Script Structure: Lessons from Safe House

Yesterday, I wrote about the screenwriting tips I learned by comparing the script and movie versions of Safe House, the action-thriller starring Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds. Well, there’s more to learn from Safe House, especially with regards to plot.

It has a solid structure, more solid than Ryan Reynolds’s pectoral muscles. If you’re having trouble constructing the plot for your own action movie, then examining Safe House is well worth your time. All the essential plot points are present–and easy to identify too:

Inciting Incident: Tobin Frost, rogue CIA agent, waltzes into the American Consul, necessitating the use of Weston’s safe house

First Act Break: the safe house has been infiltrated, forcing Weston to flee with Frost

Midpoint: Frost breaks free of Weston

Point of Commitment: Weston shoots a police officer, engaging in an act of violence towards someone who has done no harm to him

All Is Lost: Weston’s reclaimed Frost, but discovers that the mercenaries sent to kill both of them have been hired by his very own employer, the CIA

Climax: a showdown involving almost every single CIA character still alive. Only Weston survives.

Resolution: Weston releases the contents of Frost’s microchip, revealing the truth about shady CIA activities.

But essential plot points alone do not a complete screenplay make. What kind of events glue together these key plot elements? Let’s take a look:

Plot Points from Safe House

1. Matt Weston, a young CIA agent, exorcises his frustrations on a punching bag. He’s got a hot blonde girlfriend, Ana. It’s clear she doesn’t know who he really works for.
2. Weston calls his boss, David Barlow, to ask when he can leave the CIA safe house assignment in South Africa. He’s been there a year, and he’d like a promotion.
3. Meanwhile, ex-CIA agent Tobin Frost is trying to sell some documents to an outside party for ten million dollars. At a bar, Frost meets with an MI6 agent who gives him classified files. Once they go public, it will make the “world a smaller place for both of them.”
4. In the restroom, Frost verifies the data on the files, then shoots the microchip of information into his body. Someone tries to kill him in the restroom stall, but Frost dispatches him quickly.
5. It appears that Frost has left the bar–and was shot by a sniper rifle. But we learn (as do his would-be assassins), it wasn’t him, but a decoy.
6. Frost interrogates the MI6 agent about the hit on his life. They get into the MI6 agent’s car. As the agent asserts his innocence, he’s shot.
7. Frost disappears into a crowd of South African protestors. The hit men, led by a tall brute named Vargas, are still on his tail. Frost manages to evade them, but then they surround him while he’s outside the American Consul. Taking a chance, he enters the Consul to seek its protection.
8. CIA headquarters is notified that Frost is being held at the Consul. They don’t like him because he’s gone rogue, selling CIA secrets to the highest bidder. They review his dossier–he’s an expert manipulator of human assets. With her boss’s approval, a CIA agent named Linklater decides to send a team to interrogate Frost at the South African safe house overseen by Weston. What could have compelled him to waltz into the Consul?
9. Linklater alerts Weston about the impending arrival at his safe house. Weston’s warned that the guest is a high profile asset, requiring security level 4. Weston calls Ana and tells her he’ll be late coming home.
10. The CIA interrogation team brings Frost to the safe house. Although they waterboard him, Frost doesn’t yield any information. The team leader asks someone to get him a a knife, when the safe house is suddenly infiltrated.
11. Lots of gunfire ensues. Weston is commanded to guard Frost, who starts to prey psychologically on Weston. Everyone on the CIA interrogation team is killed by the squad of hit men, helmed by Vargas.
12. Weston and Frost escape from the safe house. Weston forces Frost into the trunk of a car and drives away.
13. Weston calls CIA headquarters. They instruct him not to go to the Consul but to follow a different protocol. A very long car chase follows.
14. Towards the end of it, Frost breaks through from the trunk into the driver’s area of the car. He tries to choke Weston, who crashes into parked vehicles at a garage as a means of self-preservation.
15. The CIA reviews Weston’s dossier. He’s an orphan. Ana’s a doctor. She’s clean.
16. Frost drives, while Weston rests in the backseat, a gun trained on Frost at all times. Frost warns Weston, “I’m not your only enemy tonight.”
17. At Weston’s prompting, Frost locks himself to a pipe at a low-grade motel room. Weston calls his girlfriend and lies to her about why he never came home last night. When she looks outside their window, a police car is monitoring their apartment.
18. Frost lectures Weston–a CIA operative can’t expect to have a real relationship. But Ana won’t leave Weston. No, according to Frost, Weston will leave her. This infuriates Weston.
19. Weston receives new instructions from the CIA. He’s to go to a locker at a local stadium and retrieve a bag with a GPS that will guide him to a new safe house.
20. As they leave the stadium, Frost raises his cuffed hands in the air. “He’s trying to kidnap me!” he cries. When Weston pulls out his gun, stadium police arrest him, all while Frost plays innocent.
21. Frost and Weston are separated. Weston escapes the local police, breaking free of their zip ties, observing on security cameras that Frost has escaped his captors too–and has left the stadium wearing a police uniform.
22. While Weston is in hot pursuit of Frost, one of the local policemen spots Weston wielding his gun. Weston makes a choice and unleashes a shot that takes the police officer to the ground.
23. Weston catches up to Frost, but Frost has the upperhand. “Are you going to kill me?” Weston asks. But Frost doesn’t kill Weston. He only kills “professionals.”
24. At the CIA headquarters, they learn that an MI6 agent was involved in the files Frost purchased.
25. Weston confesses to headquarters that he lost Frost. They tell him, “we’ll take it from here,” just as Frost predicted they’d say when Weston lost all value in their eyes. Meanwhile, Frost removes the microchip from his body.
26. Weston buys a train ticket and gives it to Ana. He tells her the truth–that he’s really a CIA agent and that his work has endangered both of them. He gives her money to go to Paris, where he hopes, she’ll be safe. She’s furious, but she complies.
27. Weston gets information on Carlos Villar, an expert document forger, who lives in Langa. The CIA has tracked Weston’s computer access and knows he’s headed there.
28. In Langa, Frost meets up with Villar, who’s quite the family man. He’s impressed with the information on the microchip, but urges Frost to walk away. It’s too dangerous and not worth it. Frost asks him to make forged identity papers for him.
29. Linklater and Barlow argue about Weston’s intentions. Linklater thinks Weston has turned on them.
30. Suddenly, Carlos is shot. So is all of his family. Vargas and his men have invaded their home.
31. In the slums of Langa, a rooftop chase mixed with gunfire, ensues. Vargas and Frost engage in hand to hand combat. Frost escapes, but another hit man arrives on the scene. Weston shoots at him, and together, he and Frost drive away.
32. They have to abandon the car and hightail it on foot. In two separate rooms, they wrestle with Vargas’s men. Frost has been seriously wounded but he kills the hit man who’s after him. Weston learns that Vargas is their boss–and that Vargas works for the CIA.
33. Linklater and Barlow arrive in South Africa to untangle the mess.
34. At a pharmacy, Weston bandages Frost’s wounds. Frost urges him “not to kill innocent people,” and explains how he killed an air traffic controller because those were his orders…but the ATC was a whistleblower. The CIA ordered the hit to prevent him from testifying at a congressional hearing. Still, despite everything, Weston is committed to winning the approval of his superiors. As instructed, he’s taking Frost to the new safe house.
35. Linklater contends that Weston is aiding and abetting a fugitive.
36. Weston arrives at the new safe house, but he doesn’t trust its keeper. Weston locks Frost to a pipe in the bathroom, then orders the young keeper to call in the pickup, keeping his gun trained on the keeper.
37. Linklater learns about the contents of the microchip–Barlow kills her.
38. The young keeper of the safe house shoots the breeze with Weston, then after he receives a message on his phone, suddenly tries to kill Weston in the ktichen. After a fierce fight, Weston kills him, but Weston is seriously wounded.
39. Weston gives Frost the key to his cuffs, and asks Frost not to abandon him at the safe house. But Frost leaves without him.
40. Barlow arrives at the safe house. Weston flaunts his knowledge about the incriminating documents on the microchip, the ones which implicate Barlow and others at the CIA in shady dealings.
41. Vargas arrives. Frost, having returned for Weston, shoots Vargas. At the last minute, Barlow shoots Frost. In rage, Weston shoots Barlow. Frost, now dying, gives Weston the microchip. “Bet better than me,” he tells Weston. “Be better than me.”
42. Weston hands over a report of the events to his boss at the CIA. He doesn’t mention the microchip at all in his report. He’s offered a senior position.
43. Instead of accepting it, Weston takes the information on the microchip public, causing international outcry. He follows Ana to Paris, where they can resume their relationship without lies.

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