Subject: [mitnick] the newest script Date: Wed, 22 Jul 1998 06:11:04 -0400 From: Emmanuel Goldstein Reply-To: mitnick@2600.com __________________________________________________________________________ ok, i've gotten a chance to go through the newest copy of the script, dated july 15, 1998 and credited to john danza, howard rodman, john steppling, and joe chappelle. as i said on the radio last night, this script is a significant improvement - certainly writing-wise and, to a degree, content-wise. but there are some concerns that remain and a few major issues that really have to be resolved if the negative publicity surrounding this film is to abate. in the script, they make a point of mentioning that kevin has been busted 4 times. keep in mind this is not counting the bust that ends the film and puts kevin where he is today. this exaggeration will quickly get the audience to feel that he is a menace. kevin seems very dark and prone to the life of a hardened criminal. in this version, angie is his wife and lewis is apparently having an affair with her and eventually winds up with her when kevin goes on the run. the opening has some really good social engineering on kevin's part and it seems pretty clear that he's pursuing knowledge for the sake of knowing. in my opinion, this is the best part of the script. agent steal is in this version, playing a federal informant who nearly blows the whole thing. "You are an idiot, Justin," the FBI agent tells him as he gives Mitnick a tip on the SAS technology that allows the feds to spy on any phone. it also becomes clear at this time that the feds targetted kevin for no apparent reason and his knowledge of this is what prompted him to take off. very different from him committing a crime and taking off. this dialogue captures it: DEPAYNE It's just a matter of time, Kev, before the knock on the door. They want you. Bad. Mitnick nods. He knows the score. MITNICK My parole's up in 3 days. DEPAYNE They'll be here in 3 days and 5 minutes. but there are a couple of things wrong with the above. first off, i believe it's probation, not parole, but nobody can seem to get that right. i think the official term is supervised release. but it sort of doesn't make any sense. if they want to get you for a violation, they come for you *before* your probation is up, not after. kevin had always feared that they would come for him with a week or less remaining, which is precisely what turned out happening. the script fails to capture fully what kevin's feelings were as he was running and hence the audience mistakes his running for mere criminal behavior. what the script needs is something that captures the following, which is *actual* mitnick dialogue: __________________________________________________________________________ "I just saw this movie, Murder in the First. It's about this guy that stole five bucks and they put him in Alcatraz for five years and started beating him. Finally he went nuts and killed somebody. It's with Christian Slater. "It parallels my case. Here I am a computer hacker. Not that I ever went to Alcatraz. But at MDC they put me in this room with a dim light, a bed and a toilet. Six by nine foot. They let me out forty- five minutes a day for fresh air. The rest of the day I was in the part where they send you if you're assaulted a prisoner or killed somebody. Legally you're not supposed to be there more than a certain number of days. They do it to me for eight months. I wonder if that has anything to do with how I think about them. I was in this fucking room for eight months. They used the telephone as an excuse. 'We can't let him near a phone. He might launch missiles.' "I was in there eight fucking months! I don't think you can comprehend. Go into your bathroom and put in a fifty-watt bulb. Try to stay there an hour. "They'd shackle my legs and arms. Two guards would escort me, unshackle me, and let me shower. A minute shower. Then shackle me back and take me back to the cell. I can see it for a few days. But eight months? Go into the bathroom and put up a fifty-watt bulb and see if you go stir crazy. "It was like a big patio all caged in. Eight North. Up on the eighth floor. One time they put me in with one of these Cuban guys. I say, 'Why are you in the hold area?' He said, 'I have a three-man hold order. They can't move me without three officers. I killed two officers already.' "They put me with this Cuban who KILLED guys! What the fuck are they doing THAT for? Locking me up with that guy! This guy, who knows, maybe he'll kill somebody for kicks. "It was fucking TORTURE. You're just in there with yourself. I mean you're locked in your cell twenty-three out of twenty-four hours. That's the worst punishment they could do. It was fucking torture, man. It was hard to describe. I mean here it is, what is it, six, seven years later and I'm still pissed. "I never talked to anybody about it. They don't give a shit! They say, 'Oh, it's over.' But it's mental goddamn TORTURE and I'll never forgive the U.S. government for it, ever! I'm not saying that I'm gonna get even or something like that, so don't read that into it. But I'll never forgive them for that shit. "It was the judge's order. My attorney brought it up to the judge on several occasions in court, and know what her comment was? That is where HE BELONGS. And this is one of the most liberal judges in the L.A. area, right? That's where he belongs. I remember those words exactly. It's like, you know, they show me no mercy, so why should I show them any? NO FUCKIN' MERCY, MAN!" __________________________________________________________________________ now that you've heard *that*, you have more of a sense of who kevin mitnick is and why he decided to run. this comes from jon littman's "the fugitive game" and is from an actual conversation with kevin. while it's a different book from a different perspective and all, this *is* what actually happened and if "takedown" purports to be a movie based on reality, *some* inclusion of this truth is vital. back to the script: apparently, OKI has some clout with the producers as their company name has been changed to NOKI, kind of a mix between OKI and NOKIA. this version has a better explanation of reverse engineering before congress and eliminates the racist remarks from the congressmen. mitnick's racist remarks also have been gotten rid of for the most part, although at one stage while watching shimomura on c-span2, he asks out of the blue, "is he even american?" i thought the following was rather funny but it makes kevin a bit too obsessed with his image: MITNICK He said I was lame. Pause. The look on Mitnick's face - cold, hard, unforgiving. DEPAYNE Kevin, remember. He didn't know who he was talking to. Remember that. MITNICK It was the attitude, Lewis. for the first time, mitnick's crude remarks about shimomura's girlfriend make sense. mitnick is paralleling shimomura's stealing julia away from john gilmore to his own loss of angie to lewis. weird how they made that work on the third try. they now have mitnick *playing* touch tones into the phone instead of whistling them. mitnick still messes with the fbi agent's power and water. this speech from the fbi agent to shimomura is rather good: "Look. I've been given a mandate to catch Kevin Mitnick. For what crime? Damned if I know. Yes, I think he's a punk and capable... 'capable'... of doing great damage. But short of parole violations and nuisance beefs... anyway, I got my orders." unfortunately, it's too little and it goes by too fast. what is really needed at some point is reflection on what these people have really been doing for the length of the film. they go through this massive tirade and search the nation for this guy and finally imprison him. but what was it all about? what was it for? did they do the right thing? does their conscience bother them? are we any safer with mitnick behind bars? i think one thing a lot of people are going to be saying when they see this is "what is the big deal?" of course making it into more of a big deal will demonize kevin by turning him into a villain who must be stopped at all costs. but there's another road these guys can go down where they show how caught up in the hunt everyone has gotten, so much so that they've forgotten the human element involved and the human tragedy that they help create. kevin fortunately no longer obsesses over his placement on the front page of the times "below the fold" instead of on the very top. the worst news is that the garbage can scene is still there in its original form - this is where mitnick bashes shimomura on the head with a garbage can lid, something everyone agrees never happened. gilmore and the well are still made out to be idiots this ominous little bit of foreshadowing: ANGIE Lewis, you know Kevin. When he gets like this... He might do... something- DEPAYNE What? Something dangerous? No. But the look on his face says something else entirely. again, absolutely nothing in real life supports this and it makes kevin out to be a danger to society when he's not. mitnick still hacks the nsa towards the end of the script. somebody with a real "sense of hollywood" managed to work this little vision into the script: "Then the screen goes black, taking Mitnick by surprise. Then - a visual representation of a virus snaking its way through the web, tearing down symbolic firewalls." sigh. the modem noise is no longer deafening. in fact, they removed it altogether. in what i consider the worst new addition, this dialogue while shimomura visits mitnick in prison: SHIMOMURA I just received this in the mail. There's a Victoria's Secret charge here... for $29,450. You're not a victim. You're just a bad guy. again, outright fiction that makes kevin look like a criminal. credit card fraud is something kevin would never do and has never been accused of. it may seem funny in a film but this kind of thing can seriously tarnish his reputation. serious doubt is cast as to whether kevin is the actual hacker. the closing titles indicate that he has been held for 3 years without a trial or a bail hearing (it will be more than 4 1/2 by the time this comes out). but after what we've seen of kevin's actions in the film, it will be rather unbelievable for the audience to take his innocence seriously. __________________________________________________________________________ in short, someone is listening. unfortunately, it's not enough. i still think they can make a decent film here without resorting to things that demonize kevin and have no basis in fact. while this is a "shooting script," changes can still be made if they really want to. i think we should continue to try and convince them to do this and to spread the word to the public. emmanuel