Daily Dialogue — March 19, 2014

Bowtie Driver: Me and the bookkeeper are walking out of here, getting into a car, and driving away. Or else he dies! He dies! And you ain’t got nothing! You got five seconds to make up your minds!
Ness: You got him?
Stone: Yeah, I got him.

Bowtie starts counting off five seconds.

Bowtie Driver: One!
Ness: Take him.

Stone shoots him.

Stone: Two!

— The Untouchables (1987), written by David Mamet

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week: Standoff. Today’s suggestion by Daniel Cossu.

Trivia: Paramount Pictures made this film because they still held the filming rights to Eliot Ness’ autobiography which they used to produce the TV series The Untouchables (1959). Originally, Paramount intended to make this, like so many other films since, as a big screen adaptation of a TV series. However, director Brian De Palma, producer Art Linson, and writer David Mamet all felt that they didn’t want to remake the series so they took their own dramatic license with the story, and the true events that inspired it, in order to make what they felt would be a good big screen epic.

Dialogue On Dialogue: Commentary from Daniel: “In a way, this standoff ends not with the death of Bowtie, but when Stone says “Yeah, I got him.” He says it with such conviction and certainty that there is no doubt that our heroes have won this battle. It’s the ‘check mate’ before the final piece has been moved. The shot is a punctuation to the inevitable outcome and the “Two!” acts as a punchline. It’s a great ending to this scene with dialogue grown organically from the characters and the theme of the movie.”

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