Street Battles 2: The Can Opener

I’ve had this great idea for a film. Picture this; Gollum, from The Hobbit and that, buys up the remainder of the Keystone cops organisation from some auction or something, probably using money he made selling antiques. He then builds the Cops up again using young bullies and the more bitter class of nerds off the street, gives them access to all this ridiculous modern technology and basically turns them into a paramilitary group to serve his own selfish need to acquire shit that he can sit and fondle in the dark.

With me?

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Except his plans keep being foiled, partly due to the inherent incompetence of his young and inexperienced cops, but mostly by a local gang of plucky kids from the back streets. Grubby types of varying racial stereotypes with old shabby clothes and silly oversized hats…. you know the kind, and possibly some type of pet mascot that communicates using funny noises, but everyone seems to know what he’s saying.

There will also be some serious bits in with the comedy, maybe something involving poor racial minorities being muscled out of their neighbourhoods, that will culminate in some actual drama in the third act (heavy sax solo in the score at this stage?). Maybe a will they/won’t they light-sexual-tension in the otherwise platonic relationship between spunky tomboy girl and seemingly-cowardly-but-actually-brave black kid who is former bad boy. That can’t be overt as we don’t want to lose potential audience in the US southern states who might boycott the film if there is any hint of an interracial relationship. We might risk a hug between them near the end after the gangs hut burns down and he thinks shes dead, but no kissing or prolonged skin contact.

The main bully kid who kinda co-leads the cops, the one with anger management problems and daddy issues not the dour effeminate one with the babyface… we might give him a thing for her too. Create a kind of rivalry for the girl’s affections, though he’ll not really have a chance what with him having all the charisma of angry boil, but he’ll be the persistent type that won’t take no for an answer. Maybe a hint of rapeyness, but not enough to leave a bad pallor over the rest of the movie. Keep it light. Gesture towards the idea that he’s the result of bad parenting. Broken home. Maybe a dodgy uncle in his past. We’ll leave all that for the audience to speculate at, after all this is not a physcological drama. It’s a wacky adventure for the kids.

Maybe at the end we have the gang infiltrate the cops high security headquarters on their skateboards and defeat the baddies with water balloons and slingshots. Probably not a very plausible finale, but we’ll throw some cool stunts and lots of slapstick in to appease the audience. It’s the last act, by that point they be just waiting for any kind of closure so they can get something to eat.

What do you think? Hit of the summer 1988 or direct-to-video bargain bin? I think it might do alright if we get a few names in.

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