In this gripping story break episode, the hosts embark on an enthralling exploration of an original story idea about a power struggle between a menacing drug cartel and an international terrorist organization. Come immerse yourself in a world teetering on the brink of chaos, intricate plot threads, multifaceted characters, and heart-stopping action. With their vivid imaginations and collaborative energy, the hosts offer listeners a thrilling glimpse into the high-stakes conflict that lies at the heart of their compelling story. And when that's all over, you can fix the premise, characters, and plot and rescue the hosts from the mess they created. Please. Rescue the hosts at DontEncourage@gmail.com
In this gripping story break episode, the hosts embark on an enthralling exploration of an original story idea about a power struggle between a menacing drug cartel and an international terrorist organization. Come immerse yourself in a world teetering on the brink of chaos, intricate plot threads, multifaceted characters, and heart-stopping action. With their vivid imaginations and collaborative energy, the hosts offer listeners a thrilling glimpse into the high-stakes conflict that lies at the heart of their compelling story. And when that's all over, you can fix the premise, characters, and plot and rescue the hosts from the mess they created. Please.
Rescue the hosts at DontEncourage@gmail.com
Discourage us on Instagram @DontEncourageUs
Steve: That would be an interesting scene in a movie like this to show just how powerful these hotels are. And then they go right up against the special forces of the country and they special forces back down because they're so heavily armed and have so many soldiers.
Jason: Welcome to. Don't Encourage us, the podcast where we talk about the big ideas behind fiction projects of all different kinds. Books, TV shows, movies, video games, nothing's off limits. So we had an interview scheduled for today, didn't we? We did. We did. I have an interview that fell through day of always a fun challenge for planning.
So we were gonna talk a little bit about some creative projects that people do on their own time, how to market those things, how to see them through to completion. But today instead, we're gonna fill in with another pitch episode. Excited. It's
Steve: always good to have these pitch episodes.
Jason: You say that now, but wait until you hear Well, that's what editing's for, right?
Yeah, exactly. I can throw out a bunch of choices or I can throw out just a couple choices. Do you have a preference? Either way? Let's do a couple choices, just a couple that, yeah, so the first choice I had is for a movie, it's a body swap comedy. And the second choice I had is for an action intrigue, kind of a gritty street drama I call warzone.
So out of those two, the body swap comedy or warzone, which would you rather talk about today? I think living in New
Steve: York City, I'm gonna pick
Jason: wars out. I knew you were gonna pick that. It's a great choice. I think good for today. It's something that I haven't fully fleshed out or developed much really at all.
It's just a kind of a premise, which I think is fun to play with. We can take it in whatever direction we want to go. All right, so this is a movie. It starts off with some, you know, pretty big set pieces. I think you could do it at any budget level, but it's fun to imagine a larger budget. You could do it in New York.
Any major city doesn't have to be in the United States. You have a string of terrorist attacks, right? Big, you know, high profile stuff, big impact. And I thought it'd be great to open a film with just a string of. Terrorist attacks of different types to different aspects of the infrastructure, right? Major damage.
Major destruction and the government in that area responds by dramatically increasing the police force. You know, national Guard, like there's a heavy security presence in the city, so not quite martial law, but there's a lot more authority, like, you know, running around, monitoring things, heightened security at every level.
As a result of that, the drug trade is choked. Right. So you cut to. The scene with the head of a cartel and he's complaining that they can't smuggle drugs in, he can't sell 'em on the streets, like at every level of the business, the presence of the F fbi, the cia, the National Guard, the police, like they're basically, there's, you know, there's a bunch of high profile busts that are blocking the drug business, and the premise of the film is essentially drug cartels versus terrorists.
So I call it war zone working title, but the whole film is gonna be bad guys versus bad guys. So what do you think? Is there some potential there? I like that idea cause
Steve: I think that a lot of those cartels are intertwined now with those terrorist organizations. Mm. So I think it would make a good, a good premise to see once the supply chain gets cut in a city, how that would affect everything down the line.
I like that between the cartels and this, like for instance, I think it's the Taliban supplies opium to the, like the production of heroin. Mm-hmm. Which is then sold to those drug cartels who go and complete the process and sell that on the street. They're intertwined already. They're so intertwined now that I think that would make for an interesting movie because who, who did these terrorist attacks Right?
Would be their suppliers essentially. Yeah. Yeah. Find them the raw materials and how does that affect things and maybe, maybe it's a rogue, maybe faction of one of these terrorist groups, so they gotta get together and go after them.
Jason: Perhaps. Ooh, interesting. So the, yeah. The big problem right off the bat with this film is I don't really have a plot or an ending.
It's just an excuse to do a really gritty film where you have unsympathetic characters and you know, obviously you want them to be somewhere on the gray scale there, where they have some motivations you can understand and, and identify with, but they're not good people. Mm-hmm. But what you're adding now starts to offer ideas for a plot.
So initially it seems like it's as simple as a bunch of terrorist attacks and an unforeseen or unwanted consequence of that is added. Presence of authorities, which then chokes the drug trade. Mm-hmm. And what adds an interesting layer right off the bat is there are already some points of connection between these organizations.
They're not totally alien to each other. They understand the terrorist organizations primary goals are not drug trade. And so these terrorist attacks are all about their agenda. But because there are some points of contact, you can have some great scenes. So, Where the person in the drug cartel who has a contact with the terrorist organization tries to exert influence or get them to stop or change things in some way.
It also offers really cool potential for, say, the third act where you discover that the terrorist organization knew or predicted, That their actions would choke the existing infrastructure for the drug trade in this city. And their plan was to replace it. Hmm. Know they were, they were gonna exploit this.
Right? Because they're the cause of the problem. They can work around, it can predict how the authorities will respond to some degree and work around it. So that's kind of a cool reveal. Yeah. You know, after you've had a, a couple acts of establishing and then conflict.
Steve: How do you think you would set it up in terms of, is there someone who kind of represents that terrorist organization?
Is there a cartel member who's somehow undercover doing some something else within the terrorist organization to try to maybe steal more raw supply When this whole thing happened? Is there a CIA investigator trying to figure all this out? Like how would he structure it? Cuz it's a movie, right? You're not gonna have that much time, and this is such a huge topic.
You could go and. In any direction.
Jason: Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I don't wanna do the Narcos style where it's hours and hours of a streaming material. I would like it to be a tighter, more action oriented film. So it's a more interesting, more exciting, which means probably fewer fleshed out characters with their own arcs, right?
Mm-hmm. So I think that's really important. My idea initially was, You create an anti-hero that's part of the drug business. Uhhuh, or someone they hired who comes in and is initially seems like, like he doesn't sell drugs. He doesn't do drugs. He's, he's a violent person with skills. But other than that, he's somewhat identifiable.
Right? He someone you could like side with. Does that make sense? Yep. You know
Steve: it, do you see a con, like a big conspiracy there in the terrorist organization? So I, I suggested earlier this idea that there's a, an offshoot faction that's kind of gone rogue right now is that, are these anti-heroes going after that faction?
Like, yeah, what's right? I, so
Jason: we can, that can happen for sure, but I was thinking of it more simply. This anti-hero is investigating, tracking hunting and then, and trying to figure out, like, I didn't think about the connections between the drug trade and terrorism. So for me, our hero's journey here, or anti-heroes journey was to go from someone who, in many ways is like an average citizen of the city and doesn't really know the terrorist organization at all.
So he, he's trying to navigate and find. Who these people are and how to stop them, right? How, who's navigating this world increasingly and encounters more and more characters, and then the antagonists would be the head of the terrorist organization. To keep it simple, but I kind of like what you introduced more.
So I think it could be cool if the anti-hero was a little bit less sympathetic and was part of the drug cartel. Was following up on connections that already exist between them. Mm-hmm. And then revealing this conspiracy over time.
Steve: I see. Yeah. That was my my next question, like how, how you do it. Would it be, you know, would the anti-hero be using his existing connections and that that's how he gets involved in this whole thing?
Is he being hired by the government? Do you see it like that in order to figure this whole thing out? Or does he have some other kind of motivation? For doing it from his own cartel
Jason: or whatever. Yeah. So the more I thought about this idea, the more I got enamored with bad guys versus bad guys. Mm-hmm.
Right? Like so there are no real good guys in this. In fact, my initial idea of an anti-hero. Kind of evolved into offering the audience somebody that they could root for or kind of relate to. But then over the course of the film, discovering that this guy's just as bad as all of them. Mm-hmm. And then really playing it up that there is no good person in this film.
Every single character that's involved does and has done terrible things of very different types. It just becomes all out war between two bad forces.
Steve: Yeah. That sounds like a good movie. That sounds really interesting how you'd have bad guys versus bad. Kind of the end of train spotting comes to mind when the whole movie, I don't know if you remember that movie, but basically the whole, the heroin addicts and Scotland and how they're kind of friends but not really friends and how at the end mm-hmm.
One guy kind of screws them all over and he justifies the whole thing. I was thinking like it would be an interesting ending to kind of. Play it like that, where this anti-hero screws everybody over. So he's connected to everyone like the cartel. He has his contacts in this terrorist group. Mm-hmm. But then he somehow ends up taking everything from both of them, let's say.
I like that. On his own right? Yeah. I don't know how
Jason: he'd do it. Well, let's, let's walk that through, right? So you start off with a series of terrorist attacks, and then you have maybe during the credits, the montage of heightened security in the city of Chicago after it's been rocked by its 12th terrorist attack in the last two weeks.
And the shots of people leaving the city and tanks coming in on the other side of the expressway or. Those armored APCs coming in, bringing in cops from other cities. The FBI has announced that they're opening two emergency stations and so on and so forth. Right. And they're putting up those mounted police camera.
Mm-hmm. Poles in different neighborhoods. You see people being stopped and interviewed by the cops and then another terrorist attack and so on. So that's the beginning. The first few minutes to set the tone. This city has become the center of the war on terror. Then you cut to and introducing the criminal elements and their reaction to this, they can't operate in this city.
You can include this in the montage. You could show themes of dealers dealing to executives getting busted because of wire taps. Mm-hmm. And getting within a hundred yards of a. School with drugs on them getting busted because of a search and, and undercover cops infiltrating every aspect of every criminal endeavor in the city.
And just for simplicity's sake, let's say our main character is already part of that organization. He has a, a background where he did some enforcing, but he's stood out in his own way and maybe even he was. Involved or in the area during a recent terrorist attack and he did manage to salvage their drug money or he did something that they would consider heroic or worthy of special attention or recognition.
Steve: That'll be an interesting scene. Like he happens to be there and there's like confusion cuz there's a terrorist attack. And during that confusion he does what you're saying. Like he maybe kills some more bad guys, right? And takes their supply like hijacks the truck where there's like a big shipment or whatever.
Jason: He's, he's, it's a drug deal, right? It's a big one where their supplier was coming and the terrorists blow up the electric grid in that area. But this guy, or it's, you know, it's near a bank or whatever you wanna say, but this guy gets away with, you know, 80% of the money. Mm-hmm. And a hundred percent of the drugs just covered in blood.
And, you know, dodges not only the explosions or the terrorists and kill, maybe hits a couple of them with the, the van he is driving on the way out. But he also stays away from the cops and the news reporters and their choppers because they're patrolling like vultures. So it's like, uh, Beirut and,
Steve: you know, so, and he gets rewarded
Jason: for that.
So they're recognizing him and they then give him resources and give him the, uh, what is it, the hero's call? Mm-hmm. Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hey, we want you to go with this other guy who has had dealings with this organization or the people behind it as part of our supply in the past. Right now, it's a buddy comedy.
Yeah,
they give him his badge back. Exactly. So then we move into act two where our anti-hero is tracking down terrorists. There's some cool action set pieces. He's meeting some of the players on the other side and, and I'm thinking of gritty violin. Pretty grounded, pretty real, somewhat ripped from the headlines.
Mm-hmm. Some success, some failure. Meanwhile, the city is taking hit after hit a lot of dead cops and really leaning into how bad something like this could be. So escalating violence. So they're sending additional soldiers in because they don't want to give up. This territory, right? The cops are, they're clearly overwhelmed, can't handle both threats simultaneously.
So now we move into the the third act where at the end of the second act, our character discovers the. That there may be more going on here than was immediately apparent. Mm-hmm. And the, the twist or the reveal is that there are elements of the terrorist organization that are using the rest of it and their idealism in order to supplant the existing network and the existing organizations of drug dealers so they can take over.
They're not satisfied with being the supplier for 25% of the particular substances that are being marketed. They want to take over the running of the business and cut out the middleman between their supply and the buyers.
Steve: It would be interesting if there was something that happened. To them where they lost a huge chunk of their money somehow.
Oh yeah. And then they had a really strong motivation to get on the other side of the business and they see this as a way to do it. Right. And maybe you see how that whole plan got hatched. That would be interesting. Maybe in some type of flashback. Or maybe you start with it and you're confused, the audience, like, what exactly is going on here?
Right. What are they? And it just seems like a normal terrorist attack. But it's actually because the sequence of events where maybe they lost a huge portion of their resources.
Jason: No, no, that's perfect. Right. In fact, you can see that early when you're showing the montage of news reports. You can just add the anchors saying, or the people they're interviewing on the news shows saying, in response to the highly effective NATO move, or UN's decision to cut access, or the international banks introducing transparency in transactions and stripping away a lot of the protections that have.
Allowed them to utilize international banking systems, cutting them off from supplies or appropriating land that they were using or oil or other sources of income, and add those little details in early. And it wouldn't seem strange to the viewer. It wouldn't be like, why are we getting this information?
It would make sense because it would fit perfectly with, well, this is retribution. Fast forward back to Act three and part of the reveal is, well, that this isn't just revenge, it's an attempt for them to restore a reliable source of funding building on a business they were already a part of. Mm-hmm.
Steve: Would the whole destruction of the, I mean the whole attack on the city, so you're saying that would be so a retribution, like a, a task that would be
Jason: the assumption. The assumption the viewer would make is that this unprecedented spade of attacks is really retribution for the US' leadership role in enacting these financial changes to the banking system or cutting deals and leaning on certain countries to stop them from providing safe haven for terrorists and their finances.
But we find out in Act three I. That they weren't just doing these attacks as revenge, they were also trying to cleverly dismantle the drug cartels, mm-hmm. In that major city so that they could expand into that void. Mm-hmm. After they stopped attacking or even while. Because they know when they're going to attack so they can route drug traffic away from that.
Mm-hmm. And even use them as distractions. That's
Steve: very interesting. Yeah. I like this
Jason: plot. It's very, uh, you've added some levels, which is, you know, it's what I pay you to do
Steve: what I'm here for. Kind of seeing a scene of like these terrorists who go to whatever cartel country we're talking about. Okay. And confronting.
Oh, the cartel there. So like taking it over by force, you know? So while they have the resources like sent over to Chicago or whatever, the cartel, they're in a weakened state, so they decide to go over there. So, That would be like one of those, like the terrorists versus the cartel, like, oh, head on. I like
Jason: that.
That would be a scene. So if you like that, do you like the idea of this being not just the drug dealers versus terrorists, but also to equal leads?
Steve: Hmm. That would be pretty interesting cuz you could follow both storylines and there's a lot to follow, right? There's the terrorist attack, there's the planning aspect of it.
There's the anti-hero, right? Mm-hmm. Who understands like they have to send more people to. Chicago or whatever. There's a lot of ways he could do it. There's some big shipment that's going over there, like you were saying in the beginning. He saves a shipment, he gets sent back. He could go over to Afghanistan or wherever this is.
There's scenes he could do there, or you could make it where he's going over to Chicago himself. He's investigating what's going on there on the ground. There's like a whole, yeah, there's a lot to do here. But
Jason: yeah, like the idea, but you keep it tight, right? So you start with. What I pitched a minute ago, and you introduce your, your gangster lead.
Mm-hmm. You know, your organized crime guy, he's not the head Right. But he's their agent or mm-hmm. The one who was in the right place at the right time. You run with that a little bit, so it feels like he's the main character, but at about 25 minutes in you. Start to realize that this character who you've only kind of seen from a distance involved in the Terry, like he was driving off or in the background Right.
He's actually more and more important. Mm-hmm. And he becomes the second lead. Like he becomes the the opposite. Mm-hmm. And then, you know, you kind of even out time invested in both of them. That way when we get to Act three and our organized crime lead. Starts to realize that there's a deeper conspiracy, then you can go back to the terrorist side of the equation.
Hi, that lead, right? Mm-hmm. And he can even be, he can be leading the attack. Like when you go back to him, he's in Columbia. Mm-hmm. Right? And he's at the, you know, whatever you call those big haciendas as big mm-hmm. In a home like their
Steve: cartel bosses.
Jason: Place, right? And he's implementing terrorist tactics to attack them where they're at and distract them and have them pull back.
Steve: That would be really good. And if both of these leads end up there at the mm-hmm. Estate, so it's like the cartel versus the terrorist group that's trying to take down the cartel leader. And then maybe there's some kind of fortune. And those two guys split it at the end, that would be kind of Okay. Kinda interesting.
Jason: Act two, just to build on that. Act two is starting small with, you know, action and violent scenes between a relatively small number of people. Then it gets bigger and bigger as they assemble armies on both sides. The cops get more involved and you have kind of the end of act two, a big scene where it's like a lot of cops or even National Guard and you've got all these like, you know, Colombians or I don't know, Argentian, wherever they're from, but you know, coming in and then you have a ton of terrorists involved or you know, some big scale for their weapons in Act three now that a gangster guy has figured out.
That there's more to this and the audience has gotten used to the terrorist lead and they're realizing that there's more to him as well, because now he's invading the cartel home territory, Uhhuh. Then you slowly make it smaller again, where the two of them come head to head. I don't know where or or how we'll get them in the same room, but then they have more extended interactions where they're not just fighting.
I. But they have actual conversations that are intense. You start to build an understanding in the audience that these two people have things in common now because they've changed mm-hmm. As they've gone through this process. Then maybe you have the terrorist guy go back to his people and execute the most religious extreme elements.
Mm-hmm. Right? And, and assert control. Or something like, what do you, yeah. Or just, just execute 'em and then focus on the drug aspect of it, or take the money and like, you know, like betrayal. Mm-hmm. What do you think about like that in Act
Steve: three? I like it and I, I like you were saying like, how do they get together?
I could see them running into each other in this town, like the closest town to where the cocktail leader lives, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they could get together there, like they're about to like kill each other or whatever, but there's like a reason that they don't. Like, somehow there's like some kind of reveal, like where, you know, they don't do it, they don't kill each other and then they end up like teaming up, but you're not really, it kind of keeps you like off balance.
Like exactly how are they gonna team up? Are they gonna betray each other in this whole thing? I also saw this idea of like, what if there's like, also if you're gonna go crazy in terms of the action, like what if there's like some kind of Navy Seal team or something that's also involved in this attack on this like, Terrorist stronghold or the Mexican Navy or whatever, special forces of that.
Right, right, right. That place are, so it's like all of these groups together. I love it. Fighting each other. Yeah. Yeah. And maybe like those two get together and the guys that they've turned, the The terrorist group guy and the cartel guy, those two start fighting against the special forces or whatever.
And then basically those two are the only two that are left. And then like what now? You know, I love it. And like something happens where like it's revealed that they both know that there's this huge stash of cash in this compound. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But they didn't realize that the other guy knew, and that they're both there for the same thing.
Mm-hmm. So then they have to make a decision. Are they gonna split it? How they gonna get out of there, whatever the case may be. So the whole time you're kind of like, are these two gonna betray each other? Are they going to, you know, link up and like split the, the fortune that's there? Is there some way for them to do that or does one of them die?
You know, I don't know.
Jason: Okay. I like it. Let me pitch this ending. It's not just about a fortune. They've come to the same location. They've recognized that there's a lot of cash and drugs in this particular place. Everyone else is dead. It's the two of them. And let's say they look at each other and just like the first scene where they met in this small town, they have to make a decision.
What do they do? What if it looks like they agree to a Dayton where they take the money and split it and go their separate ways? It's not explicit, but that's, that's the implication. But then it cuts to one of them in a foreign country and living high on the hog clearly has the money and the, you know, maybe cuts to the other one living in Chicago or somewhere else.
Also high on the hog. And then they have a communication which establishes that. They basically went back to the supply and distribution setup that previously existed, but now they're both in charge. Oh, I like
Steve: that. That's good. And that's, that's really good. Yeah. That's really
Jason: cool. That's a good ending.
And then you cut to news reports of the peaceful rebuilding of Chicago and how successful the cops were and the military intervention in the government and reestablishing order. And people are, you know, interviewed, like, feel Safe again. And it's a great city. And here we are. Oh, I like it. I like it a lot.
I like it cuz it's a happy ending for the characters, but it's not a blissful ending for the world. I would be fine if they both died. Mm-hmm. Or one of them died. Right. I think that's also okay. Or they both kind of reached the end of their rope in some different way and ended up in a bad place. I, that's almost more realistic.
Mm-hmm. You know, so this is a little bit too neat of a tie up, but it does bring the pieces together, which is kind of nice.
Steve: What if we do a tru ending? What if they'd been working together the entire time?
Jason: Okay. So we're gonna, are you good about that one? Yeah, no. If we're gonna do that though, you, you've really gotta put the pieces of that.
You gotta project that like the audience needs to, when they find that out, think, oh yeah, now that I think about it, the evidence was there.
Steve: It's way more complicated. Yeah. I'm not saying it's not, I mean, it would have to be airtight. Their motivations, they're kind of backstory. It changes the narratives, I think are the complexity of the plot.
Right. Significantly turns it from like an action movie to like a psychological thriller with a twist ending in the sense that like these two came up with this elaborate plot. Mm-hmm. You find out at the end and there's some kind of flashback right thing, right. That shows all these kind of like
Jason: a usual suspects.
I mean, which is the, like the film that did that the best. But a lot of films have done that. What got me
Steve: thinking about it is I read somewhere that a lot of these cartel leaders in a lot of these super rich families, like let's say of these like terrorist groups, they send their kids to Ivy League schools in the us.
Hmm. So I was thinking, what if they met each other? There. Yeah, that's good. In like Harvard. That's good. That's good. And also like a lot of the these ideas behind these new cartels and these new terrorist groups is that they're highly educated business professionals or running them. It's not a random group of thugs that's like running around with guns and cell phones.
They're businessmen who just happen to be running these gigantic empires. It got me thinking if these two knew each other and that was the way they knew each other, that would kind of make sense.
Jason: It could. Yeah. Is there a way to do that as a crisscross? The wealthy one with terrorist connections was the one in the organized crime network and vice versa.
They were coaching each other as a way to get ahead and make sure there was no suspicion. Give them the freedom. Mm-hmm. To move in those networks without people figuring out they might be up to more. Mm-hmm. Right. Does that, does that add something or does that seem like weird?
Steve: I, I don't know. I mean, I'm just thinking about this.
I, the idea of how would you simplify that whole plot structure, right? Like I'm trying to keep it action oriented like you're saying. Yeah. Like if we were gonna really make it action oriented. There's so much going on there. We're talking probably about a three hour long movie. The original
Jason: Star Wars did a great job because there were a lot of small, almost throwaway lines and phrases that implied a much larger, more lived in universe.
Mm-hmm. So if a lot of these things we're talking about are part of the show's Bible, so to speak, but there's really just a line or two in implying it, I think that's fine. There's enough fictional material out there about terrorism and separately about organized crime that you can trade off of the audience knowledge, and then you can go back to focusing on it more as an action movie.
But that has some pretty great scenes that are about the characters and the other stuff we're talking about is just implied or, you know, understood. Does that make sense?
Steve: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. To make it more action oriented and not having to dwell on that. Yes, because really the other version would be like, Them starting out in college, right?
You meet these two characters, how they kind of develop a friendship, then
Jason: talk about what leads into, right? But you've got, you've gotta set the context there with like, there are families you know that are connected to crime and this is what they do with their kids and why and what those kids, and then you can explain that they met.
That would be really long, then that would be a long, then you cover their lives up to the point where the action happens. Mm-hmm. A little bit. Right. I think if you just sort of assume like, hey, you know, maybe people watch it a couple times if they really wanna understand the deeper twists, but most people are just gonna think it was a pretty awesome action sequence.
Mm-hmm. From the head of the cartel, received a letter that had, what was that powdered? Anthrax anthrax in it, and to watch the accountant die of anthrax poisoning. That's the kind of stuff that could be memorable. And yes, this is a weird terrorist organization that uses every technique that's been in the news for 30 times.
Yes, exactly. And yeah, this is a weird organized crime group that doesn't back down when there's a thousand cops in the streets and doesn't just shut down business or go sell drugs elsewhere. And why would they double down? If they're in it for the money, why would they face this kind of death? It's
Steve: interesting that you say that cuz actually just recently, within the past couple years, there was that guy, El Chapo, who got arrested and sent to the US to that supermax prison cuz he was the head of the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico.
He had this son that the. Mexican Navy or Special Forces was after, and they found they got a tib that he was in this house and they all went there to arrest him. It's all on video. It's kind of interesting on YouTube, like how this whole thing happened and they arrested him and they pulled him out and the cartels sent hundreds if not thousands of their soldiers to come attack.
Wow. The Special Forces guys, huh? And because they know everything about their families. They had to back down. Mm-hmm. Like he was just on the phone and they're like, you need to tell your brother or whatever to like back up and like back all these people away so we can even get outta here. And that was from the Special Forces telling us, oh yeah.
That's how powerful they are. That would be an interesting scene in a movie like this to show just how powerful. These hotels are, and then they go right up against the special forces of the country and they special forces back down because they're so heavily armed and have so many soldiers. It was just a crazy situation.
They caught it all on on camera and they just had to let 'em go. They're just like, okay. See you later.
Jason: We're leaving. Yeah. See, I love that when we talk about escalating scale of violence, that's a perfect example. And the fact that it ends with a very tense showdown and no deaths is even better cuz it goes against expectations.
A lot of it's straight off out of the news. So it's not, uh, particularly offensive. There's, there's
Steve: so many of these stories that are just publicly available. Mm-hmm. That can be turned into, I dunno. Truth is stranger than fiction when it comes to this stuff where it's like, unbelievable what happens. Like the story I just told you.
Right. You wouldn't think that that could ever actually happen. Right? Right. They would just go in there, there'd be a gun battle maybe, and the bad guys give up. Right. Get arrested right at the end of it, not the tables are completely turned and are completely powerless to do anything about it. Yeah.
They're in their framed and running for their lives, the government, you know? Mm-hmm.
Jason: Yeah. Yeah. No, I love it. I, and I think there's a place for a version of that. It sounds like you've got a lot of material that could fit like pieces into this plot.
Steve: Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's very visual too. Mm-hmm.
There's not that much exposition needed with, it's really well into this type of action. Mm-hmm. Action oriented moving. It's funny, I try to complicate these plots a lot, or maybe we both do cause we're trying to make them more interesting to the audience. But then you think back to these action movies that you've seen, like Die Hard.
Right, right. It's
Jason: such a, he's trying some money or something. There you go. Okay. And that's the end
Steve: of it. Yeah. That he's just a bad, bad guy who was there with his like henchman. You don't know much about him. He's just bad.
Jason: You know, and he's Dutch or what?
Steve: Yeah, exactly. And, and here we are trying to add like a, what was his childhood like?
Right? You find out about NACA Plaza. What was the planning like? You know, well meet on the
Jason: plane over, what are the other offices in that building? Yeah. What do they take? Their paper and staples. Why? What's the breakroom?
Steve: Yeah. How come he hasn't eaten for the past 24 hours? Right. He must be hungry. Let's explain that,
Jason: but I think it's great to throw all this stuff up against the wall, almost literally, like on no cards, right?
Yeah. And then just pick and rearrange where it goes. Kill a few darlings, and then you focus on character. And I think character drives a lot of this, although this is more of an action flick, so some cool action sequences where face scenes, Ca scenes, right? But, you know, American audiences can enjoy like, oh man, I really wanna see some good old American gangsters killing some terrorists.
Oh man. That I've always curious what would happen if somebody got poisoned by anthrax and what would that look like? So there's a lot to see and find viscerally engaging.
Steve: And I think one, one part of this that's very interesting is that the, the cartels versus the terrorists, like let's say the terrorists aren't afraid to die.
Jason: Absolutely. I think that's a big strength of the violence and the action is that you, you never know in what scenes, which of the terrorists aren't gonna be afraid to die. Mm-hmm. Or it's part of the plan for them to die. Which ones have explosives on their bodies or in their vehicles. Right. Correct. Which ones are actually trying to get away?
Or you know, who played what role? Where's the cell? Like finding terrorist cells and neighborhoods. Something that a drug dealer at the lowest level might be able to help with. Mm-hmm. You know, that's interesting. Yeah. Because they might know in a given building, you know, which apartments are people that they're familiar with and which aren't, and the people their networks are gonna be aware of kind of dead zones and connectivity.
So I think there's a lot of cool stuff you could get into, but I really don't want this to be hours and hours and hours of stuff. Right, right. Because
Steve: then it would be a series a series. I think there's a series on Amazon Prime called 0 0 0 about the cocaine trade. Okay. It goes through all the suppliers all the way through to the the end user.
Okay? So there's a series about that, that kind of talks about this whole thing, but it's so long and it's like such complex tale cuz it's going into every character from what I understand. It's, it's not
Jason: just like, which is fine, right? Yeah. But that's not my thought about what this is. This is a lot of action punctuated by some scenes that either lead us to the most complicated version or this slightly less complicated version where one or both of them gets killed.
And the city is a mess after that. Like there's no clear, neat wrap up. It's just these two groups went after each other and it got outta control and everybody suffered. Speaking of characters though, what are the arcs? I think that's the last thing that we want to nail down. How did these characters change or grow as a result of this?
I think you've sort of touched on this, but how would you put it?
Steve: I think one of the most obvious ways that they would grow is that the organizations that they work for are no longer meeting
Jason: their needs. Okay. So they become more independent? They
Steve: become more independent. I think they. They outgrow it.
They wanna have their actual freedom as opposed to this supposed freedom of being okay, like outlaw bad guys. Cause they're still serving two
Jason: different Ts. Right? So you gotta be your own boss if you want to be truly free. And
Steve: that's a strong motivation for both of them. Right? Maybe that's part of the conversation that they have and why they're doing what
Jason: they're doing.
Right. It's also a different journey. Mm-hmm. Because they come from very different types of, Servitude. Right. And different ways of maintaining that, like the threat of violence was present for both, but the idealism was different for the two of them, or, mm-hmm. Yeah. The ideas driving the organization and the commitment to family or a cause, there are parallels, but really key differences and their arc for both of them is to escape that and become truly independent people.
Steve: I agree with that and I think it would be really interesting if they're having their conversation at the end or wherever we wanna put it, second act maybe. Mm-hmm. Where it's like one of them grew up in like abject poverty. And to get out of it. He started down this road, but he realized that now he's a slave to that system and like there's the threat of violence against him if he ever turns his back to it.
Jason: Right. He's trapped. Yeah. He's
Steve: trapped in the same thing as happening on the other side. Right. But for different reasons, parallels, yeah. The parallel. And there's this ideology, what, what you're talking about earlier, the ideology of that terrorist group. Right. But at the end, he comes to the realization that no matter what, they never get what they want in the end.
Jason: The idealism is used to trap people and to manipulate them, but it's not really even adhered to mm-hmm. Hypocrisy at the top. Right? Yep. So he, they both ultimately find a path to independence and freedom. Yep. And that
Steve: path is being their own boss, I think, for each of 'em. Right. That's enough of an explanation, I think, for an action movie, for sure.
Jason: For each movie. Right. It's good enough. Yeah. And then they, they align on that. And maybe they team up or maybe they destroy each other, but they die free. You know? Right. Kind of the, the implication, it's an escape
Steve: or maybe there's an implication that they will destroy each other, but for now it's working.
It's like a
Jason: very tight Right. They're back into the machine. They just don't realize it yet. Cause they're at a different level. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Maybe. Yeah. That would be a cool end is for them to realize that all this time they were looking at the, the top. Of their organizations as the person who's free only to realize or maybe not realize, but there to be clear signs that the person at the top is also trapped.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. They're not, they're not really
Steve: free either, and maybe they're like, you set it up so that they're both being mistreated by the organization, but their organization was like throwing them a bone with this particular. Set up, like maybe they don't expect them to survive or something.
Jason: Right, right, right, right.
You know? Yeah. The machine that sort of eats people like these big consulting agencies, you know? Yeah, exactly. Hire these juniors out of college,
Steve: like 20 hours a a day and pay 'em 180 grand and
Yeah.
Jason: Oh, they're doing great. The 5% that don't burn out. Yeah. Get promoted and you know, so on and so forth. You consume their life for profit.
Mm-hmm. Yep. But I think the, the myth in that situation is when you get to a certain level, you've got it made right? Mm-hmm. But so many of those people reach that level and realize that they've given up their lives, they're now committed to this path. It's not like they can quit because they're trapped by their lifestyle.
Yeah. And that income that they're now dependent on, even if it doesn't make them happy, Richard often doesn't. A cost fallacy, right? Yeah. Right. And your ego is now invested in being that guy who makes that money. And you've got a partner who expects you to keep earning at that level, and kids whose lifestyle is entirely dependent on it and a mortgage and you know, vacations, and now you're in your mid forties or fifties and you realize, That you're trapped.
Mm-hmm. By the life you built over the last 30 years. It's a miserable moment and a lot of people struggle with that. So anyway, these guys reach the top at the very end of their organizations, and there's the implication that they're going to learn that they're trapped. Mm-hmm. Just as much as they were.
They're not free, they're not living the lives they wanna live. They're just on another level. They're just in a, a different part of the, the maze. Mm-hmm. So to speak. Uh, you know, that's cool. Again, you know, a fun thing to imply, kind of a dark ending a little bit that fits the tone, but not a, a lot of exposition.
We don't need to get into that in a lot of depth or detail. And it's okay if some of the audience just misses it if they enjoyed
Steve: the action. And I think that ending, I like the idea that they would still betray each other. Okay. If push, push comes to shove, sure. But it's kinda like they have this tenuous kind of partnership now, but there's something in their conversation or their tone that kind of leads you to believe that they don't really trust each other still.
So that's like mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Maybe it ends
Jason: like that. Yeah. The seeds are there. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. I think that's perfect for this movie. I think you and I really wanna like. Write a bulletproof plot, you know? But I think for the purposes of this film and writing scenes, you know, I think the dialogue, the action is gonna be more important than making sure everything makes total sense.
It's consistent with reality, and we know the answer to any question that could be asked. Right, right. I think that's plenty. And the arcs for the characters are there. It's nothing that hasn't been done in different ways, but it's interesting enough I think. Good. Yeah. Am I underselling it? Am I overselling it?
No. Selling a perfect, perfect price. So this is a body swap comedy, right? The the two of That's right.
Steve: And then you go right into the comedy aspect right after
Jason: this? That's right. Perfect. A lot of con a cartel hit, man. They don't spin the language they're supposed to speak and they not a wackiness, it's kind of a Mr.
Bean thing, you know? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yep. Oh God, that's funny. Writes itself.
Steve: He is not acting the same. Have you noticed anything weird, Ron? No.
Jason: He's waving. He can't remember the combination to his safe. Yeah, that was great. Great. You see the trailer,
Steve: he doesn't know how to build a bomb anymore.
Jason: He's confusing the anthrax and the cocaine goes both white powders.
Hygiene. Hi jinks ensue. Yeah. Writes itself. No problem. So, Good. Oh, I think that does it for Warzone or perhaps it, honestly, that's not a very creative title, but it sort of fits the level of creativity for this idea. That's all
Steve: you need, right? Just just name it something. Yeah. Warzone Chicago. So you know, there'll be like a war zone New York,
Jason: right?
Yeah. There'll already be war zone or something. I like Warzone or any, and I actually Googled this. Any phrase that has the word war in it.
Steve: Operation Warzone. Cole in
Jason: Chicago, you go with a cliche like war dogs or total war whatever doesn't Or of attrition. Yes, it doesn't have to fit, just has to have the word war.
Steve: And the two protagonist faces huge on the poster. Yeah.
Jason: And a and a gun. There's gotta be a, someone has to have a gun in their hand.
A terrorist, a hitman.
Steve: Yeah. And then, you know,
Jason: background something on fire.
Steve: There's definitely jumping on fire for sure. The bean. Cause
Jason: it takes place in Chicago. Yeah. Right. Exactly. Yeah. And I'll, you know, and I love, you could do this really in any city in the world and and accept any city in China because then you immediately lose that audience.
Good point. Yeah. You lose all of China. Yeah. But yes. Does that put this one to bed? Puts it to bed. Awesome. All right, well thank you for your time as always. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Any final words before we sign off? No. Well
Steve: tune into the next episode. Should be coming out shortly. Dead Heat. Dead Heat.
With Joe Piscopo.
Jason: Joe Piscopo, and Treat Williams. Treat Williams a treasure. No, Joe Piscopo. Treat Williams dead heat. See you in a week.