Title: EKE'BOLOS Author: Stephen C. Settle Submitted by: Stephen C. Settle Submitted to: Hollywoodscript.com Format: SP Pages: 120 Time: 1974 Locale: USA, Greece and other European locations. Genre: Political Thriller Analyst: Hollywoodscript.com PREMISE: Greece 1974: In the waning days of the military junta, a battle- scarred veteran comes face to face with a terrorist plot to incite final war between East and West. Along the way, during an ostensible academic trip abroad, he must defend a group of hedonistic college students from a brilliant classicist's maniacal nationalism and his dream of restoring the ancient Greek empire. Concept VERY GOOD Characterization EXCELLENT Dialogue EXCELLENT Story Line VERY GOOD Setting/Prod. Values EXCELLENT Freshness of Story EXCELLENT SYNOPSIS January 1974: General George Grivas, Greek Cypriot hero and founder of the clandestine EOKA paramilitary, has died. His covert successor is an Irish-born soldier of fortune turned professor and classical scholar: SULLIVAN (SULLY) O'SHEA. Although a U.S. citizen, O'Shea has participated in Greece's wars for several decades, most recently as a CIA operative helping to bring the military junta to power. His passion and enthusiasm for what he perceives as the greater task still before him has created a situation where the United States government now regards him as "rogue." Nonetheless, O'Shea has put together the paramilitary force he needs to complete his conspiracy and to fulfill his nationalistic vision for the future of Greece. Indeed, O'Shea's ambition far exceeds that of Grivas and the Greek military junta with which EOKA is both allied and at loggerheads. Rather than seeking merely to annex Cyprus to Greece, O'Shea is determined to provoke a final and decisive war between Greece and her traditional foes, i.e., Turkey and "Persia" (Iran). His ultimate aim is to restore Greece's ancient empire and to establish by force of arms, once and forever, the primacy of the West over the East. As the film opens, it is a bleak, cold January day in Limassol, Cyprus. A hard, driving rain drenches everything. In the company of over 500 mourners, O'Shea attends the funeral of Grivas. He stands apart from the crowd as his image is recorded by an unseen photographer. A week later, in Areopolis, Greece, O'Shea sits inside a taverna as he celebrates carnival with several of his EOKA guerillas. We discover that the photographer is posing as a waiter. He again surreptitiously takes shots of O'Shea and his EOKA associates. O'Shea suddenly turns and ominously grins at the waiter, who flees the taverna in terror. The waiter runs along the streets of Areopolis, an ancient city overlooking the Ionian sea. He arrives at a darkened store front. A voice inside the store orders him to pass the camera through a window. The waiter complies, and yet before he can escape, he is run down by a car containing O'Shea's EOKA men. The waiter jumps on to the car's hood and sustains a broken arm. Moments later, O'Shea arrives in a second car, then unhurriedly corners the waiter atop a fence rail overlooking the black water of the sea. O'SHEA As the waiter loses his balance, O'Shea grabs him by his broken arm, holds on for several agonizing seconds, then lets go. The waiter plummets to his death on the rocky shoal below. Later that night, O'Shea confronts the man who had received the camera from the waiter. He is Professor Charles Webber, an associate of O'Shea's, both at the CIA and later in the classics department at Greenwich College. Webber projects a brave front, telling O'Shea that "the right people" have the film and to forget his "mad fantasy" of resurrecting the Hellenic empire. O'Shea has a personal code: betrayal equals death. Webber's audacity accomplishes nothing other than his own apparent "suicide." WEBBER O'Shea's eyes glow with rage. He rises slowly, rips the neck O'SHEA June 1974: Six months have passed. We meet JIM PATCHER as he awakes from yet another tormenting nightmare caused by his war experience in Vietnam. A former Marine and decorated veteran, now a high school Latin teacher, Patcher is a poster boy for post-traumatic stress syndrome. His entire life, including his academic career, has lacked focus and direction since his return from combat. Patcher travels to New York and Greenwich College, where he interviews with Dean Aloysius Bernard for a graduate teaching assistant position, once again in pursuit of his doctorate in classics. Bernard refers Patcher to O'Shea, chair of classical studies at Greenwich. Patcher meets O'Shea, who informs Patcher to his amazement that the two of them will be leading an annual student trip to Greece. O'Shea inquires about Patcher's familiarity with certain ancient Greek authors. And though Patcher's answers fail to satisfy, O'Shea invites his new grad assistant to a party that night at his home. As Patcher is about to leave, O'Shea asks how many "confirmed kills" he tallied in Vietnam. Thoroughly put-off by the question, Patcher replies, "I don't recall." At O'Shea's penthouse, Patcher meets several of the students, among them Gracie Sterns and Laura St. John. O'Shea shamelessly hits on Laura, while Gracie expertly flirts with a rather awkward Patcher. Inside O'Shea's study, Patcher surveys the artwork on the wall. O'Shea explains that one is a sketch of Sir Richard Church, his ancestor and liberator of Greece in its war for independence from the Ottoman Turks. The other is a tile mosaic of a famous Spartan warrior. O'SHEA PATCHER O'SHEA For Patcher, it introduces an ethic and attitude at total variance with his own. In the months that follow, he will come to realize all the more that O'Shea is a character of extraordinary passion and intellect, but one totally enamored of war. Inside her cluttered apartment, we see LENA KARAPOLIS, an NYPD detective, member of the elite Special Operations Unit. Lena stares at a photo of the waiter killed in Areopolis. We later learn he was her brother; hence her interest in O'Shea is both professional and intensely personal. Starting at the airport in New York, and later in Athens and on the island of Mykonos, O'Shea, Patcher, and the students will be tailed by Karapolis and her Turkish associate, both of whom are working with Interpol. Arriving in Greece, O'Shea regales Patcher with his views on Greece, the warrior ethic, and sex. Indeed, O'Shea is a man whose three motives for living are wine, women and war. Unselfish in his profligacy, he attempts to entice Patcher into a liason with student and longtime concubine Gracie, whom he describes as ... O'SHEA Patcher looks at him, somewhat aghast. O'SHEA (CONT'D) It's not long before Patcher begins to suspect that there's a good deal more going on here than May-December romantic hijinks and a chaotic summer school program. In the meantime, he repeatedly has to jump to rescue the students as they invite hazardous sexual overtures, incite drunken brawls, and get themselves arrested. Although he continues to teach each day, O'Shea has more urgent business foremost in mind. His mood begins to darken as he entertains a growing suspicion that the junta is trying to marginalize him within his own EOKA organization, and may have played a key role in a botched attempt on his life when the group first arrived in Athens. July 1974: As the group leaves Athens for the Peloponnesian peninsula, Patcher's and O'Shea's relationship steadily deteriorates. Patcher grows evermore aware that the summer studies program functions as little more than cover for O'Shea's EOKA activities. In both lectures and in his rather one-sided conversations, O'Shea alludes to the inevitability of war between East and West. Patcher wants no part in any further armed conflict, no matter the noble cause and repeatedly says so. O'Shea comes to despise Patcher as a coward, a mockery of the hero he had once hoped to groom as the perfect choice to follow and succeed him. When Patcher confronts him inside a whorehouse on Mykonos ... O'SHEA Along with his contempt for Patcher, O'Shea grows increasingly paranoid, now certain that he is being undermined by the junta in league with his best friend Alexis Garofalos. Moreover, O'Shea must deal with the gunrunner Ron Childress, to whom he owes hundreds of thousands of dollars for weapons now stored on Mykonos. O'Shea's plan implodes when the junta's forces make a first and premature move against Archbishop Makarios, the president of Cyprus, overthrowing him. Within days, Turkey responds by invading Cyprus. That night, O'Shea's cache of weapons is destroyed by Lena and her commandos. The next morning, O'Shea flees Mykonos, embarking upon a systematic purge of all whom he believes have helped sabotage his vision and betrayed his trust. Will Patcher be among them? August 1974: The final act carries us from Greece through northern Europe and eventually to Paris. As O'Shea kills foe and former friend alike, Patcher must protect the students from becoming unwitting pawns in O'Shea's megalomaniacal conspiracy. His steadfast devotion to their well-being, amid a struggle to uphold his own principles of non-violence, prove that he has the character of a true hero after all, to the point of being willing to die for those he loves. COMMENTS: This is a doozie of a script! The incredibly bombastic, insightful, deliciously amoral playing field and eloquent level of writing and characterization alone make it well worth serious consideration. Our ubiquitous protagonist O’Shea is a totally unforgettable character, up there with the likes of Hannibal Lector, Captain Bligh, Col Nathan R. Jessep (ie; Jack Nicholson’s character in A Few Good Men), and the distinguished list goes on. The story itself is loaded with intrigue and delicious acrimony, while being peppered with gallows humor, rampant sexuality and ever so visceral experiences and episodes, offering the best and the worst of humankind. Themes involving political obsession, broken souls and out of control debauchery relate well to the present. EKE’BOLOS would make a memorable, entertaining and truly iconic film. Mr. Settle is a world class writer!
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