Script File
TAKEN & AFRAID
LOGLINE
Two ex-Navy SEALs and a rogue female U.S. Marshal embark on a harrowing rescue mission that leads them from the mountains of Mexico to an imminent terrorist attack on the Macy’s Parade. Remember the Hindenburg?
SYNOPSIS
TAKEN & AFRAID is an action-packed nail-biter that pits the protagonists against a monstrously disfigured psycho-villain with an insatiable hunger for revenge.
BACKSTORY: A nefarious Colombian smuggler commandeers a day cruise ship in Florida waters to expand his human trafficking empire. Juan Carlos Alvarez takes what he wants. The U. S. Coast Guard surrounds the hijacked ship, but can’t storm it without endangering the passengers. It’s a standoff. When the hijackers begin exploding passengers wearing life jackets rigged with C-4—makeshift suicide vests—the ship captain’s ex-SEAL brother-in-law slips aboard the ship under the cover of darkness. In the end, the ship sinks in a fiery explosion after a night-long bloody battle.
TAKEN & AFRAID picks up the action six months after the Majestic Star sinks at sea. Captain Skip Myles and his brother-in-law, Cal Stringer (both former SEALs) are still putting their lives back together in Florida when a longtime friend is mysteriously beheaded and Skip’s pregnant wife vanishes into thin air. The next day they receive their friend’s head in a box with a note from an old nemesis long thought dead. As it turns out, Juan Carlos Alvarez did not go down with the ship and the now horribly scarred and pissed-off criminal mastermind is out for blood—and lots of it.
When Kathy Myles is tracked to the mountains of Mexico, our protagonists team up with a rogue U.S. Marshal with a score to settle of her own. Together, they embark on a daring nighttime raid to rescue Kathy, only to arrive in Mexico one day too late. As this unfolds, an eighteen-wheeler carrying compressed hydrogen is hijacked from a truck stop in Iowa. Within hours the rig is repainted and its placard switched from ‘Hydrogen’ to ‘Helium.’ Once the transformation is complete, the semi-truck heads for New York City with a forged bill of lading and a Muslim jihadist behind the wheel.
When Kathy resurfaces in New York City, our heroes jet to New York where they uncover a terrorist plot planned for the Macy’s Parade. With time running out, our protagonists join forces with the NYPD Supercops to outsmart and out-conspire Alvarez and his jihadist cohorts before thousands of parade-goers perish, including Kathy Myles.
On Thanksgiving Day, America will suffer and burn as he did . . . and Juan Carlos is going to start the fire.
In the final act, our heroes are flying at a 45-degree angle in a NYPD police copter, slicing parade balloons like a buzz saw. They know one of the balloons contains hydrogen… but which one? It’s a race against time. In the end a giant character balloon explodes, creating a sonic-like boom that shatters the architectural glass of every Manhattan hi-rise within two city blocks—sending an avalanche of razor-sharp glass and crushing chunks of concrete & rebar to the sea of humanity below.
It’s a gravity-driven earthfall of unequivocal death... a holocaust… a catastrophe of the first magnitude.
NOTE: This brilliantly-crafted thriller offers wide audience appeal with a strong international upside and a wealth of cinematic visuals, where the stakes are high and the goals and motives are relatable.
If you're looking for an adrenaline-fueled Action/Thriller/Disaster script that will have you running for cover, you should absolutely give this screenplay a read.
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Project Type:Screenplay
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Number of Pages:124
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Country of Origin:United States
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Language:English
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First-time Screenwriter:No
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Student Project:No
Ronson is an author and award-winning screenwriter. His screenplays have been finalists at the 2020 NYC International Screenplay Awards - The 2020 Big Apple Film Festival Screenplay Competition - The Miami Screenplay Awards -The 2021 Table Read My Screenplay Genre Competition - The 13th Annual StoryPros International Screenplay Contest - The ISA Drama Genre Busting Screenplay Competition - The Creative Screenwriting Unique Voices Screenplay Competition.