U Turn
- R
- Year:
- 1997
- 125 min
- 705 Views
EXT. SOMEWHERE IN THE DESERT SOUTHWEST - DAY
BEGIN TITLES OVER:
It is early morning and already hot. INSECTS drone, crackle,
and scurry for shade. PRAIRIE DOGS burrow to escape the sun.
We can see the heat shimmering off the surface of the Earth.
On a dusty highway, a pair of VULTURES dine on a dead coyote.
One of them snags an intestine and tugs a few feet of it out of
the carcass.
In the distance, where a long, dusty road meets the horizon, a
small shape appears -- a Sixty-four-and-a-half Mustang
convertible, its top down. Its candy-apple red burns like a
brilliant fireball under the sun. As the car drifts closer, we
see steam escaping from under the hood. Sammi Smith's "Please
Help Me Get Through The Night" plays on the car's radio.
INT. BOBBY COOPER'S MUSTANG - DAY
At the wheel, ignoring impending disaster, BOBBY COOPER, young,
good-looking, fiddles with the RADIO dial, annoyed only to find
country stations. He's been driving since noon yesterday and it
shows -- along with a heavily-bandaged left hand resting on the
steering wheel. He finds something by Pearl Jam or Smashing
Pumpkins and he cranks it. He pops a Percodan with his good hand
as, in the shimmering distance ahead, he sees black shapes in
the road and lays on the horn.
BOBBY:
Get off the goddamn road!
As the MUSTANG powers by, the VULTURES move off the shoulder,
silently watching.
INT. MUSTANG - DAY
The RADIO blares as BOBBY fights to stay awake. His attention is
caught by blue and red lights flashing in the oncoming lane. He
sits up as the POLICE CAR (SHERIFF POTTER inside) closes
quickly. The SIREN starts faintly, then SCREAMS as the cruiser
roars past at speed.
BOBBY:
F*** you!
There is a loud pop from the front of the Mustang and a thick
cloud of steam now pours from the hood. The temperature gauge
now starts rising.
BOBBY:
No!...Not now!...Sh*t!
A couple of SEMIS roar past in the opposite direction,
buffetting the Mustang with their air waves.
The car rolls into a fork in the road, limping with the droop of
an animal that won't make another hundred yards.
One sign on the larger road says "GLOBE" is 29 miles away. The
other sign, on the lesser road, tells us "SUPERIOR" is only 2
miles. A third sign confirms his destiny with "Gas, Food, 1
Mile."
BOBBY seems to have no choice. He aims the car down the lesser
road towards "Superior, Arizona."
The car rattles on its last legs, as BOBBY mutters incantations,
noticing a old, ghostlike MINING COMPANY at the base of the
mountains overlooking the TOWN. It's deserted now, no one
visible, the gates shut, but in its vast, dark bulk, we sense
the ancient richness and power of this town. Bobby moves on.
EXT. HARLIN'S GARAGE - DAY
Down the road from the MINING COMPANY, BOBBY'S CAR pulls into a
small GAS STATION, made of weather-beaten wood, its windows long
since dusted over. The pumps themselves look to have been
manufactured in the early fifties. Above the station is a sign
so faded it's barely readable: HARLIN'S.
Bobby gets out of the car and with great care, favoring his
bandaged left hand which seems to give him a great deal of pain,
he opens the hood. A plume of steam hits him in the face.
BOBBY:
Oh sh*t!
Bobby looks around for someone, anyone. After a few moments he
reaches into the car and blows the horn. He waits, then blows
it again. From out of the station walks DARRELL - a
slow-looking man in coveralls caked with grease and dirty. He
looks the part of a yokel.
BOBBY:
You Harlin?
DARRELL:
Nope. Darrell.
BOBBY:
Harlin around?
DARRELL:
He's up at the Look Out.
Darrell points a scraggly finger at a plateau in the distance.
BOBBY:
Will he be back soon?
DARRELL:
Doubt it. He's dead. The Look Out's a
cemetery.
BOBBY:
You own this place?
DARRELL:
Yep.
BOBBY:
Then why do you call it Harlin's?
DARRELL:
'Cause Harlin used to own it.
BOBBY:
But he's dead.
DARRELL:
So?
Bobby is confused, but chooses to drop the matter.
BOBBY:
You want to take a look at my car? I think
the radiator hose is--
DARRELL:
Damn. Gonna be another hot one today.
Sometimes I don't even want to get out of
bed. Course don't want to get out for the
cold one's neither. Then of course the
clouds come in...
Darrell mops his brow with a greasy rag. It doesn't so much
wipe the sweat as it does streak his forehead with dirt.
BOBBY:
Look, Harlin, I've got places to be.
DARRELL:
Darrell--
BOBBY:
OK. Darrell... Could you just take a look
at my radiator hose. It's busted.
Darrell is clearly upset at being cut off. He leans into the
car and looks at the engine.
BOBBY:
So?
DARRELL:
It's your radiator hose. It's busted.
BOBBY:
I know it's busted. What did I just tell
you?
DARRELL:
Well, you know so much why don't you just
fix it yourself?
BOBBY:
If I could do you think I'd be standing
here wasting my time. Can you fix it, or
do I have to go somewhere else?
DARRELL:
Somewhere else? Mister, somewhere else is
fifty miles from here. Only other gas
station down in town closed 3 years ago
when the mine got shut...
BOBBY:
Okay, I'm stuck. You happy? Now can you
fix it, or not?
DARRELL:
Yeah, I can fix it.
BOBBY:
Great!
DARRELL:
Gotta run over to the yard and see if I can
find a hose like this one, or close enough.
Gonna take time.
BOBBY:
How much time?
DARRELL:
Time.
BOBBY (rewinds his watch)
What time is it now?
DARRELL:
Twenty-after-ten.
BOBBY:
Jesus. Twenty-after-ten and it must be
ninety already.
DARRELL:
Ninety-two. Course half hour from now
might be seventy-two. These clouds move
around a lot.
Bobby wipes the bandaged hand across his forehead.
DARRELL:
What happened to your hand?
Self-consciously Bobby quickly drops his hand to his side.
BOBBY:
Accident.
DARRELL:
You got to be more careful. Hands is
important. Let me show you something. When
I was a kid, now I don't know if you can
still see it, but I gashed my fingers in a
lawnmower.
BOBBY:
I'm very interested in this but is there
someplace...
DARRELL:
Diner up a piece. Not much, but us simple
folk like it.
BOBBY:
I'll be back in a couple of hours. And be
careful with her, will you?
Darrell slams down the hood.
DARRELL:
Just a car.
Bobby reaches into the car, pulls out a small ugly gym bag which
he slings onto his shoulder and moves to the trunk, pops it open.
BOBBY:
It's not just a car. It's a sixty-four and
half Mustang convertible. That's the
difference between you and me, and why you
live here and I'm just passing through.
The trunk lid rises in the air, partially blocking Bobby from
Darrell, acting as a partition between them.
BOBBY:
Now do you mind? I got to get some stuff
out of the trunk.
He throws the car key to Darrell who takes the hint, spits
grotesquely into the dirt, scratches his nuts, and walks back
to the shack.
Concealed by the trunk lid, Bobby pulls out a GUN (a .9mm black
Baretta), wrapped in a t-shirt, from the top of the bag. Perhaps
we see a flash of green money, lots of it. Sports pages and
betting sheets are piled inside. With a look around, Bobby takes
the gun and stashes it underneath the rubber mat in the trunk.
Briefly we notice a towing ROPE under the mat. There is a small
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
"U Turn" Scripts.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 30 Oct. 2024. <https://www.scripts.com/script/u_turn_977>.
Discuss this script with the community:
Report Comment
We're doing our best to make sure our content is useful, accurate and safe.
If by any chance you spot an inappropriate comment while navigating through our website please use this form to let us know, and we'll take care of it shortly.
Attachment
You need to be logged in to favorite.
Log In