Monahan’s next

Since there isn’t yet a Church of Monahan, it is quite clear to me that William Monahan isn’t getting the kind of recognition he deserves. This guy is gonna be the new Mamet, except it looks to me like he can write cinematic story arcs as good as his dialogue. News today is that he’s taken on a new project based on the true story of a drug dealer, Jim Keene, who traded a prison sentence to go undercover at a maximum security hospital for the criminally insane, where he tried to get a serial killer to divulge the whereabouts of his victims.

“We really connected on ‘The Departed,’ and it’ll be fantastic to have a writer of Bill’s caliber in the office every day, not just to write, but to bounce ideas off,” producer Graham King said. “When I told Bill this incredible story I’d bought, he said, ‘I’ve already got the movie in my head.'”

Nobody knew about Keene’s situation, save for the prison psychiatrist and a visiting ‘girlfriend’ who was really an undercover FBI agent. Sounds kinda like FACE/OFF. Hopefully there’ll be a scene where a massive iron sliding door reveals John Travolta, who goes “ooooooo weee, you good lookin’!” That was pretty much one of the best things I’ve ever seen.