character Would my character be looked as dark, if I wrote it this way?

[harmonica44]

In my script, near the third act, the bad guys do something terrible to the hero, a cop, and the cop takes revenge on them. Before that terrible tragedy happens though, he is a very moral and stand up authority character. The bad guys do it cause they want him out of the way, but only make things worse in the process. The hero is investigating and pursuing them from the beginning of the story.

There is an early in the scene in the second act, when guns are going off, the hero rushes to the scene. He bursts in the door and immediately opens fire on all five men with guns, without warning. He does this to minimize any further shooting deaths.

Modern audiences though, always seem to like the cops giving warnings before shooting, and not to shoot anyone immediately or anyone in the back, even if they are armed. But I was thinking of taking a more realistic approach. There are true crime stories, where a gun fight is going on, and the first officer to arrive, will open fire without warning on the armed men, and it's considered to be good police procedure, and shall I say, normal for an officer, under such dangerous circumstances. But in movies if movie cops do that, they are considered by audiences to be a somewhat dark character.

I don't want my audience thinking my character is dark from the beginning before he goes into revenge mode. It will probably weaken the revenge, if they already consider him to have a dark side, rather than being all good, and completely going 180 degrees, in the third act.

What do you think, is shooting without warning, like a more realistic cop okay, or would that make his 180 switch a little less dramatic, than it could be?

 

[Lucky Hardwood]

Audiences have historically favored the avenging hero character. As long as the motivation for the vengeance is considered just, audiences won't dislike the character. Look at the Dark Knight movies for example. As to your cop shooting first to minimize further casualties, that is a current trend in law enforcement in the US called speed and violence of action used in response to active shooter scenarios. There has been a paradigm shift in response to active shooters since the Columbine incident. That covers the reality but you need to remember that cinema is not about reality, it's about the suspension of disbelief.

 

[harmonica44]

A good example would be the new Bourne movie. The psycho killer is shooting people left and right in the lab, and the security guard gives a warning before shooting, then he only shoots once, and gives a second warning if I remember correct. He even allows the gunman to raise the gun a little. Where as in real life, there was a story in the paper, where the cop fired a few shots, as soon as he saw the gunman.

But this is before the hero becomes an avenger, so would this make him going into avenging mode, less powerful, when it happens?

 

[Lucky Hardwood]

... would this make him going into avenging mode, less powerful, when it happens?

Yes.

 

[harmonica44]

Okay. It makes the first two thirds a lot trickier to write, cause how is he suppose to face the threat (the gunmen), without shooting any of them? I guess he could come up behind one and say freeze, but then the others will come and just shoot him, so how does he expect to take the one alive really.

 

[Lucky Hardwood]

In order for your protagonist's change to an avenging angel to be a complete shock to your audience and catch them as off guard as that plot twist can in this day and age, you will need to show your MC going through somewhat extreme measures to avoid having to take a human life.

 

[harmonica44]

Yeah it's just hard to write, cause I don't want the audience to think he's a wussy either for the first two thirds. I mean even John McClane, in Die Hard, tried to pistol whip a guy who had his finger on the trigger of a machine gun, which is incredibly risky, and almost no real life cop would do that I don't think.

Okay I want the change to be a complete shock to the audience. There is a scene where the cop has to stop five armed men from murdering a woman, who is a key character in the story and gets the ball rolling. How does the cop take them? Now they are hidden all around, and he does not know how many so he cannot take any alive, cause he does not have time to babysit any of them, while getting the others.

 

[mus]

what would be the point of the horrible experience, if he didn't seek revenge? Everything has to advance the plot, so if he doesn't change because of it, remove it. Revenge is perfect.

 

[Lucky Hardwood]

It seems to me that you're writing yourself into a corner. Anything that doesn't move the story forward must be either rewritten or eliminated.

 

[harmonica44]

It all moves the story forward. What did I make the impression that doesn't?

 

[Lucky Hardwood]

If you can't reconcile your vision for the reveal with the events leading up to it, you're stuck. If you're stuck, you aren't moving forward. I would rewrite the scene with all of the bad guys to be something easier for the hero to handle without killing anyone.

 

[harmonica44]

I guess but then it's less exciting that way. The worst villains are ones that the authorities having a tough time beating, but if you can beat them without killing them, then they are not as tough, and therefore, less threatening to the audience as they could be.

 

[Lucky Hardwood]

You will either provide your viewers with a glimpse of the fact that your hero will kill if the motivation is strong enough or you will show them that he/she will seemingly go to any lengths to avoid killing anyone. The first won't give as much of a dramatic impact as the other, but will be more believable. The second is a stronger transformation but is trickier to write believably.