I’ve been thinking for a while now about writing a movie about a corrupt politician set in today’s time. Unfortunately, it’s really not an interesting subject. Real life examples about some Senator getting favorable interest rates on mortgages or deducting travel expenses on his tax returns are too boring. For a corruption movie to get made, the main character would have to be involved in some over-the-top, maniacally evil deeds. I’m trying to think how it could work…

I would probably open with a scene where…let’s say a governor…was shaking down some defenseless part of his constituency for money. Maybe something like a children’s hospital? Yeah. That would set the evil bar pretty high.

I also couldn’t make his eventual downfall the usual perjury charge that works in real life either; that’s not movie material. Instead, I would make him get into some sort of blood feud with the City Newspaper. The  paper would obviously the most influential in the City—the hero of the people for calling for the governor to step down. Then, to really draw the good versus evil lines deep, I’d also make the newspaper own the city’s most beloved sports team.

Naturally, the governor would plot to have the editors of the paper fired and sabotage the sale of the team.

The Godfather is my favorite movie, so I’d make the theme of the movie about blind ambition. The governor could blatantly sell a Senate seat to the highest bidder. He could ask for ridiculous sums of money–I’m talking millions of dollars here. Or it could be even more sinister…maybe he could try to appoint himself Senator in a bid for world domination! Obviously, he’d try to run for President in the next election…

But I mean, who’d really believe all that? That sounds ludicrous. With that kind of outrageous plot, I’d have to turn it into a comedy…

The governor would have to be clinically insane. He’ll know for a fact that his phones are tapped. In fact, I’ll have some reporters tell him and he’ll laugh in their face! “I’ve got nothing to hide. Tape my conversations,” he’ll proclaim.  Of course, right after talking to them, he’ll go up to his office and conduct a conference call with like ten different co-conspirators and lay out every facet of his diabolical plan in detail.

The problem is when a character is that mentally unhinged, he’s probably not making too many jokes, and there’s nothing worse than an unfunny comedy. So, I figure I will just have him say the word “fuck” a lot. And I mean a lot. That’s always funny.

In the end, he’ll give all his top secret plans away on a wiretap right before he tries to execute them. Kind of like every James Bond villain ever created. You know, like something that a cartoon character would do? The audience would be forced to laugh because obviously that would never happen in reality.

Right?

Trevor Timm is a Blast Magazine staff writer