Picking Up the Peaces

Logline: "A witty, unsettling thriller - former deadly assassin struggles for peace in a world that may not want it."

This film reads like an over-the-top and witty look at global politics and warfare, comparable to a Coen Brothers film or a Doonesbury cartoon. As always, the full script is available upon request.

Note: this excerpt contains ADULT LANGUAGE and VIOLENCE.

PICKING UP THE PEACES
by Kyle Patrick Johnson
Represented by: Registered with:
Canton Literary Management (CLM) Writers Guild of America,
Contact: Eric Canton West, Inc.
(866) 429-3118 Registration #1329562
ECanton@Prodigy.net
www.CantonLiteraryManagement.com
FADE IN:
INT. RIO DE JANEIRO - HOTEL ROOM - DAY (PRESENT DAY)
The yellow translucent shades are drawn, sickly hot light
filters through to dingy unpainted plaster walls. Bugs
scurry, large as mice, aloof as royalty.
A slow-revolving ceiling fan, weakly ineffective.
Sprawled on the bed, arms behind his head: JOHN FONTAINE
(30s), twinkling eyes conceal a tack-sharp mind, easy build
hides a lethal talent.
But his eyes are not twinkling now.
Bustling around the room: LONI EMERY (20s), glorious beauty
more worthy of cashmere and pearls. There’s no finery here.
She unpacks suitcases, tosses cheap clothes in small piles on
a rickety bureau.
In the bottom of a suitcase, she finds a small unframed photo
of a woman, MAUREEN FONTAINE (30s). She looks over her
shoulder at Fontaine, unsure...
She lays the picture on the pillow next to him.
Fontaine looks at the picture, a deep sadness.
LONI
It was months ago, John.
FONTAINE
Not to me. Not to Maureen.
Loni assembles weapons and covert night equipment from
seemingly innocent plastic parts.
Bullets wedged into her purse handle. Telescoping tripods in
suitcase edges. Gun barrels inside toothpaste tubes.
Her arsenal complete, Loni gives a curt nod of approval. Goes
into the bathroom, turns on a decrepit shower.
The shower turns off.
LONI (O.S.)
Ugh. It’s brown.
LATER
Fontaine lounges on the bed, reads “War and Peace” by
Tolstoy. In the original Russian.
Loni sits upright at a wobbly desk, thumbs through “Field
Manual for Night Combat”. Studies, underlines.
A boring day, a boring job.
LONI
There’s nothing in here about
babies.
Fontaine looks up, doesn’t know what to say.
LONI
Well, I guess they can’t do any
harm.
Fontaine looks down at his book, deep in thought, as if these
thoughts are brand new.
FONTAINE
(whispers to himself)
Can’t do any harm.
Loni puts her hand over her mouth.
EXT. RIO - MARKET - DAY
Fontaine and Loni wear bright obnoxious shirts, stroll
through the stalls, the American couple on holiday.
BAUBLE VENDOR (60s), plump leathery grandma, shoves cheap
bead strings in their faces.
BAUBLE VENDOR
(in Spanish)
For you? For the wife?
LONI
(in English)
No, no thanks.
BAUBLE VENDOR
(in Spanish)
The children, you must have
children, no?
Fontaine, expression strained, looks sick.
2.
LONI
(in Spanish)
No, we don’t have children, you
miserable witch. Go away!
Bauble Vendor shrugs, cheerful, harasses the next couple.
Fontaine and Loni weave their way through the market, dodge
vendors, slide behind a stall: piles of refuse and a barbedwire
tipped six-foot brick wall.
Loni tip-toes through the garbage, backs up to the wall.
Fontaine lifts a cell phone, takes several pictures.
Loni poses like a ditzy newlywed tourist. They laugh.
But the pictures are focused on the giant stone building
behind her, behind the wall, just over Loni’s head.
INT. RIO HOTEL ROOM - NIGHT
The bed is littered with papers and files, schematics of
alarm systems, building plans, maps, weapons specifications.
One satellite photo features a large stone building, a cloth
awning circled in red marker.
Fontaine and Loni, no-nonsense, shameless, pull skin-tight
non-reflective black catsuits over their naked bodies. No
underwear, smooth aerodynamic lines.
Loni throws Fontaine a smile, nervous, excited, ready.
Fontaine puts Maureen’s picture between his chest and the
suit, its outline visible.
They slap on dark facepaint.
Zip utility belts tight.
Slip fearsome knives into sheaths.
Yank tight gloves onto their hands.
Transformed into warriors.
Fontaine jogs in place, gets his heart rate up, psychs
himself, floods his body with adrenaline.
He swallows down tomato juice, in a small tin travel can. He
crushes the can in a steel fist.
He picks up a gun. His gun...
3.
FONTAINE
To war, Peacekeeper.
Fontaine kisses the handle, scored with dozens of notches.
Loni paces, looks through pictures on an iPhone, mumbles to
herself.
LONI
Vijuan Acedo, five eight, kill on
sight... Beatrisa Acedo, five
three, kill on sight...
Fontaine hears her, an unhappy cloud covers his face.
LONI
Vijuanito Acedo, two months, dark
hair, kill on--
FONTAINE
What happens if we split up?
LONI
Fourth dock from the airport.
Fontaine looks at the baby’s picture. With a snarl, he throws
the iPhone against the wall, a shatter of electronics.
He leaps through the open window, feet first.
EXT. RIO HOTEL - NIGHT
Fontaine lands on his toes, cat-like, on the top of a
delivery van behind the building. He bounces to the ground.
Low to the ground, Fontaine lopes into the shadows.
Loni climbs out of the window, less sure, dangles, drops.
She lands hard. Grunts. Jogs after Fontaine.
EXT. MARKET - NIGHT
Deserted stalls cast funhouse shadows in the moonlight.
Two ghosts flit through the narrow alleys...
Loni and Fontaine sneak up to the wall.
Fontaine cups his hands, hoists Loni to the walltop. She puts
wire cutters to the wire.
4.
BZZZZZZZZ. Electrified. The wire cutters bounce out of her
hand, clatter to the ground.
Loni teeters but maintains her balance. They freeze,
expecting a response. No one comes.
Fontaine hands the wirecutters back up.
Loni takes off one of her black gloves, lays it across the
wire, cuts the wire through the gloves. Just a minimal
smothered spark.
Loni cuts the rest of the wire in the same way, uses the
glove to gingerly push the wire aside.
She jumps over the wall.
Splat.
Fontaine, already tense, leaps up the wall, looks over.
FONTAINE’S POV
Loni sheepishly looks back up at Fontaine from the middle of
a shallow koi wading pool.
WALL
Fontaine puts finger to lips. Shhhh.
EXT. ACEDO COMPOUND - NIGHT
The central stone mansion towers like some ancient god,
squat, heavy, forbidding. Lights peep through basement
windows, but the rest of the structure is dark.
The large lush backyard central mansion pulses with a shadow
civilization, reflected light and music.
Loni and Fontaine slither towards the house, skirting pools
and water fountains and benches and statues and tennis
courts.
Fontaine and Loni peer in a basement window.
FONTAINE’S POV
Looks down on several lazy BODYGUARDS playing a board game,
Monopoly. Dozens of bottles of alcohol. Bodyguards seem to be
arguing over the placement of a hotel on the board.
5.
BACK TO SCENE
Fontaine looks in a dark first floor window. He shakes his
head, points at the window. Loni nods.
Loni pulls a tiny jar of dark jelly from her utility belt.
With a tiny Swiss Army Knife Trowel, she spreads the dark
stuff all across the window.
Simultaneously, Fontaine swings up to a cloth awning over a
porch, quickly cuts a large square of cloth out with a sharp
knife. He drops to the ground.
Fontaine puts the cloth on the sticky window, presses on the
cloth to ensure total adherence.
Loni holds two corners of the cloth...
Fontaine swings his elbow at the cloth, hard, fast. The
window shatters, but noiseless.
Loni pulls the cloth free, dozens of window shards stuck to
it, lays it on the ground.
They climb through the broken window.
INT. ACEDO MANSION - KITCHEN - NIGHT
Dark. A large kitchen, gorgeous granite and marble, all the
latest appliances.
Fontaine and Loni tip-toe past a hanging rack of sparkling
sleek steel knives. Fontaine pauses to admire them, takes one
down.
The overhead light flicks on.
Loni panics, falls flat on the floor. Fontaine ducks behind
an island counter.
BEATRISA ACEDO (17), the most innocent face this side of the
Virgin Mary, plods sleepily towards the refrigerator, rubs
her eyes.
Barefooted, nightgowned, she breastfeeds a gurgling infant,
VIJUANITO ACEDO (2 months), juggles him as she opens the
fridge door.
Loni scrabbles backwards, crab-like, unfolds the tripod
underneath her silenced handgun pointed up at Beatrisa. She
sets up a perfect shot.
6.
Fontaine is mesmerized, stares at the baby, the tiny wrinkled
crossed feet, the inoffensive tiny fingers, the gentle little
neck craned back for food.
Fontaine looks disarmed, nothing warlike about him at all.
Loni looks to Fontaine for permission to fire. Fontaine
shakes his head.
Beatrisa drinks down a half-empty bottle of milk. She murmurs
a lullaby under her breath.
Loni glares at Fontaine: “Are you crazy?”
Loni points the gun at Beatrisa again.
Fontaine scrambles across the floor, pounces on Loni, holds
her gun down.
Loni wriggles under him, tries to get free, makes noise.
Beatrisa looks down, sees them on the floor. Face goes ashen.
BEATRISA
(in Spanish)
Holy Virgin, protect me.
Fontaine waves at her: “Go away, get out of here.”
Beatrisa vanishes, slips out. Turns out the light.
Loni jumps to a crouch, juts her jaw into Fontaine’s face.
LONI
(hiss)
I had a perfect... Let me do one!
Fontaine puts his hand over her mouth, thumb on one side,
fingers on the other, grips her cheeks.
FONTAINE
What’d that baby ever do?
He stands, brings her to her feet, releases her face.
She rubs her cheeks.
Fontaine raises another finger: No more talking.
The light flicks on again.
No time to duck.
7.
A dark figure stands in the doorway, holds a silenced gun in
each hand, pointed at Loni and Fontaine. This is AMNUL
DEMIDOV (40s), Russian killer, eyes of death, lips of honey.
A standoff. Loni’s gun is in a lowered hand. Fontaine’s knife
hand is behind the island counter, out of Demidov’s sight.
Demidov smiles, enjoys the sight of two burglars discomfited
in the kitchen. He shakes his head, “tsk-tsk”.
FONTAINE
(in Spanish)
We’re here for the dishwasher.
Fontaine bends over the appliance, pretends to examine it.
DEMIDOV
(in English)
And I am Vladimir Lenin.
Fontaine, confusion, hears the accent.
FONTAINE
You’re not a bodyguard.
DEMIDOV
Depends on whose body. Now that
body...
Demidov gestures at Loni.
FONTAINE
You’re him.
Loni looks at Fontaine, her eyes wide open.
FONTAINE
You’re Demidov.
Demidov, a slight, mocking bow.
DEMIDOV
Orders are orders. A pity about
your wife, she was--
A pig squeals in a hallway. Voices coming near.
DEMIDOV
(in Russian)
Oh, fuck.
Demidov turns off the light switch with an elbow, dives for
the island counter.
8.
Fontaine throws a knife at the diving shape...
And hits a miniature pot-bellied pig instead. The pig appears
in the doorway, its feet slipping on the slick tiled floor,
and takes a knife dead between the eyes. The pig falls with a
surprised, and somewhat disappointed, grunt.
Fontaine and Loni drop to the floor behind the counter.
LONI
I think you got him.
BODYGUARD #1 flicks on the light, sees the butchered animal.
Demidov shoots Bodyguard #1, a perfect forehead hole.
DEMIDOV
You kill a pig, I kill a pig.
Demidov dashes to the light switch, covers the kitchen with
his guns, turns the lights off.
DEMIDOV
Where is Acedo?
LONI
Downstairs.
No answer.
Fontaine peeks his head around the counter. No one there.
Fontaine jumps out the broken window, Loni at his heels.
EXT. ACEDO COMPOUND - NIGHT
Fontaine scoots around the house, peeks through every
basement window he can find.
Loni tags behind like a bewildered puppy.
LONI
(whisper)
But I thought... And what’s Demidov
doing here?
Fontaine freezes. Points through a basement window.
9.
FONTAINE’S POV
A movie projector and a giant screen. VIJUAN ACEDO (50s), a
petty kingpin, more grease than hair on his head, sits in an
armchair ten feet from the screen. Surrounded by dozing
Bodyguards. The movie: a terrible B-grade love story.
BACK TO SCENE
Loni sucks a sturdy stick of chewing gun, softens it.
Fontaine pieces together a silenced sniper rifle from plastic
components stored in his utility belt.
She takes a diamond ring off her finger, makes a tiny circle
in the window with the diamond, cuts it like silent butter.
She plunks the gum onto the glass circle. She tugs the piece
out.
Fontaine puts the rifle into the hole, rests the end on the
cut glass. He takes Acedo into his sight.
FONTAINE’S POV
Demidov enters his field of view, stealthy, stalking Acedo
from behind, creeping through the sleeping Bodyguards, gun
drawn.
Fontaine pulls the trigger.
Acedo slumps to the side, a perfect shot through his temple.
Fontaine shifts his sight to Demidov...
Demidov, angry, swings his gun to the window, fires.
BACK TO SCENE
Fontaine pulls the rifle out of the hole, throws himself
backwards, knocks Loni down. They are unhit.
INT. ACEDO MANSION - BASEMENT - NIGHT
Demidov wanders around, casual, puts bullets in each
Bodyguard’s head.
He stares up at the window, peeved. Unclips something from an
inside pocket.
10.
EXT. ACEDO COMPOUND - NIGHT
A large grenade crashes through the window, lands on the
grass beside Fontaine.
Fontaine and Loni scramble to their feet, race in opposite
directions.
Fontaine trips and falls over something sticking out of the
ground, a thick three-pronged small vertical wire.
A bounding mine shoots out of the ground between his legs,
pops several feet into the air.
Fontaine curls into a tiny ball.
The bounding mine explodes. Tiny bits of razor-sharp shrapnel
fly in all directions. Except straight down. Which is where
Fontaine is.
The shrapnel peppers holes in the stone mansion.
Fontaine breathes, amazed he’s still alive. He sits up.
Demidov’s grenade explodes. It’s a sting grenade, sucks all
of the air out of Fontaine’s lungs, pelts him with hard
rubber balls at high speed.
Fontaine falls over, pain... unconscious...
EXT. ACEDO COMPOUND - NIGHT
Fontaine wakes up, winces, skinsuit tattered, Maureen’s
picture torn and visible.
Demidov stands over him.
DEMIDOV
I wonder why we are not allies. We
are wanting the same blood.
Fontaine blinks. Looks around the compound.
FONTAINE
You take Loni, too?
DEMIDOV
It is a good job.
Demidov beams a charming smile.
Fontaine makes a sudden lunge at Demidov’s throat, bounces
his whole body up off the grass.
11.
Demidov whips a shrapnel shard, no larger than a pinky nail,
up to Fontaine’s approaching neck. Even a splinter can cut a
throat in the right hands.
Fontaine stops on a dime, frozen in an awkward back-bending
crouch, his fists clenched so tight, his rage palpable.
Demidov’s smile vanishes.
DEMIDOV
Down.
Demidov catches him by surprise with a kick to the groin.
Fontaine doubles up.
Demidov backs away, about to say something, chooses not to,
slips around the mansion towards the front. An engine starts,
sounds like a nice sports car, zooms away.
Fontaine climbs to his feet, races after Demidov.
FONTAINE
Loni? Loni?
No response.
Distant sirens approach the front of the compound.
Fontaine stops. He smashes a fist against the stone mansion,
bloodies himself. He looks to the sky with an anguished,
unspoken fury on his lips.
EXT. MARKET - NIGHT
Fontaine rockets over the wall, vaults to freedom.
He lands, cat-like, on feather toes. Flits off, disappears.
EXT. RIO - STREETS - NIGHT
Fontaine sprints for the ocean, oblivious to the crowds of
PEDESTRIANS, oblivious to traffic lights.
EXT. GUANABARA BAY (RIO) - NIGHT
Fontaine races to the shore. A normal man would stop.
He hurtles bodylong into the water, disappears.
ONLOOKERS shrug, look away. Just another night in Rio.
12.
EXT. RIO - DOCKS - NIGHT
Fontaine clings to the underside of a wooden pier. He
shivers, soaked. Only upper-body strength keeps him afloat.
He waits. Maureen’s picture melts into a pulp.
EXT. JOBIM INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT (RIO) - DAY
A figure stumps across the tarmac, coming from the sea. It is
Fontaine, and he is dripping wet. And alone.
He’s rolled the skinsuit down to his waist, looks like a
scuba-diver.
Fontaine shouts something under the screaming engines to a
group of BAGGAGE HANDLERS near a standing airplane. Baggage
Handlers stalk off to the terminal, argue amongst themselves.
Fontaine slips up into the luggage hold.
INT. AIRPLANE - LUGGAGE HOLD - DARK
Fontaine roots among the luggage, finds a giant steel trunk
at the bottom, a paid shipment with stickers.
Fontaine spins combination locks, opens the trunk.
INSIDE THE TRUNK - LATER
Engine noise. Unbearable.
Fontaine has put on street clothes, wraps blankets around
himself to stay warm. Holds an oxygen mask to his mouth.
A second oxygen mask, unused.
He looks asleep, but his eyes are open. Open and melancholy.
Shivers in the cold.
His gun, Peacekeeper, alone and small on the floor.
EXT. CHICAGO - SMALL HOUSE - DAY
An old, run-down semi-urban neighborhood. Houses right on top
of each other. Chain-link fences.
A small frumpy old car chugs at double the residential speed
limit, pulls up, parallel parks perfectly the first time.
13.
Fontaine gets out, slips around the back of the small house.
INT. SMALL HOUSE - BASEMENT ENTRY - DAY
Fontaine plods down the back steps, ducks into the entry, his
path blocked by a flat cement wall with a small heavy door.
He puts his thumb on a bio-reader, types a several-digit code
into a security box. Click.
Fontaine grasps the door, pulls it open with a soft hiss.
INT. SMALL HOUSE - BASEMENT - DAY
A simple square table. Four computers, one in each direction.
Three computers occupied by three COMPUTER USERS (30s),
frumpy, pudgy, parted haircuts, tapered dark blue jeans,
colorless buttondown shirts. Bland tapioca triplets stare
like automatons into loving data-covered monitors.
Fontaine pulls the door tight. No one looks up.
Fontaine plops down at the empty computer, logs in, opens a
word processing program. A small can of tomato juice waits
for him. He drinks it down.
COMPUTER USER #1
Had a job proposal from Apple.
COMPUTER USER #2
The Apple of Apple, Apple?
COMPUTER USER #1
But no offer of combat pay.
Fontaine types: “Agents John Fontaine, Loni Emery. Mission
Report #47722. Mission Successful.”
COMPUTER USER #2
It’s the little things.
Fontaine looks at his hands. Closes his eyes.
He types without looking: “Encountered Amnul Demidov. Agent
Emery missing.”
COMPUTER USER #1
Apple frowns on forgeries, too.
Fontaine bites his lip. A tear forms in one eye...
14.
THE REMAINDER OF THIS SCRIPT IS UNAVAILABLE FOR PREVIEW.
PLEASE CONTACT THE AUTHOR FOR THE FULL SCRIPT.