Rules for Writing Film Scripts

When writing a film script, feel free not to cleave too much to your own life, especially when writing about crime. The Post elaborates:

An ex-NYPD cop accused of moonlighting as a mob hit man wrote and acted in a movie that might now be seen as a confession.

In Lou Eppolito’s straight-to-video flick “Turn of Faith,” the cop character gives his gangster pals tips on a police investigation.

The main character in the 2003 movie is dirty cop Joey De Carlo. De Carlo’s best friend Bobby is a mob thug killer the cop is investigating as part of a probe of a mobbed-up union. De Carlo, played by ex-boxer Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini, is the kind of cop who helps Bobby beat a guy in an alley, buries incriminating tapes, and tips off a local crime boss named Big Philly — portrayed by Charles Durning — about everything police are doing to the union he controls.

In addition to having penned the screenplay, the porcine Eppolito himself plays a corrupt union boss in the movie.

Lively critical commentary ensues:

The plot line is pretty routine for a mob flick, as the tough-guy dialogue, which includes, “Get your f- – -ing hands off me, f- – -face!”— and that’s a priest talking.

But what’s striking about Eppolito’s script is that this it isn’t a corrupt-cop movie. It’s a hero-cop movie. We’re supposed to admire Joey’s loyalty because he sticks up for his friends, including Big Philly, who was once like a father to him, even if he is a murderer.

Only after Big Philly orders Joey’s buddy Bobby killed does the cop want him brought down.

The movie’s climactic speech is this beauty, delivered by Joey -—”I want out. Sixteen years I’ve given to this job. Sixteen years I’ve banged my head against the wall trying to be a good cop, trying to be an honest cop, and for what? We all know how it’s gonna turn out.”

It seems not to occur to Eppolito that a cop who leaks police information to the mob is anything but a good cop.

Seems not to occur, indeed. Two thumbs down!