Film Pitch: Untitled Action Picture

While listening to an NPR interview this morning on a new book about Blackwater security and the rising mercenary army in Iraq, I was struck by the disparity between the amount Blackwell charges the government and how much it pays its troops. Central to the story was also that horrific incident in Fallujah when four Blackwater mercenaries were killed and hung from a bridge on display. An idea for a screenplay began to form in my head.

The Pitch: It's Three Kings meets Firewall.

Our protagonists are three mercenaries home from a futile war overseas. On the battlefield, they were outnumbered and poorly equipped. The rest of their squad were killed in an ambush. Only our protagonists survived.

Thomas Grimm is their leader. Thomas was an officer in the Marines, forced out for political reasons. He gladly took the job with Greytower Security, the world's largest private security firm so that he could continue in the only life he has known. He has a strong family background int he Marines as well. He feels some shame over the end of his military career. At first, he considers himself responsible for the deaths of the men under his command. He is obsessed with it, haunted by it, and his obsession is driving his young wife away from him. He works in a gun shop owned by his cranky grandfather in a crumbling suburb of Detroit.

Jackie D. is Thomas' best friend. They've stuck together through the Marines and Greytower Sercurity. When Grimm was forced out of the Marines, Jackie D. left with him. Back from the war, Jackie D. is single and bored. He takes his cues from Grimm. he knows Grimm will lead him to adventure if he waits long enough. Jackie D. is every dumb redneck you know, rolled into one. He's not bright, but he knows that, and that's why he has latched onto Grimm.

Then there's Mike, the catalyst of our story. Mike is younger, more brash, and more than a little unstable. In early scenes, we learn he's a bit gullible, and prone to "alternative" thinking, especially conspiracy theories. Mike did his stint in the Army, but he only did it to get into Greytower Security. The pay was better, the risks greater. But Mike feels betrayed by Greytower, and he goes digging. He finds what he believes is proof that Greytower execs are embezzling money from government contracts, money that should have provided them with the protection and arms to hold their own. Mike makes a persuasive case to Jackie D. and Grimm. Grimm latches onto the idea. Those men didn't die because of something he did. Greytower is responsible.

Grimm hatches a scheme. They plan kidnap the CEO of Greytower from his Virginia mountain compound and ggive the money to the families of those who died. But this man is a warlord. He has a private army at his disposal. The plan goes wrong, and our protagonists have to hunker down in the CEO's compound, using all of their military skills to hold off the private army.

So the rest is a little hazy still. There'd probably be a B-plot with a plucky investigative reporter who is trying to dig into the Greytower scandal, and who becomes the one man the trapped men will trust to tell their story, and with the information Mike has stolen from Greytower, is able to prove that the organization is corrupt from the top down, and worse, the corruption involves high-ranking members of congress.

It probably ends with justice being served for the dead men and big busts all around, but with the protagonists dying in a melodramatic hail of bullets. Dying warrior's deaths, etc.

Hollywood, you have my number! At least, I assume that's you who keeps drunk-dialing me at 2 AM on Thursday nights.