Low-Budget Spy Movie (Treatment)

Silliness, sight gags, running jokes, and enough innuendo to shake your stick at.  This is a screwball comedy in the old-fashioned style but with a pace and tone for today.  If Mel Brooks and the Zucker Brothers teamed-up to make a Spy movie...this one would still be funnier (he says, with utter respect)!

The Set-Up:

A man in a trench coat and hat (clearly, he must be a spy) sits in a little apartment munching some cereal...when, suddenly, a small plastic bag catches his eye. He checks the time – it’s almost noon. We know this is worrisome, because the music picks up as he panics ...

He grabs the bag and swiftly exits the apartment.

After avoiding ninja stars tossed by his crabby old neighbor, the man tumbles out of the front entrance of this average NYC brownstone.

Outside, our spy is confronted by several Generic Bad Guys. But our boy gets away by playing “keep away” with one guy’s shoe...but the Bad Guys give chase!

NYC obstacles assist the spy’s getaway (pretzel vendors, sidewalk salesmen, etc.).  He has soon killed the Generic Baddies and arrives at his destination: the video store!  The videos in his plastic bag were due by noon, and our spy is a few minutes late.

Behind the counter, the exotic beauty tells the spy she’ll fix it so there’re no late fees. He thanks her and starts to run out,  but the woman calls to him, “Wait, what’s your name?”  He stops at the door, turns, and smiles: “My name’s Off.  Aims Off!”

We cut to the titles (written inexpensively on a blackboard), the main theme sung by a sexy siren with a Shirley Bassey voice.  The song tells us about the Superspy: ...He’s the Minimum Wage Superspyyyy!

It’s Live and Let Wound...

Can’t afford Live and Let Die!

Minimum Wage...Soooopuhhhh...spyyyy!...

The Story

Aims, who’s a fairly typical British Superspy, if not just a bit dim, heads over to HQ, which is recognizably the re-dressed set of Aims’s own apartment seen earlier.  Inside, Aims flirts with secretary Holly Bigboats and is soon given his assignment by his boss, Brit Accent.

Aims must stop the evil organization C.H.E.A.P. (Counter-Heroic Enemies for Antagonizing the Protagonist) from stealing famous artworks out of city museums...This assignment, however, will be revealed as a McGuffin, hiding something far more nefarious!  While Aims is unaware of this McGuffin, it is given some foreshadowing when Brit breaks the fourth wall (to the consternation of Aims) and plugs various commercial items, like Ritz Crackers and Black & Decker drills.

Before he can set off on his assignment, however, Aims needs a few things. First, his leading lady...

At a small gallery downtown he meets a woman he is certain will be called Nipple Rouge, Tumpura Blue or Felatio Allswell. But plain, old Lisa Andrews is his partner.

Together, the two meet up with Major Minor Character, the weapons officer who provides Aims with his gadgets: a butter knife (also to be utilized as a flat-head screwdriver), a key chain you squeeze to make it a flashlight, and a “timed aural disrupter” (read: an alarm clock) and for Lisa... “Pumps?”  “Ah, they may look like pumps, but they feel like a sneaker!” 

Lisa and Aims then take off in the car the Major provided (a Jetta – which Aims also uses to make pizza deliveries) to investigate missing artworks at the Museum of Modern Art.  There, they run into trouble, and Aims is starting to see that this adventure may not be like the others he’s been on.

Aims and Lisa’s relationship hasn’t been an easy one to this point.  She doesn’t want to play spy, or be in a shoddy production like this one; Aims, meanwhile, is of the belief that his films are top-notch.  And he doesn’t like to even acknowledge they’re movies.  In the world of Aims Off, all of this is real!

Aims, playing a hunch, takes Lisa to Chinatown (“Everyone knows that’s where you go in New York to get things...CHEAP!”).  The two find themselves surrounded by site gags:

          - The street vendor who can’t seem to sell even 1 box of Jerry Curl.

          - The hot dog vendor with live dogs sitting on the grill (uh, they’ll be cute...not grilled...)

          - And the Asian man who speaks only Chinese but whose subtitles are clearly   incorrect (“Have you read the works of Sartre?!”)

Aims realizes his assignment may be some kind of set-up...but Aims’s presumption about Chinatown was right nevertheless: someone is indeed following him and Lisa.  Aims sends Lisa off so he can face the threat himself...and the two finally share a moment:

          Aims: Go!

          Lisa:   But–

          Aims:  I kno–

          Lisa:   Yes, you do, yet still–

          Aims:  I feel the same...however–

          Lisa:   You’re right, but how–

          Aims:  It just is.

          Lisa:    I knew it would be.

          Aims:  Then–

          Lisa:    I guess–

          Aims:  We’ve said all there is to say.

They bid each other a fond farewell! Lisa leaves in the Jetta, and, despite putting up a decent fight, the CHEAP agent captures Aims.

Off awakens later in the villain’s lair (quite clearly the re-re-dressed set of Aims’s apartment). The bad guy leader, who simply goes by the name Monty, leaves Aims tied-up under the watchful eye of the right-hand “man” who captured him: Butch L’Dyke. A tough female with the, er, well, come on...her name is Butch L’Dyke.  You get it, right?

Aims’s one chance to get out of this mess is the bad guy’s girlfriend.  Luckily she lives up to her name: Betrayal Du Jour.  The lovely and exotic Bet seduces Butch – the latter humming Henry Mancini’s “Nadia’s Theme” – and frees Aims...giving them just enough time “to make superspy love.”

Having gotten the Jetta a major Superspy upgrade with her daddy’s credit card, Lisa’s made her way back to Aims’s apartment building...of course, she’s unaware that the place is now being utilized as CHEAP’s HQ.  Lisa busts in while Aims and Betrayal are gettin’ funky...

(Note: stage directions which explain the candy and the trapeze mentioned below have been left out for purposes of national security).

          Aims (with candy in his mouth): Oops. (spits candy out)

          Lisa:  I so hope you don’t get a sequel!

          Aims (jumps off trapeze): Lisa! It’s not what you think!

          Lisa  (sarcastic): Oh, I thought you were discussing the estate tax laws.

          Aims: (not noticing sarcasm) Then...it’s really not what you think.

Butch awakens then and suddenly kills Bet.  Aims acts fast and kills Butch, but, as Monty is all too happy to point out, Aims can’t kill Butch – she’s a good character actress who comes cheap; this production wouldn’t be able to replace her.

Aims and Lisa are tied-up and held under a contraption meant to kill Aims slowly (Let’s not give away the milk for free. All I’ll say is that it involves a paper cut, a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, and a Laserdisc player).  While Aims is slowly being tortured to the point of death, Lisa realizes that the best way for them to make their Superspy getaway is to get rid of Butch, and the only way to do that...is to make her a star!

And, so, through a montage where we see Butch leaving rehab, interviewed by Mary Hart, appearing on Inside the Actor’s Studio, and, finally, making a blockbuster summer movie, Butch L’Dyke is a hot star...and no longer part of this spy movie.

With Butch gone, Aims and Lisa make their escape!  As they do, Monty shows up again, and he pulls out something not yet seen: an expensive prop!

Aims and Lisa (and even the grips and PAs) are on the run as Monty shoots the “realistic-looking” lasergun wildly.  But whenever the gun is used, the film’s budget gets cut to make up for the sudden addition of special effects!  As a result, the actors find themselves shooting their scenes in cheaper locales like Toronto, Czechoslovakia, and, finally, a California studio backlot. 

Lisa explains these details and reality finally sets down on Aims...he’s just a spy in a movie...and he accepts that this movie definitely is not one of his normal adventures. 

With depression quickly setting in, Aims quits the movie.  He changes into bicycle shorts and tells them he’ll be a bike messenger. He leaves.

With Aims gone, they must audition a new Aims Off – and there’s plenty of ’em!  It’s soon realized that perhaps Monty wasn’t the best choice for villains, and new bad guys are interviewed as well. What follows is a huge battle: the Aims Off auditioners versus the new bad guy auditioners – with Lisa caught in the middle...

And, amidst all of this, after Monty is killed (along with the women in charge of casting the new Aimses), the real villain is discovered: Low-Budget Spy Movie’s producer and Lisa’s daddy, Carl Augustus “C.A.” Andrews!   He was trying to get his little girl a real job...and since she’s failed at that, he’ll have to kill everyone. (Oh, by the way, he’s insane.)

C.A. dismisses all of the Aimses, who stand by Lisa’s side, that is, until C.A. explains this film is non-union.  But one auditioner doesn’t leave.  Standing in a familiar hat and trench coat, the one man looks up and pulls off his hat & coat to reveal a bike messenger uniform.  Ew.  He, um, heads off-screen and returns in a tux – yes, it’s the real Aims Off in a heroic return, ready to save the day!

C.A. and Aims face-off in C.A.’s secret underground lair!  Aims is so happy to be in a REAL underground lair he starts to cry a little.  But Aims sees that the only way out of this mess is to play C.A.’s game against him, and he utilizes movie magic to get himself and Lisa out of C.A.’s office just as the self-destruct button is set! 

Soon, the Superspy has destroyed the villain and his plans and even decides to give Lisa a happy ending by revealing that Brit Accent is her real father!

Of course, as this is the Low-Budget Spy Movie, somebody does need to get the film to the processing lab...good thing Aims held onto those bike shorts.

                                                                             THE END.

Agent Aims Off Will Return In:

The Sequel Nobody Wanted

Low-Budget Spy Movie and all characters created by Keith Planit,  © 2005.