Das Kops

Montage of Nazi Stormtroopers busting people. Nazi regalia, but modern production values. The soundtrack plays Bob Marley's "Bad Boys" -- but with a Germanic, oompa-band arrangement.
INT APARTMENT - NIGHT

We hear TV noises in background. Standard news broadcast, standard talking head voice in background, just subliminal, nothing unusual about it at first.

VOICE: ... looking back on the often painful history of the century that went before. Today itself the...

Camera slowly pans past row of books on shelf -- lotsa dystopian literature from first part of 20th Century (“The Iron Heel,” “It Can’t Happen Here,” “Brave New World,” etc.) also fair amount of leftist stuff from same time period. (Ideally, all titles should be printed before 1944.) Camera keeps panning...

MALE NEWSCASTER: ... 60th anniversary of the atomic bombing of New York City which led the United States to unconditional surrender and a swift end to the war. In a lighter note, Youthkorp troops 24 and 36 marked the anniversary with a bombing of their own -- water balloons!

Bookshelf ends. Camera tracks across wall to edge of door. We see it’s locked up with massive, redundant system of deadbolts, locks and chains telling us whoever lives here has done serious job barricading themselves in.

FEMALE NEWSCASTER: I guess he’s all wet.

MALE NEWSCASTER: (chuckling) I think you’re right, Helga. I --

Sound of TV changing channels. Camera continues past door to edge of wall tracks at extreme CU over plaster pattern, maybe some old revolutionary poster, to end of wall which doglegs into a room.

VOICE: ...Reisfenstahl film festival all this weekend.

Camera enters room. We hear but don’t see it’s the source of sound from TV. Camera goes in on stunned looking guy on couch watching TV. (Since he’s watching TV and camera is dead-on his face we infer TV is directly behind camera.) He sits there, unblinking, holding TV-clicker; pill bottles and empty whiskey bottles surround him on the couch. TV babbles in background. Camera goes into his face. Something dead, burnt-out and defeated about it. Ideally, a Steven Wright type. Camera zooms into one eye. Sound of clicker clicking Go to --

COMMERCIAL:

Shots of aggressive, evil-looking SUV lifted from somebody else’s real commercial.

ANNOUNCER: Strength through joy, with the Panzer, the Reich’s most popular sports utility vehicle!

Go to: happy Aryan-looking family in one. Dad pops head out window.

DAD: And now with 50% more livingspace!

ANNOUNCER: It’s the superior choice for superior...

CLICK:

Bavarian oompa band version of “Bad Boys” cops theme.

Title graphic: GESTAPO!

ANNOUNCER: Brought to you live-as-it-happens by the Ministry of Public Information -- as always the people you see are not actors.

Go to Stormtroopers inside police car.

POLICE RADIO: 411 in Oyster Bay, 411 in Oyster Bay.

STORMTROOPER #1: (explaining to camera) 411. That’s harboring inferior races.

STORMTROOPER #2: Submen.

STORMTROOPER: Yeah, whatever you call ‘em. Over 50 years now and they’re still some of em clinging on, hiding out. Real hard to kill ‘em.

STORMTROOPER #1: Well they don’t wanna die -- from their perspective. In a way you can’t blame ‘em.

STORMTROOPER #2: Yeah. Like blaming cockroaches when you spray em. Raid!
(Both laugh)

STORMTROOPER #1: But what really bothers me is when people of Aryan blood help them out. It’s like they don’t know what we fought for all those years. That really bugs me.

STORMTROOPER #2: (Holding picture -- some kind of print out -- for benefit of camera) This is the guy we think they’re hiding.

STORMTROOPER #1: What's that, some kinda Indian or something?

STORMTROOPER #2: I dunno. Hawaiian, or maybe he’s just in a Hawaiian shirt.

STORMTROOPER #1: OK. This is it.

Go to EXT shot. handheld camera following GESTAPO.

STORMTROOPER #2: (going up to door -- whispering to camera) This is the part I hate.

Kicks in door. They both rush in

STORMTROOPER #2: Raust! Raust! On the floor!

Terrified family does. STORMTROOPER #1 examines their faces. STORMTROOPER #2 roots behind a display shelf. Finds something ...

STORMTROOPER: Everybody looks Aryan. You got your papers?

STORMTROOPER #1: (holding Kachina doll) Whatthehell is this?

CLICK

Go to guy on exercise machine. Horst Wessel theme.

ANNOUNCER: The Nazi track!

CLICK

MALE NEWSCASTER: ... 60th memorial book burning in Island Park.

FEMALE NEWSCASTER: Most of these books are props, I understand.

MALE NEWSCASTER: Right. But it’s important to re --

CLICK

(INT police car)

STORMTROOPER #1: ... intellectuals are the worst. Talk about cockroaches...

STORMTROOPER #2: But they always give themselves away.

STORMTROOPER #1: Yeah. Can’t keep their mouths shut. Is this the address?

STORMTROOPER #2:: (reading paper) Yeah.

EXT, APARTMENT BUILDING - NIGHT

They get out, walk down the hallway carrying a battering ram, then stop at one of the apartments. Check apartment number on slip of paper. Yep. Right apartment number. Start battering door with battering ram.
INT, APARTMENT - NIGHT

Go to guy on couch. Camera pulls back. We hear pounding sounds in background. Camera goes out, tracks across wall back to doors. We see the door shuddering as, obviously, STORMTROOPERS on other side are pounding it in. The camera continues to track, returns to the bookshelf and the soon-to-be-burned books. We hear the door shatter and the STORMTROOPERS crash in.