Script To Screen: “The Departed”

The violent elevator scene in the 2006 movie, screenplay by William Monahan.

Setup: An undercover cop (Billy) and a mole in the police (Cole) attempt to identify each other while infiltrating an Irish gang in South Boston.

The scripted version of the scene:

EXT. COMMERCIAL BUILDING. DAY

COLIN comes along and walks into the lobby. He is not
looking for a tail...

EXT. COMMERCIAL BUILDING ROOFTOP. DAY

COLIN looks out through the door, no gun drawn, but very
much a cop clearing his corners. He steps out and--BILLY
takes him from behind the door, his only blind side, and
grabs the back of his collar and crams a pistol into the
bottom of his skull.

BILLY
Get your hands up. Hands. Hands.

COLIN
Put the fuckin' gun down.
BILLY turns Colin around and puts the pistol to Colin's
forehead, hard enough to break the skin. He takes out
Colin's belt gun and puts it in his pocket. (Billy screams
"hands!" at Colin every time he makes a move).

COLIN (CONT'D)
I came here to talk some fucking
sense to you. You get a hold of
yourself and put down the fuckin'
firearm and act professional and I
can get you your money.

BILLY
(turning him around)
What did you say?

COLIN
I can get you your...
BILLY cracks him across the jaw with the gun. COLIN goes
down. COLIN is drooling blood, his bell rung, one eye
open. Billy throws away Colin's ankle gun.

COLIN (CONT'D)
(spitting teeth)
Fuck, shit...

BILLY
(going for Colin's cuffs)
You didn't come here to talk, you
fuckin' maggot, you came here to
get arrested.

COLIN
Arrested? Arrested for what.
(as BILLY cuffs him)
So you got tapes of what? Costello
was my informant. I was his rat?
Fuck you. Prove it. I say he was
my informant.

BILLY
Get up and shut your fuckin' mouth.

COLIN
What is this, a citizen's arrest?
Blow me, prick. Only one of us is
a cop, here, Bill. Nobody knows who
you are. Nobody knows who you are.

BILLY
Would you shut the fuck up.

COLIN
I'm a sergeant in the Mass. State
Police. Who the fuck are you?
Nobody. I ERASED YOU.
BILLY puts the gun to Colin's head.

BILLY
You erased me?

COLIN
Go ahead. Shoot a cop, Einstein.
See what happens.

BILLY
What would happen is the bullet
would go right through your fuckin'
head.

COLIN
Watch what happens.

BILLY
What, you think you're gonna get
the parade? The bagpipes and
bullshit? Fuck you.
(safeties the gun)
I'm arresting you.

COLIN
That's the stupidest thing you
could do.

BILLY
Shut up, shut up, shut the fuck up.
(hits him)
I don't give a fuck if these
charges don't stick.
(whaling him in the beats)
But I'm still fucking arresting
you.
COLIN is hammered to his knees. Head down, blood in his
hair, drooling blood, thinking (impossibly) about his next
move. He seems to realize he's fucked.

BILLY (CONT'D)
[You are what you do.] Get up.
(COLIN doesn't move.)
I said get the fuck up.
BILLY grabs the back of Colin's collar and puts the gun to
Colin's head. A crunch of gravel, off. BILLY and COLIN
both hear it.

BROWN
Put down the weapon and step away
from Sergeant Sullivan.
BILLY drags COLIN to his feet and using Colin as a shield
aims the pistol at: BROWN. Brown is aiming his weapon.

BILLY
I called you. You specifically.
You know who I am. I'm not gonna
shoot. I told you to meet me
downstairs.

COLIN
Help me.

Billy realizes he's in a truly shitty situation:
appearances are everything.

BROWN
Put the weapon on the deck and step
away from Sergeant Sullivan.

COLIN
(a mess, bloody-mouthed)
Shoot the fuckin' prick.

BILLY
(desperate)
Where's Dignam? I told you to bring
Dignam!

COLIN
Shoot the motherfucker!

BROWN
Put the weapon on the ground and
we'll discuss it.

BILLY
He was Costello's rat. I got
evidence. Tapes. Other documents.

BROWN
Maybe you do, but right now I need
you to drop the weapon.

BILLY
I told you I've got the evidence
cold linking this prick to
Costello...
(BROWN wavers)
You fuckin' know who I am. I'm
taking him downstairs now.
BROWN, weapon ready, follows into the elevator lobby.

INT. ELEVATOR LOBBY/ELEVATOR. DAY

BILLY moves COLIN into the elevator and as the doors close
looks back at BROWN, still in a Mexican stand-off.
COLIN, nose broken, blood masking his face.

COLIN
I can't wait for you to try to
explain this to a Suffolk County
grand jury. This is gonna be fun.
The indicator ticks. Down, down, down. Colin sobs.

COLIN (CONT'D)
Just fucking kill me.

BILLY
I am killing you.
The doors open and for a frozen moment BILLY, holding the
gun on COLIN, stares out of the car. A LOUD BANG. BILLY is
shot through the head. BLOOD sprays the walls, and COLIN
is hit by flying blood and matter. BILLY falls, crumpled,
on his face, half in and half out of the elevator. The
doors try to close...open...COLIN, covered with blood,
looks up.
BARRIGAN lowers his pistol.
COLIN slumps, covered with blood. BARRIGAN uncuffs him.
COLIN feels his wrists. BARRIGAN picks up BILLY'S gun. The
other elevator doors open and BROWN emerges. He looks into
the bloody elevator and down at the dead man.

BROWN
(holstering his gun)
Shit...
BARRIGAN raises BILLY'S GUN and shoots BROWN in the head.
COLIN stares at him.

BARRIGAN
Did you think you were the only one
he had? Costello was going to sell
us to the FBI. It's you and me now.
We have to take care of each other.
You understand?

COLIN
All right. Give me that.
BARRIGAN casually hands COLIN BILLY'S GUN. COLIN presses
the gun against BARRIGAN's forehead and fires.

The movie version of the scene:

The movie is awfully close to the script. There is some added dialogue likely improvised. For example, Colin keeps making the point to Brown to shoot Billy, that line gets repeated more than in the script, but the overall structure is the same. Four things to note:

• The scene description is lean and efficient. It’s an action scene. No time to dawdle with the prose. The taut description matches the scene’s pace and mood.
• Notice something about this scene description? “COLIN is hammered to his knees. Head down, blood in his hair, drooling blood, thinking (impossibly) about his next move. He seems to realize he’s fucked.” That is a so-called ‘unfilmable.’ It describes a character’s inner thoughts. Yet again, a screenplay by a professional screenwriter breaks this supposed ‘rule’ in order to delve more deeply into the emotional undercurrents of the scene.
• “BILLY falls, crumpled, on his face, half in and half out of the elevator. The doors try to close…open…” It’s one of the more memorable visuals in the scene, the awkward back and forth of the door. My guess is this is a shot the director Martin Scorsese wanted, so it was included in the script.
• There is one subtle, but significant change from the script. As written, Colin says to Barrigan, “Give me that,” referring to Billy’s gun, then shoots him. In the movie, Colin picks up the gun off the ground and starts to wipe it clean of fingerprints, then turns it on Barrigan and fires the weapon at Barrigan killing him. My guess is this changed in order to make Barrigan look less gullible by willingly hand over a weapon to a violent criminal, even if they ostensibly on the same side.

Takeaway: Make sure the style of your scene description matches the story’s genre. Genre + Style = Narrative Voice.

One of the single best things you can do to learn the craft of screenwriting is to read the script while watching the movie. After all a screenplay is a blueprint to make a movie and it’s that magic of what happens between printed page and final print that can inform how you approach writing scenes. That is the purpose of Script to Screen, where we analyze a memorable movie scene and the script pages that inspired it.

For more articles in the Script To Screen series, go here.