Great Again by Michael J. Kospiah
After falsely reporting a hate crime, Wendell believes he’s being followed and harassed by a mysterious man. But will anybody believe him this time?
You know you’ve read something great when it keeps resonating with you days later, and such is the case with the timely new short by experienced writer Michael J. Kospiah. Great Again tells the story of Wendell, who in a moment of madness decides to claim that two white guys in MAGA hats mugged him, in broad daylight, in Harlem… when CCTV footage clearly shows that he’s lying.
Wendell meets his eyes with him – he takes a moment to nod.
DETECTIVE RUIZ (CONT’D)
Two white guys wearing MAGA hats in
the middle of Harlem? On a Friday
night? On Malcolm X Boulevard, of
all places? Lotta people out.
Wendell reads the doubt on the detective’s face.
WENDELL
I’m not lying.
DETECTIVE RUIZ
Wendell… we have surveillance
footage of the incident. It was one
man, not two… and he was black.
Fuck. Caught red-handed, Wendell doesn’t know what to say.
But in this case when Wendell cried wolf, it appears that he may have accidentally woken the wolf up, as he starts to see a malevolent figure in a MAGA hat following him everywhere. Did I mention that the mysterious figure has a large knife? No, well you can understand why Wendell is so spooked by his shiny new stalker.
His girlfriend, Lisa, isn’t convinced by his sightings of the Maga hat man, she never see’s him despite Wendell seeing him just moments before. But things really escalate when the MAGA hat man follows them home and knocks on their door. Lisa is close to calling the Police, but a once again not finding any sign of the stalker she refuses to pander to Wendell’s paranoia.
Wendell jumps back, Lisa appearing behind him.
LISA
What’s wrong?
He looks out the peephole again.
WENDELL
It’s him again, the weird-looking
motherfucker with the MAGA hat!
Call the cops!
He turns, faces Lisa — she has her arms crossed.
WENDELL (CONT’D)
He’s got a fucking knife!
Still unsure, Lisa takes out her cell phone. But before dialing, she looks out the peephole for herself. She turns back to Wendell, puts her phone away.
LISA
There’s nobody there.
That’s enough for Wendell who takes matters into his own hands and stalks out of the house with his gun to confront the man in the hat… only to find his petrified neighbour staring down the barrel of the pistol.
When the Police arrive, matters take a turn for the worse and we are presented with an ending that is both a tragic twist and yet somehow inevitable.
Great Again, is certainly of the now, touching on racism, fake news, Black Lives Matter and the Jussie Smollett case. It weaves its themes expertly and deftly giving you reason to pause, think and consider. Something you’ll find yourself doing repeatedly in the days after you’ve read it.
The characters are well drawn, their world compelling and their dialogue authentic which is why this fantastic script won the recent One Week Challenge on SimplyScripts. This deserves to be filmed.
About the Writer: Michael is a NYC-based, award-winning screenwriter. His critically-acclaimed feature film, The Suicide Theory (79% Rotten Tomatoes score) won awards at Dances With Films and Austin Film Festival and received a limited US theatrical release, 3-year run on Netflix and can now be seen on Amazon Prime, Itunes & Google Play. His latest feature film, Rage continues to collect film festival awards and will be available early 2021 after picking up worldwide distribution. His feature films, “Her Lost Winter” (co-writer), They Never Left and “Dancer” are slated for production 2021. Michael can be reached at: spesh2k (a) msn.com.
Read: Great Again based on Nightmare at 20,000 Feet – S5E3
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*This screenplay may not be used or reproduced for any purpose including educational purposes without the expressed written permission of the author.
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About the Reviewer: Anthony Cawood is an award-winning screenwriter with one feature produced and a further four features optioned or in pre-production. In addition to features, he has over forty short scripts produced/sold/optioned – including ten filmed. Also occasionally pens screenwriting articles, interviews with writers and filmmakers, and even a short story or two. He can be reached on his website AnthonyCawood.co.uk.
1 Comments so far
1.
Michael J. Kospiah
November 24th, 2020 at 2:41 pm
Thanks for the write-up, Anthony! It’s a super low budget, so it should be an easy one to make. Hoping the subject matter doesn’t turn TOO many filmmakers off. Anyone interested can reach me at spesh2k at msn dot com.