, we’ve got an even more valuable cargo on board, its worth $5MM in cash if you play it right...”
STEVE
“C’mon talk, spit it out.”
FIRST-MATE
“okay, okay, have you heard of K., the terrorist mastermind?”
STEVE
Steve nods. “Sure, who hasn’t.”
FIRST-MATE
“Well, he’s on board and worth $5MM alive from the U.S. government, $2MM dead. He’s been kept hidden in Indonesia for over a year now, but he’s cut a deal with my bosses in the Burmese military for him to move to the northern wilds of Burma where he’d have free rein to arm/train more terrorists and get involved in the heroin trade. I tell you where he is and you give me safe transport back to land, okay.” Steve nods his agreement.
Steve and the men go down to the special container which the first-mate told them about in the hold, trailing thegaggedfirst mate behind them. They pop the door open and surprise K. (early 30’s, fit, bearded palestinian) asleep. K. has no weapons, but suddenly they realize that he’s not alone, his wildcat of asister (M., raven-haired beauty) is there too. She jumps on Steve’s back and tries to knife him with a kitchen knife, but he quickly subdues her, knocking her out with a karate chop before even realizing that she’s a woman.
They bind, gag, and blindfold all three of them, take them on board their ship, disable the ship’s radio and engines and take off.
They eventually drop off the first mate about half a mile from land near a deserted cove.
STEVE
“Good luck, hope you know how to swim…oh, and by the way, if you ever say anything about what happened here, or if I ever see you again, you’ll be dead fifteen seconds later! Consider yourself warned...” Everybody is still masked.
Johnny and Steve are then seen at the helm debating what to do with the prisoners.
JOHNNY
“I know a place where we can keep them for a few days. There’s a deserted snorkeling island near the tourist resorts that no one goes to anymore. I’ve done some fishing off the coast there.”
STEVE
“Sounds good, it’ll take some time to get the handoff arranged with the CIA. Let’s head out.”
They then motor a few more days towards a deserted snorkeling island back in Thailand. Change names on the boat again as they get near shore.
JOHNNY
Speaking to Steve; “These huts were rebuilt after the tsunami of 2004, but tourism died down far enough that they’ve since been redeserted. We can camp out here safely for awhile.”
Stevestations four men there with some supplies to watch over the two prisoners. He then starts working the satellite phone to his various contactsto identify how to cash in K. to the CIA.
Beach Scene:
M.
Talking to Steve as they walk along the beach. “what are you going to do with K.? The CIA will torture him for sure!”
STEVE
“I can’t control that. Would you rather I collected the bounty on him dead, than alive?”