From now on, every time I watch a movie I'm going to put together a beat sheet like this one (with times extrapolated using a beat sheet calculator to adjust based on movie lengths. This was a system designed by Blake Snyder of Saves the Cat! fame, and is thusly known as the "BS2." For more information, go to Savesthecat.com. I'm trying to write these as much in the spirit of his own beat sheets as possible; there are many imitators online.
1. Opening Image (1): Dinner party. Each guy sneaks in as a waiter. Remorseless killers who jus want to get the job done.
2. Theme Stated (6):
“Is there a spy in interpol?” Reads the headline of the newspaper.
3. Set-Up (1-13): JCVD has a really nice apartment in a really bad neighborhood. His place is full of secret entrances hidden behind a... sink?
4. Catalyst (15): Scott Adkins’s girlfriend is symbolically raped by the drug lord, I say symbolically because she’s thrown onto a couch and has her clothes ripped off but then is repeatedly... punched... by a hand wrapped in a belt.
5. Debate (15-32): “You should move out of this neighborhood”, the guy paying JCVD for his last job in diamonds tells him. “I like it here.”
6. Break into Two (32): Both assassins fail to kill their target.
7. B Story (38): JCVD’s new next door neighbor’s are a drug dealer and some attractive Russian girl who he isn’t so nice to. When he nearly kills her, JCVD intervenes, although now she follows him around like a lost puppy.
8. Fun and Games (25-70): The two assassins crash into eachother! I’m pretty sure this is what the promise of the premise would be; two enemies joining forces to take down the drug cartel that they each have their own personal vendettas against. When they both draw guns on each other, they’re forced into a stalemate. “If we keep chasing the same target, we’ll keep getting in each other’s way!” Heavy handed exposition for Scott Atkin’s character, who hasn’t done much but cried over the comatose body of his ex girlfriend to this point.
Atkin’s interrogates a guy, shooting a series of holes around his body, and right when it seems he’s going to break JCVD shoots him in the back. Oops.
9. Midpoint (70): Lots of midpoints happening before 70. Is this what a “booster rocket” is? The baddies discover JCVD’s identity and want to “find this fucker by any cost.”
More B-Story: She shows him how to pet a turtle in order to have it pop it’s head out of the shell. Now, instead of kicking her out, he treats her back wounds.
Some guy, to Scott Atkins: “What are you going to do, take them all on? YOU’RE INSANE!”
“I want him dead within the next 48 hours!” (Timer set-up)
They close in on the guy who paid JCDV in diamonds earlier, but he has his bodyguards of his own.
“If you never really cared about anyone or anything, would you want to be alive?”
The girl tells JCVD they could run off together “With someone I trust.”
Turns out the guy who’s girlfriend is staying with JCVD is in cahoots with the drug cartel! Go figure.
10. Bad Guys Close In (70-95):
JCVD’s best friend plans an ambush for him.
JCVD and Atkins are obviously ambushed, Atkins is captured!
Atkins is hung shirtless and tortured. He will not reveal where the money is.
11. All Is Lost (95):
Atkins is captured! And his girl is captured!
His turtle is flipped upside down and his girl is chopped up really gross on the bed. They maybe got into his safe.
12. Dark Night of the Soul/Moment of Clarity (95-108): He goes back into his diamond dealer guys house, ready to turn himself in. He gives the diamonds back. “I need to know where Flint is.” He gives JCVD the location of the place.
13. Break into Three (108): JCVD kills the cartel members holding him hostage. They’re back together!
“You set me up!” “It was a mistake” “I came back” “Yeah you did”
14. Finale (108-140): “What can you do that we’re not already doing?” Some random drug dealer guy says to the main drug dealer guy. JCVD and Atkins got plenty of guns in the back seat.
They’re going to throw grenades into the building but Atkins says his wife is in there, JCVD: “I’m no good with a hostage situation.”
“The thing about fairy tale endings is that they are bullshit.”
They walk willingly, weaponless into a hornet’s den: the room where Atkins wife (the one who was raped by the dealer at the beginning). JCVD offers them 12 million dollars, as a decoy. Atkins uses this green light thing to set targets on the guards inside, and then it’s just him and JCVD left. He’s gonna slit his throat but he stabs him in the back instead.
They kill everyone else who was somehow involved, JCVD decapitates the neighbor with a samurai sword.
15. Final Image (140):
FINAL IMAGE TIME: JCVD mourns the dead at a church, and a single tear rolls down his cheek. This is about as much of a transformation as a modern action hero ever has, they’re usually just badass from start to end.