The American Side Page #2

Synopsis: Following a mysterious suicide at Niagara Falls, a low-rent detective unravels a conspiracy to build a revolutionary invention by enigmatic scientist, Nikola Tesla.
Director(s): Jenna Ricker
Production: One Horse Shy Productions
 
IMDB:
5.9
Metacritic:
65
Rotten Tomatoes:
80%
NOT RATED
Year:
2016
90 min
Website
44 Views


What the hell

are you talking about?

You wanna know

who fired the shots?

Have Nikki meet me.

Where and when?

Today,

out on Three Sisters.

You see her,

then you see me.

Got it?

I'll be waiting.

Don't let yourself

be followed again.

I'm so sorry about...

About Kat, I...

Yeah. He's waiting there now.

I gotta go.

[dramatic music playing]

?

Hey!

Damn it!

[car starting]

[man]

Get the hell

out of here.

[Charlie]

You got the road

jammed up.

[man] You're a long way

from Polonia.

[Charlie] Working a

missing person case.

You couldn't find a hole

in a donut.

Can I get one of those?

No.

Male or female?

The jumper is male.

Got a light?

Fifth of the season.

The place is a magnet.

Honeymoons and suicides.

What's the difference?

Ha, you should take that

routine to Vegas.

I'll escort you

to the airport.

I told you, I got a job

and I already

found the guy.

Some nut out of Pittsburgh

name of Soberin.

Which one of these maroons

put you up to it?

-I don't get it.

-Soberin?

You can help tuck him in.

[engine starts]

[siren wails]

?

She's dead, isn't she?

-If you want me...

-Don't you dare.

I'm gonna find the guy.

Well, you won't

have to look far.

[footsteps fading]

[footsteps approaching]

When he didn't show up,

I knew.

So the police said

that it was a suicide?

That's how they see it.

And how do you see it?

He was a mess,

like you said.

I think somebody

made him a mess.

Doesn't really matter anymore,

does it?

Doesn't it?

Why do you care so much?

Ask me something else.

You ever just want

to disappear?

I already have.

No, I mean it.

Go some place where

no one can find you.

I've never been

to the ocean.

Yes, what?

What?

Any other day.

There's another day.

[tram rumbling]

[telephone ringing]

Yeah.

[woman on phone, indistinct]

I don't know what...

Slow down!

What the hell...

[indistinct voice continues]

Yeah?

Yeah, you stole my lighter.

Have you been to St-Paul's?

Can you meet me there?

Jesus, not since

I was baptized.

And not today, kid.

[siren wailing in distance]

?

Son of a b*tch.

You ever hear the one

about the tallest detective?

You saved me a trip.

What would you do if you

were in my shoes, Charlie?

-I'd burn my socks.

-Funny.

Ticket at the airport,

carrying more bread

than Hansel and Gretel

and your partner in crime

laying dead in the morgue.

That funny too?

Her name is Kat.

I wanna see her.

Her family is here

and they've never

heard of you.

Weren't you due

a promotion like

three years ago, Escobar?

Meanwhile the guy you set up

takes a nose dive

into the whirlpool.

-They're connected.

-By you.

They're connected by you!

I didn't buy that

plane ticket.

Right, it was the knockout

with the wad of cash.

I've had that same dream.

Only my wife's

the knockout

and she's carrying

a six pack of beer

and a bucket of wings.

Your wife likes

Polish sausage,

mac, trust me.

Whoa! I'm still

in the room.

[knocking]

We'll need your passport.

You can eat it.

Come on,

where's the rest of it?

No, no, no, no, no.

We don't just walk up here.

What do we do?

Well, if we're lucky,

we schedule an appointment.

Appointments

are for a**holes.

You probably

make 'em all the time.

[elevator dinging]

[man speaking, indistinct]

[man]

His mother told him to stop

'cause he ran out of fuel...

But Tesla's mind was already

busy concentrating that...

Did I miss anything good?

Secrets of

the universe revealed.

[man]

Like the charge

on the cat's back,

these are examples

of the primitive effect

depicting the energy fields

that surround

every living thing.

Tesla was one of the first

to experiment

with these energies

in a field so often

dismissed as more spiritual

than scientific.

Yet so many of his imaginings

have become our realities,

do we dare doubt the others?

There's a no greater potential

in the world

than those undeciphered

imaginings in our

government's Tesla file.

[audience applauding]

Hey, you know which one

of these guys is Whitmore?

Yeah. This one.

Tom Soberin.

An expert technician.

And now he's

a dead one.

I read that.

Threw himself in the drink.

Maybe.

What is he to you?

I'm a private investigator.

Glad to know

they still make those.

Tom Soberin was using

the Chase-Whitmore

company card.

You'd have to ask

Borden about that.

It's Chase-Whitmore

in name only these days.

My partner was

Borden's old man.

So Soberin wasn't

working for you?

If he was working

for Borden,

he'd have been lucky to see

daylight, never mind

moonlight for me.

Borden doesn't share.

But you can

ask him yourself.

He keeps inviting me

to his shindigs and I keep

not showing up.

Have fun.

Don't talk business.

Weaving spiders

come not here.

[classical piano playing]

[people chattering]

[dramatic music playing]

[machine buzzing]

[man]

Giovanni Aldini.

Charlie Paczynski.

Those drawings are from a book

by the Italian physician.

Examples of galvanism.

He ran electric current

through the bodies

of dead animals.

-For what?

-Theatrics.

But he was also among the first

to treat the mentally ill

by shocking the brain.

Shock treatment?

Thought that was lot of hooey.

History's great discoveries

were all at one time

thought to be,

as you

so provincially put it,

"a lot of hooey."

Top shelf.

Where mama hides the cookies.

What's this character up to?

That's a publicity photo

of Nikola Tesla

in his laboratory.

What's he trying to publicize,

that the cheese

slipped off his cracker?

When Tesla needed money

for a project,

he would send

Westinghouser J.P. Morgan

one of those

fantastic pictures,

whether it related or not.

It's a fake.

Double exposure.

I'm told a touched up

photo or two

has helped you pay

your bills from time to time.

This isn't an open house,

Mr. Paczynski.

Any idea what sort of trouble

Tom Soberin was in?

Ah, Tom has never said no

to a whiskey or a woman.

-Wasn't he married?

-Please.

Legal trouble?

Money trouble?

Did he gamble?

He used his standing

at the university to woo

a co-ed or two.

Pretty risky business,

don't you think?

You gamble,

Mr. Paczynski?

Football

and horses. You?

I make bets.

But it isn't really gambling

if you know who's going to win.

I'll see you out.

[Charlie]

Your old partner tells me

he didn't much care

for Soberin working

both sides of the street.

Even you

appreciate loyalty.

-So you made him choose.

-Of course.

And Whitmore lost his man.

No. No, I did.

Then why was Soberin

carrying the company...

[Borden]

Ah, my sister

makes an appearance.

Emily, meet

Mr. Paczynski.

Sterling's stand-in

for the evening.

[Emily]

How do you do?

Emily, is it?

Mr. Paczynski

is a genuine gumshoe,

in the great grand tradition

of Philip Marlowe.

I always preferred

Mike Hammer.

Even your idols

are second rate.

Must be interesting work.

What brings you here?

Bad habit.

When someone lies,

I take it personally.

Rate this script:5.0 / 1 vote

Greg Stuhr

All Greg Stuhr scripts | Greg Stuhr Scripts

0 fans

Submitted on August 05, 2018

Discuss this script with the community:

0 Comments

    Translation

    Translate and read this script in other languages:

    Select another language:

    • - Select -
    • 简体中文 (Chinese - Simplified)
    • 繁體中文 (Chinese - Traditional)
    • Español (Spanish)
    • Esperanto (Esperanto)
    • 日本語 (Japanese)
    • Português (Portuguese)
    • Deutsch (German)
    • العربية (Arabic)
    • Français (French)
    • Русский (Russian)
    • ಕನ್ನಡ (Kannada)
    • 한국어 (Korean)
    • עברית (Hebrew)
    • Gaeilge (Irish)
    • Українська (Ukrainian)
    • اردو (Urdu)
    • Magyar (Hungarian)
    • मानक हिन्दी (Hindi)
    • Indonesia (Indonesian)
    • Italiano (Italian)
    • தமிழ் (Tamil)
    • Türkçe (Turkish)
    • తెలుగు (Telugu)
    • ภาษาไทย (Thai)
    • Tiếng Việt (Vietnamese)
    • Čeština (Czech)
    • Polski (Polish)
    • Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian)
    • Românește (Romanian)
    • Nederlands (Dutch)
    • Ελληνικά (Greek)
    • Latinum (Latin)
    • Svenska (Swedish)
    • Dansk (Danish)
    • Suomi (Finnish)
    • فارسی (Persian)
    • ייִדיש (Yiddish)
    • հայերեն (Armenian)
    • Norsk (Norwegian)
    • English (English)

    Citation

    Use the citation below to add this screenplay to your bibliography:

    Style:MLAChicagoAPA

    "The American Side" Scripts.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 7 Nov. 2024. <https://www.scripts.com/script/the_american_side_19668>.

    We need you!

    Help us build the largest writers community and scripts collection on the web!

    The Studio:

    ScreenWriting Tool

    Write your screenplay and focus on the story with many helpful features.


    Quiz

    Are you a screenwriting master?

    »
    Who directed the movie "The Social Network"?
    A Quentin Tarantino
    B Christopher Nolan
    C David Fincher
    D Aaron Sorkin