6/26/23, 10:23 PM Script To Screen: “Collateral” | by Scott Myers | Go Into The Story

Script To Screen: “Collateral”

Scott Myers · Follow
Published in Go Into The Story
4 min read · Dec 10, 2014

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A scene from the 2004 movie Collateral, written by Stuart Beattie.

IMDb plot summary: A cab driver finds himself the hostage of an engaging contract
killer as he makes his rounds from hit to hit during one night in Los Angeles. He
must find a way to save both himself and one last victim.

Here is the scene from the script:

He is head-butting the horn. BEEEEP. BEEP-BEEP. And he checks *

the mirror. This time when he looks, he sees…

YOUNG WHITE GUYS. 20–25. They were on the sidewalk. Now they
detour into the alley and approach the distressed cab from the
back, shielding their eyes from Max’s flashing lights.

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6/26/23, 10:23 PM Script To Screen: “Collateral” | by Scott Myers | Go Into The Story

MAX (CONT’D)
Oh. Oh, thank God! Hey, hey, man,
help me out here!

WHITE GUY #1
Yo, whassup?
MAX
(fast, stumbling)
I got my, my hands taped to the
steering wheel, here, by this guy,
who’s taped me in the car, ’cause he’s
up in the building somewhere…

CLOSER, now, the four are in baggies, hoodies and tattooed with
lightning bolts on their necks, swastikas on chests, one has
“5150” tattooed on his shaven eyebrow (police code for
emotionally disturbed)…

WHITE GUY #2
You all trapped in there and shit?

MAX
…yeah, he’s coming back. Hurry.
Get me loose so I can call the cops…

WHITE GUY #1 nods…and pulls a chromed .380 and points it at

Max.
WHITE GUY #1
Fuck that, man, gimme your wallet.

The others have walked off down the alley, laughing. One tosses
a beer bottle that smashes. Utter disbelief from Max…

MAX
Are you kidding me?

WHITE GUY #1
I will fuck you up! Hand it over.

MAX
(beat)
My hands are taped to the damn
steering wheel!

It takes a moment for WHITE GUY #1 to process this. He steps to

the window, presses the .380 against Max’s cheek. It’s utterly
terrifying, everything happening fast:

MAX (CONT’D)
…don’t shoot me, don’t shoot me…

WHITE GUY #1
Then get your ass up, up…

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6/26/23, 10:23 PM Script To Screen: “Collateral” | by Scott Myers | Go Into The Story

Max pulls himself up by the steering wheel, trying to get his

butt off the seat to give the Young Man access. The White Guy
#1 gropes for Max’s back pocket, trying to get the wallet,
pressing the gun to his face, the other guys down the alley,
turn the corner.

White Guy #1 pulls Max’s wallet, pockets it…

…and pauses, seeing Vincent’s briefcase on the back seat.

He yanks open the back door, grabs Vincent’s briefcase, too, and
walks off after his friends. White Guys #3 and #4 turned the
corner. White Guy #2 lingers.

Max, still taped, is shaken. He can’t believe what happened.

He looks through the windshield at…

WHITE GUY #1

…walking off, cocky as hell, about to vanish into the night…

BACK OF WHITE GUY #1

VINCENT (O.S.)
Yo’ homie…

White Guy #1 turns, to see the silhouette of Vincent. He raises

his .380 side-handed, like he sees gangsters do on MTV. White
Guy #2 joins him.
VINCENT (CONT’D)
(even)
That my briefcase…?

White Guy #1 approaches Vincent from the front…#2 from

Vincent’s left.

WHITE GUY #2
May-be. And what the fuck else you
got?

He closes on Vincent with the .380, held high and on the side.
Vincent’s left slams aside #1’s .380. Draws and FIRES from the
hip, putting TWO ROUNDS into #1. HAMMERS-ON TWO ROUNDS to the
sternum, pivots. ONE to the head of #2. All in 1.6 seconds.

White Guy #2, falling backwards, is dead before he hits the

ground. #1 never saw it coming. Vincent picks up his case,
retrieves something from #1’s pocket, puts one more into the *
head of #1 on the way back to the cab…

…where Max saw it all. Frozen in horror. Astonished.

The rear door opens. Vincent hefts his briefcase into the back
seat. He gets into the front.

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6/26/23, 10:23 PM Script To Screen: “Collateral” | by Scott Myers | Go Into The Story

Vincent sits for a moment, staring off, not looking at Max.

Maybe ready to kill him.

Vincent raises something into view. Max’s wallet. He tosses it

in Max’s lap.

Here is the scene from the movie:

Collateral (4/9) Movie CLIP - That My Briefcase? (2004) HD

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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 series on GITS
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.

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