Monday Morning Mock Draft: What The Hell Was That?

(I dunno what it means either; ask Don T.)

/tips hat to Don T.  Viva la revolucion, and what not.

Guten Tag, drones!

As promised this week we are drafting movies that are terrible remakes of the books they were adapted from.  The rules are simply that it must be a movie, based on a book, and you didn’t like the way they did it.  Hopefully we can all listen to Horatio for that little bit.

Also I’d say wait ten picks or 30 minutes between picks, but we all know that stopped mattering sometime around May.  But give it a shot anyway.

The idea from this draft came when I read a book recommended by Yeah Right, Frank Brill’s ‘Donnybrook.’  That link will take you to Barnes & Noble, because stop using Amazon, Jeff Bezos has enough money.  You can wait two days.

‘Donnybrook’ is a ferocious story about several different people who, with various motivations, are on their way to an off-the-books three-day brawl, (a donnybrook, if you will), in Southern Indiana.  It’s a festival of fighting, booze, meth, gambling, and probably sex.  The book has great characters and, while a lot or murder and mayhem, the latter never gratuitous or without some motivation consistent with the character’s motivations.

Although there is an awful lot of murder and mayhem; these are very motivated people.

It’s a tremendous read.  240 pages.  I knocked it out in a day, and I will read it again.

The weekend after I finished the book I tracked down the movie, (Apple TV+), and rented it for $3.99.  It starred Frank Grillo, who’s one of the ultimate ‘That Guy’ in cinema, in that you only vaguely recognize him but when you see him you know you’re in for a good time.

Well, usually in for a good time.  Let’s just say $3.99 was a tad much for this turkey.

The movie is ostensibly about several different people who, with various motivations, are on their way to an off-the-books three-day brawl, but in the movie they’re all idiots, insane, or both.  One of the main characters decides, in the movie, that bringing his 11-year-old son along is a good idea, although it’s never explained why.  Frank Grillo’s character is a psycho with no backstory who just kills people because they annoy him, and also he’s just called ‘Angus’ and not ‘Chainsaw Angus’ like in the book, and he has both eyes in the movie.  Chainsaw’s sister in the book is named Liz, and she’s even worse then he is, but in the movie they changed her name to Deliah, implied heavily that she’s fucking or has fucked Angus, (not even remotely implied in the book), and made her this waif who’s just trying to sell one more batch of meth and…oh you know what?  Fuck this.  Bad enough I sat through it once; there’s no reason to write it all out.*

The book is great, the movie sucks, it’s my #1 pick, and with a bullet.

The rest of you are on the clock.

*You may be wondering about the Donnybrook.  In the book it’s six fights over two days, 20 men in a cage, last man standing wins that ‘heat’ if you will.  Day 3 the six winners fight for $100K, and the guy running the fights is an evil fuck who will kill the winner if he doesn’t agree to fight for him.  In the movie there’s one fight and the guy running the whole thing gets two lines.