What if Ekta Kapoor got the rights to remake Silence of The Lambs and was now giving her inputs to the Plot Summary ? What would the inputs be ? Ekta’s comments are in bold italics…
(Plot summary taken from Imdb.com, tweaked slightly here and there)
Silence of the Lambs (too subtle)
Khooni Darinda
Promising FBI Academy student Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) is pulled from her training at the FBI Training Facility at Quantico, Virginia by middle aged Jack Crawford (Scott Glenn)
(Inka thoda scene dikhate hain, he’s brought her up a bit and has a thing for her) of the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit, who tasks her with presenting a VICAP questionnaire to the notorious Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins)
(Rishi Kapoor ? especially after D-Day), a brilliant forensic psychiatrist and incarcerated cannibalistic serial murderer
(Perfect moment for opening credits after his cannibalistic past is revealed). After learning the assignment relates to the pursuit of vicious serial killer Buffalo Bill, Starling travels to the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane and is led by Dr. Frederick Chilton to Hannibal Lecter, a sophisticated, cultured man restrained behind thick glass panels and windowless stone walls. Although initially pleasant and courteous, Lecter grows impatient with Starling's attempts at "dissecting" him and viciously rebuffs her. As Starling departs, another patient flings fresh semen onto her face
(use for promo – see if we can get a classic song in the background ? Something like ‘Ram, Teri Ganga Maili Ho Gayi’), enraging Lecter who calls Starling back and offers a riddle containing information about a former patient. The solved riddle leads to a rent-a-storage lot where the severed head of Benjamin Raspail is found
(delete head, make it some other body part, nahin to A rating ho jayega). Starling returns to Lecter, who links Raspail to Buffalo Bill and who offers to help profile Buffalo Bill if he is transferred to a facility far from the venomous, careerist Dr. Chilton
(Gulshan Grover ? Then we can have him say ‘Bad Man’ and maybe touch his hair a certain way…people remember that).
Hours and miles away, Buffalo Bill abducts Catherine Martin, the daughter of United States Senator Ruth Martin. Starling is pulled from Quantico and accompanies Crawford to West Virginia, where the body of Bill's recently-discovered victim resides, and where Starling helps perform the autopsy and extracts the chrysalis of a Death's-head Hawkmoth from the victim's throat
(nobody will understand Chrysalis in India…something else ? Maybe a pen from Taj hotel – I owe them a favour from our last film?). At Quantico, as news of Catherine Martin's abduction sweeps the country, Crawford authorizes Starling to offer Hannibal Lecter a fake deal promising a prison transfer if he provides information that helps profile Buffalo Bill and rescue Catherine Martin. Instead, Lecter begins a game of quid pro quo with Starling, offering comprehensive clues and insights about Buffalo Bill in exchange for events from Starling's traumatic childhood. Unaware to both Starling and Lecter, Dr. Frederick Chilton tapes the conversation and after revealing Starling's deal as a sham
(good opportunity for a dard bhara or angry song here, showing Lecter’s anger at Starling’s betrayal), offers to transfer Lecter in exchange for a deal of his own making. Lecter agrees and following a flight to Tennessee reveals Buffalo Bill's real name, physical description and past address to Senator Martin and her entourage of FBI agents and Justice Department officials.
As the manhunt begins, Starling travels to Lecter's special cell in a local Tennessee courthouse, where she confronts him about the false information he gave the Senator. Lecter refuses Starling's pleas and demands she finish her story surrounding her worst childhood memory
(does Lecter have the hots for her ? Sounds like it). After recounting her arrival at a relative's farm
(she’s an orphan ? Show how her parents were killed…maybe Chilton’s men. Thodi continuity aa jayegi…and stretch the scene a bit – young girl, loss of parents, killed in slow motion, sad music, good spot to make people cry a bit) the horror of discovering their lamb slaughterhouse and her fruitless attempts at rescuing the lambs
(way too subtle – something else – maybe the relative molests her ? Which is why she is sexually frigid and joined the Army / FBI whatever ?), Lecter rebuffs her, leaving her with her case file before she is escorted out of the building by security guards. Later that evening, Lecter escapes from his cell. The local police storm the floor, discovering one guard barely alive and the other disemboweled
(yuk, change scene, we aren’t Vikram Bhatt or Ramsay Brothers. Did you call them yesterday, BTW about the production deal ?) and strung up on the walls. Paramedics transport the survivor to an ambulance and speed off while a SWAT team searches the building for Lecter. As the team discover a body in the elevator shaft, the survivor in the ambulance peels off his own face, revealing Lecter in disguise
(we must get the same guys who did the disguise for Hrithik in Dhoom2), who kills the paramedics and escapes to the airport.
After being notified of Lecter's escape, Starling pores over her case file, analyzing Lecter's annotations before realizing that the first victim, Frederica Bimmel, knew Bill in real life before he killed her. Starling travels to Bimmel's hometown and discovers that Bimmel was a tailor and has dresses with templates identical to the patches of skin removed from Buffalo Bill's victims
(we’ll have to speed up this whole portion – until she reaches the killer’s house- maybe we can have all the action happen against a fast song, speak to Vishal-Shekhar). Realizing that Buffalo Bill is a tailor fashioning a "woman suit" of real skin
(double yuk !! something else pul-leeze), she telephones Crawford, who is already on the way to make an arrest, having cross-referenced Lecter's notes with Johns Hopkins Hospital and finding a man named James Gumb. Crawford instructs Starling to continue interviewing Bimmel's friends
(he also says he misses her, wishes she was by his side, or he by her) while he leads a SWAT team to Gumb's business address in Calumet City, Illinois. Starling's interviews lead to the house of "Jack Gordon," who Starling soon realizes is actually James Gumb, and draws her weapon just as Gumb disappears into his basement. Starling pursues him, discovering a screaming Catherine Martin in the dry well
(great opportunity for the psychedelic kind of sets here – no one in India has used them – lots of neon lights, edgy rock / heavy metal music) just before the lights in the basement go out, leaving her in complete darkness. Gumb stalks Starling in the dark with night vision goggles
(we’ll make it lots of light, blinding light, and he has these cool sunglasses – check with RayBan or Fastrack, whoever comes on board as sponsors) and prepares to shoot her when Starling, hearing the machinations of his revolver, swivels around shoots Gumb dead.
(We can show Catherine getting married – kind of a happy ending – then we can also show wedding item number ?) Days later at the FBI Academy graduation party, Starling receives a phone call from Hannibal Lecter, now in the Bahamas. As Lecter assures Starling he has no plans to pursue her
(See !!! he did have the hots for her !!), he excuses himself from the phone call, remarking that he's "having an old friend for dinner," before hanging up and following Dr. Frederick Chilton through the streets of the village.
I see this as a sweet love story. About this poor orphan girl, unable to accept any man, being chased by two slightly older men – we can reduce their ages a bit to make it more acceptable (Lamhe Nishabd, Cheeni Kum show Indian audiences not ready for elderly men falling for younger women). All this, of course, against a backdrop of serial killing, investigation…
Where can we fit in Tusshar ?
PS : Met Deepika for lunch yesterday. She was looking hot, is into this new Yoga thing. What do you think ? She will bring the much needed glamour to the role, will also be a good, serious role for her…(like we did for Vidya in Dirty Picture, only in reverse)
