Script To Screen: “The Limey”
“You tell him. You tell him I’m coming! Tell him I’m fucking coming!”
“You tell him. You tell him I’m coming! Tell him I’m fucking coming!”
A pivotal scene from the 1999 crime drama The Limey, written by Lem Dobbs.
Setup: An extremely volatile and dangerous Englishman goes to Los Angeles to find the man he considers responsible for his daughter’s death.
INT. WAREHOUSE HALLWAY. A SCRATCHING at the door. It opens. He's in. Waits. Cautious. Nothing. He starts along the hallway. INT. WAREHOUSE. A SUPERVISOR (the one from the flash cuts) does a double take
as Wilson passes. SUPERVISOR
Hey! Wilson stops and turns. Says nothing. SUPERVISOR
How'd you get in here. WILSON
Walked. SUPERVISOR
You walked.
(coming over)
What the hell are you doing here. WILSON
Looking for a bloke named Valentine.
Know him? MEAT PUPPETS (who we saw before as well) who work here
gathering. The Supervisor and the Meat Puppets exchange
glances. SUPERVISOR
He's expecting you? WILSON
(beat)
I doubt it. The Supervisor moves toward Wilson. SUPERVISOR
So why would he want to see you. WILSON
I have a message for him. About Jennifer
Wilson. SUPERVISOR
Jennifer Wilson. More looks are exchanged. WILSON
You know her? SUPERVISOR
Yeah. I know her, all right. She came
down here once, stirred up a shitstorm.
We lost a full day's work, took me weeks
to get back on schedule. If she hadn't
a' been Terry's woman I would've broke
her jaw. 'Course, she's nobody's problem
now. Wilson stares at him. WILSON
Is Valentine here? SUPERVISOR
What do you think? Wilson looks at the Meat Puppets, the loading area. WILSON
Where is he, then? SUPERVISOR
Listen, get the fuck out of here before
you get hurt. Who the fuck do you think
you are, waltzing in here, asking
questions? Wilson just looks at him. SUPERVISOR
Do you hear me, asshole? The Supervisor shoves him. The Meat Puppets move a little in
anticipation. Wilson isn't giving any indication that he's
going to leave. SUPERVISOR
Jesus, you really want your ass kicked,
don't you? He pushes Wilson again, hard. SUPERVISOR
Go on, get outta here. He pushes Wilson again. Still, Wilson won't leave. SUPERVISOR
Fuckin' nut. Go on. This time he tries to slap Wilson. Wilson blocks the
Supervisor's hand and then punches him, hard. The Supervisor
stumbles back and falls to the floor. THE MEAT PUPPETS Move to Wilson. He tries to fend them off, but there are too
many. They beat him. When they find that he's armed, they
beat him harder. CUT. EXT. BUILDING. DAY. Wilson is taken outside and dumped. After a moment, he gets
to his feet. Dusting himself. Reaches for ANOTHER GUN tucked
in his lower back. He re-enters the building. A beat. We hear several SHOTS. Seconds later, one of the Meat Puppets comes stumbling out of
the door, terrified. He runs past us, fast. A moment later, Wilson emerges, gun in hand. WILSON
You tell him. You tell him I'm coming!!
The movie version of the scene:
The final version is essentially the same as the script with a few notable differences with dialogue including this added line: “Tell him I’m fucking coming!” Almost never hurts to drop in an F-bomb to drive home a point.
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, a weekly series on GITS where we analyze a memorable movie scene and the script pages that inspired it.
For more Script To Screen articles, go here.