Synopsis

 

A brutal killing in a high school of a student named Jason has police officers, Rory and Jessie, rounding up a collection of troubled, dysfunctional youths. They focus their interviews on Ryan and Miranda, losers who are loyal only to one another because they have no one else. This is gritty, with real-life characters in a real-life setting.

 

But the story is interrupted by a meeting between the screenwriter of this script and his agent. The agent demands that the script be rewritten to make the youths more glamorous and sexy so they can attract name stars to the project. Dismayed, the writer returns to his cheap, crummy apartment and his unemployed actress girlfriend and bites the bullet – he rewrites the screenplay.

 

Now Ryan and Miranda are Dawson’s Creek-type youths, no longer dysfunctional and troubled, but only misunderstood by the police and authorities. And, of course, in love with one another. The interviews continue to reveal the gang rivalries that lead up to Jason’s murder. Miranda forms her own, all-girl gang in opposition to the gang Ryan is in. So then Ryan and Miranda become Romeo and Juliet, lovers caught between two gangs.

 

Again, the story is interrupted, this time with a meeting between the writer and a “D-girl”. She argues that the script needs a hero the audience can cheer for and suggests one of the cops who has a teenaged son himself who might be involved in a gang. So the writer returns to face his computer again (and avoid the fact that his phone has been disconnected).

 

The emphasis on the police interview shifts from Ryan and Miranda to one of the cops, Rory. He feels he understands the youths because, as we see, his own past was tied in with a youth gang.

 

Another interruption with another meeting, this time with an associate producer who insists the screenplay needs more action and violence, lotsa bang, bang, crash, crash.

 

The police interviews reveal the rising escalation in violence between the two gangs, lead in particular by Jason, desperate to get Miranda and becoming suspicious of Ryan’s loyalty. Running gun battles and chases through city streets create an even greater barrier to Ryan and Miranda’s clandestine love affair.

 

Another meeting, this time with a producer who argues for a stronger female presence – make one of the cops a woman.

 

So Jessie becomes a female cop embroiled in a relationship with Miranda’s defence lawyer.

 

Until a meeting with a production executive who wants the script opened up to more production values. And shorten it while you’re at it.

 

The story continues to unfold, with Rory’s own son becoming embroiled in the gang warfare and with Jessie, as a woman, winning over Miranda until she confesses to the murder.

 

A studio executive and his sycophantic assistants demand that the script have more “kick”.

 

The kick comes when Ryan also confesses to the murder, replaying how he had to kill Jason to protect Miranda. Jessie releases Miranda whose confession had been a cover up for Rory, the boy she loves.

 

And the screenplay is finally sold, only to be rewritten by another writer to pull it into focus. The screenwriter and his actress girlfriend pay off their debts and go out to celebrate, passing the original high school where the original, real-life Ryan and Miranda await for the real-life police to arrive to investigate the real-life murder of Jason.