Movie Movie Podcast

It’s Friday! Be excited! The work week is ending, the weekend begins, and soon enough it will be Monday again. Before that happens though it’s time for:
FAKE!
MOVIE!
FRIDAY!
(The studio audience cheers)
I know the rights to this were purchased, which was bewildering to me at first. Then I thought about it, pondered a bit, mediated, slept, ran, thought some more and I think I know how it could to be done. I submit for your approval Where’s Waldo.

We open on a camera flash and show the crime scene on the beach of Coney Island. A man, wearing a red and white striped sweater with brown hair, has been brutally murdered. Detective Reynolds, played by Jim Caviezel, is examining the body. The dead man’s nose is broken, and the indenture of a pair of glasses can be seen on his face. His right hand has splinters in it and a round red marking in the middle of his palm. With nothing left Reynolds returns to the precinct to write up what he has found.

Commissioner Tryne, played by Elias Koteas (or if he’s not available Hank Azaria), is waiting for Reynolds when he arrives. Tryne wants to know why there was a dead body on the beach with no answers from Reynolds. The precinct has been coming under scrutiny ever since Tryne, during an interview, screamed at the reporter for suggesting that his force was doing anything less than everything they could to keep their community in order. Reynolds tells Tryne about the missing glasses and the mark in the hand, but Tryne isn’t very receptive. He tells him to get back out there and catch the killer.

Reynolds doesn’t have much of a home life, he barely has a home. He goes to the same noodle bar every night, orders the same thing and watches the waves. He says it’s relaxing after seeing what he sees every day. He notices something wash up on shore, a knit hat that matches the same red and white stripe pattern that the corpses sweater had. He can make out the washed out stain of blood on the hat. As Reynolds looks around on the beach noticing a glimmer on the sand, the glasses from the victim laying there in the middle of the beach. He returns to precinct and hands in the evidence for processing hoping to come up with something. When the results come back, the glasses, with a Made in Ontario logo on them, are wiped clean but there was a black hair fiber in the hat. The hair matches a man known in the system only as Waldo. When the finger print analysis of the dead body comes back, it also matches the same Waldo, despite having a different color hair. The only other clue is the A4 written in black marker on the inside of the hat.

The next night back at the noodle shop Reynolds is watching the news. There has been a brutal murder in Kansas. The victims face is completely unrecognizable, it doesn’t even look like a face. The body was found at a currently inactive camp site and no clues or leads have been uncovered. Reynolds jumps to his feet as he notices that body has on the same red and white sweater as the one in NY.

He immediately calls the precinct with no answer, so he calls up Tryne at home. Reynolds explains everything he has seen and Tryne thinks he is insane and its just a coincidence and there isn’t enough evidence to justify that they are related. Tryne tells Reynolds to relax and to focus on solving his case and let Kansas deal with Kansas’ case.

Reynolds returns to the scene of the crime, the police tape is still in place, pidgins have made it their home. Drift wood has collected not too far from where the crime took place. Reynolds, on a hunch, decides to sift through it and finds a bloody cane broken in half with the word “Water” written on it before the breaking point. Immediately he sends the cane off to evidence and wait’s for an answer.

Walking the street that night he passes by a mildly traffic’d tavern and decides to go in for a drink. The news is on the TV, another brutal murder this time at an airport in Dallas and wearing the same exact sweater as the other two bodies. The news report says that the victims hat only said C9 on the inside of it.

He rushes to the precinct to see what else he can find. The results are back from the cane, the blood does indeed belong to the same Waldo as before, but there are two distinct set of finger prints, that are somehow both connected to the same waldo. If that wasn’t enough there were two different types of blood, A- and O+, but results on both lead to the same man. The only other result that came back was the cane was made of Canadian Oak, and Reynolds pulls out a map of Canada. The glasses were made in Ontario so he starts there, and quickly notices the city of Waterloo. He calls Tryne, but no one answers, so he leaves a message letting him know where he is going. Reynolds doesn’t know exactly what he is going to do once he gets there, but he has a lead.

Upon his arrival Reynolds picks up some french fries and gravy, and watches the community in action. There are children playing, parents talking, a man dressed as a wizard walks by in the background, a boy is playing fetch with his dog who he calls out to, “come here, Woof!” And then he walks by, the man who has been murdered several times, wearing the same red and white sweater, walking with a cane through the park. Reynolds begins to follow him, but this proves more difficult that he imagined. The man, while wearing something so distinctive, easily blends into every location they pass through. There are people wearing similar clothes, but nothing ever quite matches but Reynolds always seems to see him just as he’s leaving one area and headed into another. The “Waldo” walks down an alley and out of site. Reynolds runs after, but there is nothing in the alley once he arrives other than a single door. The door only has a name plate on it which says “Handford.” He slowly turns the knob and the door opens (it is Canada after all), and Reynolds walks into an echoey empty hallway doused in blue lights. The lights begin to flicker as he walks down the hall way. There is only one other door that he can go through. He approaches, turns the knob, but no luck, this door is locked. He runs at the door, kicks it, tries everything he can. He puts his ear up to the door and can hear footsteps just beyond, a lot of footsteps. He backs up to the very entrance of the hallway and starts to run at the locked door, when the door opens. Reynolds stops in his tracks, as he is now face to face with a man dead three times over. “Hello Jacob,” Waldo says, “we’ve been expecting you.”

It is revealed that they are standing on a cat walk, inside of a miles long warehouse, with thousands of Waldos walking around below. The Waldo then proceeds to tell Reynolds about the whole organization. These Waldo’s are genetically engineered spies, they can naturally adapt to any environment, the ability to hide in plain sight being one of the most sought after traits in this spy game. Reynolds is confused, why are they all turning up dead now? Why has this been kept so secretive, how can this plan possibly work?

A shot is fired.

Waldo falls into Reynolds arms, the Waldos below all start to run except for one, holding a smoking gun. Reynolds and the murderer Waldo make eye contact, and the Waldo takes off running. Reynolds slides down the ladder, and starts to chase him, but it is of no use. There are too many of them, they all look the same and it would be impossible to track this one down. Reynolds is lost in a sea of Waldos.

They all disperse leaving Reynolds alone in the giant warehouse. He comes back the next day to find the place just as he had left it, empty and with no trace of blood or a murder. He gets one last order of fries and gravy and heads back to the states. Back at the precinct Tryne wants to know how his wild goose chase went. Reynolds tells him “you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” Tryne says “you know, you’re probably right.”
Late at the office that night Reynolds is working at his desk, Tryne comes over to him and asks if he has made any real progress with the body on the beach. Reynolds says that this may go down as another one of their unsolved cases. Tryne says, “poor bastard” and starts to head back to his office. Reynolds shouts back at him, “hey could I interest you in some noodle soup?” Tryne responds, “yeah, let me get my coat.” Tryne goes back into his office, opens his closet and picks up his coat. Behind his coat we can see hanging a red and white sweater, a cane, glasses and a knit hat to match the sweater. The camera stays static on the contents of the closet. Reynolds can be heard in the background, “read anything good recently?” Tryne responds, “who has time for that shit?”

Fade to black….THE END ????