Hero Page #5
- PG-13
- Year:
- 2002
- 107 min
- 2,197 Views
INT. CIVIC BUILDING - TEN MINUTES LATER (AFTERNOON)
A door reads "PROBATION DEPARTMENT." MOVE IN ON THE DOOR.
INT. OFFICE/PROBATION - DAY
Bernie is sitting across the desk from the stone-faced, balding
Probation Officer, PATRICK DUKE.
BERNIE:
(agitated)
Hey! Do I have a record? Have I
ever done time? I mean I been
arrested a few times, who hasn't?
Parking tickets for Chrissake!
Suspicion of stuff! Have I ever
been convicted of anything?
DUKE:
Mister LaPlante...
BERNIE:
Take a look at my employment
record, you got my employment
record there, right? You see any
unemployment there, any welfare?
I'm a taxpayer. They eat me
alive, the tax people, they got
taxes on everything, taxes, taxes,
taxes, and forms! Taxes and forms
so I can pay your goddamn salary,
so you can sit there and write
stuff, guys like me pay your
wages...
DUKE:
Mister LaPlante...
BERNIE:
Do I hit anybody? You see me shoot
anybody? Hey, drugs! Do I sell
drugs? Jesus, I don't belong in
prison. I'm a family man.
DUKE:
Mister LaPlante...
BERNIE:
Look, I got this kid. We got a
goddamn relationship! I'm takin'
him to a movie tonight! He worships
me. If I go down what's this do
to my son? I'm his goddamn role
model for Christ sake!
DUKE looks up at the "family man's" plaintive look. Then...
Bernie ruins it.
BERNIE:
Listen, if I coulda afforded an
experienced attorney, I woulda
walked. It was a shitty case,
very circumstantial. You gonna
send me downstate for having an
inexperienced lawyer? How you
gonna feel about the system if you
do that?
The brief flash of mercy is gone from DUKE'S eyes, replaced
with a hard glitter. BERNIE has just shot himself in the
foot.
INT. BALLROOM /N.Y. HOTEL - DAY
VIGOROUS APPLAUSE! GALE has just received the Silver Mike
Award, a tastefully small, mike-sized replica of a microphone,
from the MASTER OF CEREMONIES. Clutching it, she faces the
applauding AUDIENCE across a podium, speaking into a real
microphone.
GALE:
Thank you, very much. I'm grateful
for this. Since you're all
colleagues here, you know what kind
of a team it takes... to put a story
on a screen. I don't have to
explain to you how much the
cameraman, the editor, the
assignment editor and the news
director, to mention a few did to
get me this award.
GALE pauses. She reaches into her purse and pulls out an onion.
She holds it up.
GALE:
This is an onion.
(dramatic pause,
then...)
It's a metaphor for a news story.
Only a few hours ago I was standing
on a ledge sixty stories above a
street interviewing a man who
subsequently jumped to his death.
Forty million dollars in the bank,
happily married, good health. Great
story!
The AUDIENCE is attentive, mesmerized as they watch her rip off
the outer skin of the onion and toss it dramatically aside.
GALE:
(continuing)
There's gotta be more. We're pros,
right? Some kinda extramarital
hanky panky, maybe? Another good
story!
(she peels another layer
of onion)
Maybe the guy's been accused of
child molesting. Terrific story!
(she peels more off the
onion)
Then it turns out the accusation
was false. Wonderful! More story.
The AUDIENCE watches, captivated as the onion gets smaller.
GALE:
(continuing)
Maybe the alleged mistress was
lying, setting the guy up.
Sensational story!
(the onion is very
small)
We keep going, keep digging, keep
investigating. We expose the
guy's whole life, his family.
Why? Because we're pros!
Because...
(she pauses
dramatically)
we're looking for the truth!
GALE considers the tiny remains of the onion in her hand.
Then, she peels it down to nothing and lets it fall.
GALE:
But what if, after all our
digging, after all our painstaking
investigation, what if it turns out
there wasn't any truth? Just
stories! One story after another,
one layer, then another layer,
until there's nothing left. And
if it's like that, do we have any.
obligation to stop at any point?
Or do we just keep going, digging,
digging, digging, peeling,
peeling, peeling, until we've
peeled it all away, until we've
destroyed what we were
investigating in the first place?
ANGLE ON AUDIENCE
attentive, as GALE pauses dramatically, then...
GALE:
I'll bet all of you, like me,
yearn for just one story that
isn't about uncovering layer after
layer of human weakness; a story
that reveals with each new layer
of investigation, something finer
and nobler, something even...
inspirational.
GALE gazes soberly across the podium at the AUDIENCE.
TELEVISION IMAGE (EXT. SKID ROW STREETS - DAY)
A BAG LADY addresses the camera, a news interview.
BAG LADY/TV
First rule out here on the streets
is you gotta watch out for number
one. If you go down... break a
bone or something... you're gone!
Nobody's gonna pick you up.'
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