[Screenplay] Fortress

[Varine]

This is the modified outline of a screenplay I started a while ago, and then decided to change it quite a bit.

It takes place in the near future, probably like 2012 or 2015 or something like that.
There is a revolution going on in Russia, and as America is supporting the rebels who are attempting to usurp the Russian government, they offer them aid secretly. Several US Special Forces units are sent to help the rebels, who are starting to be in desperate need of it.
The story follows a small unit of the SF operators, who are working with several of the rebels. They are focusing on finding and fighting a splinter group of the rebellion, who didn’t like the idea of having American aid. They capture several members of the splinter group, who after being interrogated say they have gotten control of a missile launch facility near Kaliningrad. The group intends to fire the missiles shortly. The team gets the green light to go after it, however they will be the only ones who are going to be anywhere close to it and will be on their own for at the very least two days. Without that much time, they decide to go for it. It becomes known that the Russian military is also going to be attacking the silo, but will almost assuredly arrive too late to stop the missiles. In addition, the splinter group is sending several hundreds of their soldiers to the base to defend it. The team, knowing that if they do go through with the plan won’t get out alive because the splinter soldiers will arrive, or the Russian military will arrive, by the time they are able to leave, reconsider if they want to go through with it. Several of the Americans decide that they don’t want to do it, and their commander gives them permission to leave and they set up a transport to come get them.
Those who stay agree that they need to attack now. Most of them call home and tell their family good bye, knowing that they’ll probably be killed and won’t have a chance to do so later and won’t be alive to deal with charges regarding defiance of orders. The main character leaves a message for his fiancee as she doesn’t pick her phone up. He gives his ring to one of those staying behind and tells him to send it to his fiancee. The splinter group’s soldiers are supposed to arrive in several hours, so the team attacks immediately, before they have the chance to bolster their forces.
As they force their way down into the base itself to reach the control room, the missiles are set to fire. NORAD works on tracking them and getting deactivation codes as the team gets into the room. By the time they get into the room, the splinter group had arrived, as expected. They seal several of themselves within the control room to work on deactivating the missiles and defend the ones working on the deactivation once their enemies get int, while the others are sent to destroy the exterior control room door control and to hold off the rebels as long as possible.
Inside the control room, on the database they find records of deals being done between the splinter group and the Russian government negotiating deals to have them take the silo and attack the US, and make it so that they could blame the real rebels. However, after getting the silo, they decided they didn’t really want to do that and were going to make the Russian government give them control of the country, or they were going to launch the missiles everywhere and make sure that everyone went to war with them, thus effectively ending the current central government.

The splinter group soldiers manage to kill all of the guards outside the control room. While the main character’s fighting, there are flashes of past memories, such as his graduation from Basic Training, and important things people told him. Several minutes after the missiles are deactivated and the soldiers within the control room destroy all of the consoles, the splinter soldiers force their way in and finish off the soldiers.
It then goes to the exterior of the facility, where the Russian military is arriving, and the splinter group soldiers attempt to defend the facility as they fight. The Russian military takes control pretty easily, and a helicopter arrives, dropping off the current Russian President and Prime Minister, who are shown shaking hands with one of the rebels, who acted as a mole to them.
Throughout this last bit, from the time the splinter soldiers get inside the facility, there is the sound of a woman crying (main character’s fiancee), which steadily gets louder nearing the end, and it flashes to scenes of a soldier’s funeral and a woman listening to a message on her cell phone. Near the end of it all, the main character’s voice can be heard reciting the message that he had left on his fiancee’s phone earlier.
The final scenes show the Russian President execute the rebel who he was earlier thanking for the help (as they didn’t want to pay him), and it backs out to show the remaining rebels and Americans moving towards the base in hopes of rescuing the others. The final bit shows the end of the funeral, with one of the soldiers who stayed behind from the attack handing the main character’s fiancee the ring.


The majority of the screenplay takes place leading up to the fight for the facility, however that's the important part so I went into more detail with it rather than what leads up to it.

Thoughts, comments, criticism?

 

[DogOfHavoc]

I don't want to sound harsh but much of it is much to cliche for my tastes. The whole idea of a nuclear missile being taken over by terrorists (or rebels) has been done to death by Hollywood. I really don't feel as if this movie would stand out from all the similar films. On a more pleasant note, it seems like the parts with the fiance and soldier were done very well. I feel as if the basic idea behind the characters and sacrifice of the soldiers is very strong, I just think you should go a different route with the whole nuclear aspect.

 

[Varine]

If you have any ideas, I'm open for them. That was just my idea of what would be a valid threat and I couldn't really think of much else that the entire world would be worried about.

Really I wanted to put more focus on that relationship between the main character and his fiancee and the other soldiers (which is done throughout, not just at the end as I may have made it seem in that explanation), rather than the aspect of the setting. Movies that focus on the idea of the action and combat are done over and over and over, especially now, and I rarely have seen a recent movie that makes you actually feel for the characters while also keeping up with the realism of modern warfare and politics.
I think a more valid and plausible threat, however, would be of the rebels finding an old Soviet silo rather than the one near Kaliningrad, as I think that might actually be a pretty big base. Actually it must be because they're putting nuclear missiles there now because we're putting those things in Poland.

 

[DogOfHavoc]

I don't think it's plausible that there is an old Soviet silo just sitting somewhere with a nuke in it.

Also, as far as a believable threat some sort of airborne toxin is not totally original, but less trite than nukes.

 

[Varine]

I don't think it's plausible that there is an old Soviet silo just sitting somewhere with a nuke in it.

There are a few, actually. When the Soviet Union fell apart, there were several thousand nuclear missiles that were never accounted for and there are still at least hundreds that haven't been found. I believe some of the missiles were probably hidden somewhere with the means of launching it.

Also, as far as a believable threat some sort of airborne toxin is not totally original, but less trite than nukes.

Airborne toxins aren't very common. I would be totally awed if a group of rebels managed to steal some kind of biological or chemical missile that would do significant damage.