Strange Days
- R
- Year:
- 1995
- 145 min
- 460 Views
A burst of bright white static exploding across the
darkness. A high whine on the audio track gives way to
street sounds and rapid breathing.
AN IMAGE wavers and stabilizes: A nervous POV. We're in a
car, sitting in the backseat, and we're nervous, the view
swinging around, showing the street rolling by outside the
windows, then whipping back to the two guys in the front
seat.
Our POV looks down at a SMALL RECORDING DEVICE in "our"
hands. A red LED is flashing. We slip the recorder into
a coat pocket.
OUR VOICE:
Okay. It's goin'. I'm recording.
The guy riding shotgun, LANE, is just pulling a pantyhose
over his head, smearing his features into a pig-like mask.
He turns, DIRECTLY TO THE LENS, pissed off.
LANE:
Good one, d*ckhead. Thanks for
waitin' till I get this f***in thing
on. You tryin' ta I.D. me, or
what?
He tosses another pantyhose right at us and we catch it.
Our POV looks down, into the pantyhose, which comes up
over our field of view.
We realize:
this is not some ride-along verite video.WE ARE ONE OF THESE GUYS. Real honest-to-God point of
view, with no cuts, no music. This is not film, it is
human experience.
The driver is a Hispanic guy named "SPAZ" DIAZ. Lane is a
white guy who looks very strung out. Couple of
crackheads. The car is a mid-seventies barge, piebald
with primer.
LANE:
Next alley... just pull in slow.
(turning to us)
Hurry up will ya. Here.
He hands us a big stainless steel revolver. The POV looks
down as our shaky hands snap open the cylinder, check the
rounds, snap it closed.
Diaz pulls the barge into an alley. The headlights
illuminate overflowing dumpsters. A Chicano busboy is
making trash runs out the back door of a restaurant, which
he has chocked open. The busboy goes back inside.
LANE:
Let's go.
Out of the car, quickly, our own breathing loud in our
ears. We even hear our own heartbeat, racing now.
Through the door, after Lane, moving fast.
Into the kitchen. Fluorescent glare. The busboy turning,
surprised, Lane putting the shotgun in his face. Freezing
him. Lane puts a finger to his lips: "quiet" in any
language.
Our hand puts the magnum in the THAI COOK's face. We get
them down on the greasy floor, Lane controlling them with
the shotgun. He looks at us, snaps his eyes toward the
front room.
We hear voices as we approach the swing door. Go through.
Whip pan left, then right. Scoping the layout. Low-rent
THAI place. Red wallpaper. Closing time. Middle-aged
Thai OWNER, by the cash-register, counting money. Young
Thai WAITRESS, cleaning up. They look up, stunned, as we
put the gun on them.
OUR VOICE:
(shouting, edgy)
Don't move, don't talk, don't do
nothing.
Our POV is whipping around, from the front door to the
owner to the kitchen where Lane is standing in the doorway
covering the cook and busboy, back to the owner as he
steps back from the cash-register.
We scoop up the big wad of bills: seven, eight hundred
bucks in tens and fives.
Now yelling, herding the owner and the waitress into the
kitchen, the owner trying to calm the girl in singsongy
Thai, Lane shouting at him to shut up.
Into the walk-in cooler. The steel door closes on four
scared pair of eyes. POV looking around, seeing... a
dish-rack. Our hand pulls out a spoon, drops the spoon
handle through the hole in the cooler door-latch. Locking
them in.
Lane heading out the back door. Laughing, as he looks at
the wad of cash our hand is waving in front of him.
We follow Lane to the car. Snap a look down the alley one
way, then the other.
Sh*t! Cop Black-and-White pulling into the far end of the
alley. Heartbeat goes triple time. Scrambling into the
car.
Door not even closed and SPAZ has it in reverse, burning
rubber as he launches back down the alley.
SCRUNCH! The car grinds along one wall as SPAZ steers
wildly backward. Sparks right next to us. Then--
KBOOM! As we slam into a dumpster and push it right out
into the street.
The cop has his lights and siren on, and is roaring at us
as SPAZ cranks the wheel and punches it down the street.
He curses in English and Spanish as he weaves between
cars. We pull off the stocking to see better.
The cop car surges onto the street behind us.
Looking ahead. A red light. Cars stopped, blocking the
way. Cutting to the right, onto the sidewalk, around the
cars, into the intersection.
A near miss with cross traffic, then accelerating.
Another red light ahead.
LANE:
Don't stop!
Truck entering the intersection. Everyone yelling. SPAZ
cuts the wheel but too late...
Clipping the truck and spinning.
The street outside smearing past like the view from a
Tilt-a-whirl.
Then KBLAM! Hitting something, God-knows-what, and
launching up and over, and--
KRUNCH! Crushing metal and an explosion of broken glass.
It gets quiet and still. Tinkling glass as Lane moves.
Then SPAZ is screaming. The car is upside down.
Crawling out of the side window. A frenzy now.
Whip pan to see the cops pulling up.
Then whipping back to the wreck. The engine is burning.
Flames spreading rapidly. SPAZ inside, pinned, upside
down, blood pumping across his face.
Our hands pulling Lane out. He comes up running.
We run after him, sprinting toward the welcoming darkness
of an alley.
Panting breath and heartbeats and sirens and somebody
yelling.
Gunshots. Looking back. Cops next to their car, firing.
Ahead, Lane running into shadow.
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"Strange Days" Scripts.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Mar. 2024. <https://www.scripts.com/script/strange_days_628>.
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