The Hate Machine
This
is a treatment I’ve whipped up where it’s basically like The Incredible Hulk if the hulk was a car. Not that I’ve seen either Hulk movie, but I
get the idea.
We
start off seeing Perseus Sledge (Michael C. Hall)
driving a silver Interceptor out of the Nevada desert and this anal looking
Mormon dude (Paul Dano) hitchhiking on the side of
the road. Sledge picks him up and the
two are driving along and Dano starts blathering all sorts of bigoted bullshit and we use clever
editing to show how this really irritates Sledge. As Sledge becomes more and more annoyed by Dano’s preaching we see the fuel gage go from almost empty
to full and the car starts picking up speed until Sledge is doing all sorts of
crazy stunts and Dano is shitting his pants.
They screech to
a halt in downtown San Francisco right in front of Dano’s
church and Dano gets out looking terrified and asks if he can chip in for gas, to which Sledge calmly
retorts “You already did.” And speeds off.
We then get a
title sequence featuring Sledge going into a soul music joint where Andre
Benjamin is performing the film’s theme song in an attempt to imitate Curtis
Mayfield’s song Pusher Man. The song
will have really obvious lyrics providing all the exposition the audience
needs. Stuff like:
He’s a modern
man from a long past age
Riding the road
in a car fuelled by rage
Nothing can
calm his storm
Except for the
day when love makes his heart warm
Sledge sits in
the audience enjoying a drink and watching Benjamin sing until the theme song
and opening credits end. Then somebody
motions him into a back room and Sledge goes in and Mr. Boss (Bill Duke) greets
Sledge. Sledge hands Mr. Boss a
briefcase revealing he’s a transporter like in Vanishing Point or The
Transporter. Mr. Boss then takes out
two new briefcases, opens one to reveal cash as payment for the last job, and
then a second containing a small computer which will be his next delivery
gig. Mr. Boss just says “Montreal. Saturday.”
As Sledge is
leaving the club with the two briefcases he sees that somebody has broken into
his car and is in there fiddling around trying to hotwire it. Sledge calls out telling them to get the fuck
out of his car and starts running towards the car to see it’s
Burnout Bob (Nicolas Cage) and Sledge pulls a gun and Bob gets out with his
hands up. But then Mustang Sally (Maria
Bello) jumps out of the shadows and scratches Sledge with her nails and Sledge
screams “Fuck!” and starts fistfighting Sally
and the car suddenly turns on and the headlights fire on and the stereo starts
blasting. The fight gets brutal with
Sledge dragging Sally around by the hair and slamming Bob’s head in the car
door while Bob just cries out “I just wanted to know how it works! I just
wanted to be as fast as you!”
Sledge
gets in his car and the fuel tank is full and he peels out leaving Bob and
Sally a bloody mess in the parking lot.
As he drives out of town he says to himself “People
should thank their tranquil souls they can’t drive like me.”
We see him
drive along until he notices his fuel tank getting down to a quarter tank and he pulls into a diner. He sits down at the counter and orders a
burger and notices this asshole calling himself Straight Jack (Dane Cook)
talking on a mobile phone and saying all sorts of sexist bullshit about how
he’s cheating on his special lady and how he’s got a nice piece of ass waiting
for him Chicago, but his car is broken down and he can’t afford a new one etc etc.
Sledge finishes
his burger and turns to Straight Jack and says he overheard his conversation
and wouldn’t mind giving him a ride to Chicago.
Jack says thanks and says he’s just got to go to a motel and get some
things. The two ride along while Sledge
listens to Straight Jack make phone calls to all his various girlfriends and
wives around the country and pause from the phone calls only to brag about it
to Sledge.
Sledge gets
Jack to Chicago and Jack sees Sweet Jane (Selma Blair) waiting for him across
the street. Jack thanks Sledge for the
ride and as he’s getting out Sledge tells him Sweet Jane deserves better to
which Jack’s only retort is “Fuck you, homo!” and Jack walks across the
street to embrace Jane but gets mowed down Meet Joe Black style when
Burnout Bob and Mustang Sally screech around the corner in their Mustang and
try to shoot up Sledge’s car with an uzi. Sledge urges Sweet Jane to get in the car
fast, and the two peel out and a car chase through
Chicago ensues. The chase comes to a head
as Bob is chasing Sledge up through one of those spiralling aboveground parking
towers. Sledge is enough ahead that he’s
out of Bob’s sight and Sledge parks in a spot and turns his lights off. As Bob comes screeching around the spiral
ramp and Sledge rams him right out the side of the parking tower. Sweet Jane looks at him for a moment and then
says “There was no thud.”
Sledge
gets out of his car and looks down over the edge and sees that Bob’s Mustang
actually caught on the hook of a construction crane by its bumper and is now
dangling. Bob sticks his hand out the
window giving Sledge the middle finger and Sledge draws his pistol and blows
the middle finger right off Bob’s hand.
Then the crane starts to swing the car around out of sight. Sledge and Jane jump back in Sledge’s car and
start speeding down the storeys of the parking garage and make to street level
and manically squeal around to get Bob’s car back in sight. They catch up with the car on the hook just
in time to see the bumper break off and the car plummet to the street and
explode. Sledge focuses to see that
nobody was inside and we get a shot of Bob and Sally climbing up the hook cord
to the top of the crane and pulling themselves up on top of the crane and
panting.
Sledge is looking
up at the crane trying to spot them and reaching for his pistol, but then the
sound of sirens flares up and Jane urges him to get out of here and avoid the
heat. The two go and park in an
underground parking lot of a hotel and check in. Jane tells Sledge she knew Straight Jack was
cheating on her and only came to meet him to break up with him. The two start having all sorts of sex in the
hotel and morning comes around and they are lying in
bed all content with themselves. They
enjoy a nice hotel breakfast and check out.
Sledge and Jane
walk down to the parking lot of the hotel and the valet asks if he can fetch
their car, but Sledge tells the valet he’s the only one who can get his car
started and so Sledge and Jane go into the lot.
Sledge just can’t get the car to start because he’s so happy. He gets out of the car to think and sees the
valet has had his throat slit and is on the ground dead. Then a transparent beach ball full of
explosives comes flying towards him and he quickly
hits the FOB to open the boot door of his car so that it hits the beach ball
away like a pinball machine flipper.
But then in the
distance he sees Bob and Sally also have all the other FOBs from the valet and
start using them to open the all cars’ boots/trunks, bonnets/hoods, and sun
roofs to bounce the ball full of explosives around and try to redirect it at
Sledge. Sledge and Jane end up dancing
around on the roofs of the cars trying to avoid the beach ball. Sledge starts using his
pistols to fire through the roofs of the cars and dislodge their parking
brakes so that they roll towards Bob and Sally.
As the fight progresses Sledge becomes angrier and his car suddenly revs
up. A rolling car pins Sally up against the
parking lot wall. This infuriates Bob,
who starts manically jamming the car FOB buttons and just when he thinks he’s
got a good shot at Sledge and hits a button to open a car’s boot but Sledge
ducks and it sends the ball right at Sally blowing her to smithereens
splattering her all over the wall.
Sledge and Jane jump in Sledge’s car and squeal
out. They drive north towards the drop
off in Montreal. They stop periodically
to have romantic moments and sleep and various Two-Lane Blacktop moments
of eating in diners. Sledge tells Jane
their romance will have to wait until after the briefcase is delivered because
it’s tapping his angst and stopping his car from getting the juice it needs to
run. They’re making it towards the
Canadian border and see Burnout Bob gaining on them again in his rear view
mirror. Sledge curses that he doesn’t
get how Bob always knows where he is. As
they speed along the highway and the signs keep saying the Canadian border is
getting closer and Sweet Jane says “I guess this isn’t the time to tell you
I don’t have a passport?” to which Sledge replies “It’s okay, neither do
I.”
Sledge
leans out the car window with his pistol and shoots the rear tires of a flatbed
truck so that the tires go flat and the flatbed tilts back and the sheet metal
it’s carrying spills out backwards forming a ramp which Sledge uses to jump
over customs. Sweet Jane kisses him in
mid-air and they have a goofy unbelievable shot of them snogging
as the car flies through the air Dukes of Hazard style.
Burnout
Bob just witness this and jams on his breaks and gets out and lets out a
classic Nick Cage Deadfall style “Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuccccccccccckkkkkkk! Fuckity Fuck! Fuck!
Fuck!”
Sledge
and Jane make it into Montreal late at night and pull up in front of the high
rise where they’re supposed to deliver the briefcase. They get out and go up to the luxurious
office in a deserted building and are greeted by Ricky Jay. Sledge says “Special delivery.” Ricky Jay asks them to sit down and seems
hospitable. He opens the briefcase as if
he’s inspecting it and takes out the small computer and turns on the screen
revealing that it was just a GPS showing their present location. Ricky Jay says “You weren’t really hired
to deliver this briefcase, you were hired to deliver
your car to my son, Bob Junior. This
computer just told him where he could collect his gift.”
Sledge
is getting pissed and we get intercut shots of his car outside revving up and
starting to buck like it has hydraulics.
Burnout Bob enters the office looking all pissed off and Bob Senior
tells him to calm down and that this whole thing can end in very civilized
fashion if every one cooperates at which point he reveals that he is holding a
pistol and aims it Sweet Jane and coldly says “The keys, Mr. Sledge.”. Sledge begrudgingly throws Burnout Bob the
keys and Bob Senior tells him to walk Burnout Bob down to the car and once he
drives off, Jane will be freed.
Burnout
Bob and Sledge walk down to the front of the building and Burnout Bob says “I
always get what I want.” Bob headbutts Sledge to
the ground and gets into Sledge’s car which is bucking violently and revving
really hard. Burnout Bob sarcastically
says “Pleasure doing business with you.” and rolls up the window. Then Sledge hears gun shots firing from the
high rise where he just was and screams out in rage “Nooooooooooooooo!”
and his rage causes the car to explode with Bob inside. Sledge pulls out his pistols and starts
running up the stairs to Bob Senior’s office, fuming and grunting all the
way. He kicks open the door to see it
was actually Sweet Jane who had shot Bob Senior and not the other way around.
You get a brief
moment where it the two look at each other with intense ambiguity and then
Sledge’s pulse lowers and they embrace.
The last shots will be of them buying bus tickets and boarding a bus as
the funky theme song plays.
If you liked this, here some other recommended
writings:
Here’s my take on a Straw Dogs type of movie.
The title was inspired by Bad News Bears.
This is my attempt at writing an adventure fantasy movie.
Vern’s Book On Steven Seagal is this
Christmas’s Tickle-Me-Elmo
I score a rare interview
with the author of Seagalogy!