FADE IN:
INT. MIDDLE EASTERN SAND FORTRESS
A bunch of HEAVILY-ARMED MEN burst into a BUILDING and start SHOOTING EVERYBODY. Masked gunmen COLIN FIRTH, MARK STRONG, JACK DAVENPORT and NOLINES McDEADGUY tie some GUY to a CHAIR and INTERROGATE HIM.
COLIN FIRTH
Give us the information we need or we’ll blow your brains out!
TERRORIST (PRESUMABLY)
Wait, could we take half a second to establish just what us guys do that’s evil? I mean your actions right now are pretty much indiscernible from Hans Gruber’s, so a little context might be useful.
COLIN FIRTH
The context is that you’re middle eastern and have guns. Just because this is a British movie doesn’t mean we can’t borrow Hollywood stereotypes.
TERRORIST
Fine, I might as well just own it then. SUICIDE BOMB TIME!
McDEADGUY throws himself on the TERRORIST’S BOMB and DIES, SAVING EVERYONE.
COLIN FIRTH
NOOO, McDEADGUY!! On the bright side, congratulations, Jack, you just won the position as our new agent. By default. Due to the other candidate being MORE competent and heroic than you.
JACK DAVeNPORT
Well that’s dissatisfying. Hang on, by what definition am I a fresh-faced recruit? I’m clearly in my early forties here.
COLIN FIRTH
Yeah well, we’re about to skip ahead seventeen years so we’ve got the rest of the movie to look age-appropriate.
(pause)
Well, me and Mark do. You’ll be abruptly hacked up in the next scene.
JACK DAVENPORT
Damnit, it’s At World’s End all over again.
INT. LONDON POLICE STATION, SEVENTEEN YEARS LATER
Troubled youth TARON EGERTON, whose nickname, “EGGSY”, sounds like an apt shortening of TARON EGERTON but doesn’t relate to his character name GARY UNWIN even slightly, has been arrested for stealing a car.
TARON EGERTON
Fortunately I’m McDeadguy’s son, and when he died his agency gave me a special phone number I can use for a one-time favor of my choice, so now I can avoid prison!
(
pause)
Wait a minute, my mum lives in poverty in an abusive relationship with a violent gangster. Why the hell have I never thought to use this Get Out of Anything Free card until now?
TARON is LET GO. As he leaves, he is approached by COLIN.
COLIN FIRTH
So Jack’s dead now, and we’re bringing in candidates for his replacement. Since your dad saved my life I’m picking you.
TARON EGERTON
Which means you would have sprung me for your own reasons anyway, and I just completely wasted my magic phone call?
COLIN FIRTH
That’s right, sucker! Now, you should be ideal Kingsman material as you were a straight-A student, a master gymnast and a model marine before your life went tits-up. Kind of kills the “diamond in the rough” premise behind your character, doesn’t it?
Suddenly they are confronted by the THUG whose car TARON stole, and several of his cronies.
THUG
We want a word with Taron, y’old geezer, so piss off. Doan mess wiv us, becoz the angrier we get the ficka ow axents get, so leave bafaw yoo cuzzaz wiv a fedgin wobbla!
But then COLIN kicks all of their ASSES using MARTIAL ARTS and BOND GADGETS. Finally he knocks out a potential WITNESS with an AMNESIA DART.
COLIN FIRTH
Wait, I have instant knock-out amnesia darts? Shit, I should have used those on everybody. Letting a bunch of random goons witness my bulletproof umbrella-gun and electro-bracelets and whatnot kind of takes the “secret” out of “secret service”, after all.
INT. KINGSMEN HEADQUARTERS
COLIN takes TARON to a HUGE AUSTENTATIOUS MANOR with the KINGSMEN LOGO emblazoned on the lawn, meaning that this super-secret organization could be found in FIVE MINUTES by anyone who knows how to use GOOGLE EARTH.
COLIN FIRTH
The Kingsmen are a group founded just after World War I by a bunch of wealthy aristocrats. They independently identify and neutralize threats to world peace, answering to no goverment and operating outside the law.
TARON EGERTON
In other words, a bunch of millionaires have a private army of assassins and use them against whatever organizations they personally take a stand against. Are you sure you’re the good guys?
TARON goes to the CANDIDATES’ BARRACKS, where he meets the LEAGUE OF UNDESERVING RICH ASSHATS.
EDWARD HOLCROFT
Well well, would you look at the kind of riffraff they’re letting in these days? Jeeves, laugh at this peasant for me.
JEEVES
Ha ha ha!
TARON EGERTON
Oh yeah? We’ll see who’s laughing once you realize this movie is playing the “smug toffee-nosed assholes beaten by noble working class underdog” cliche to the hilt!
EDWARD HOLCROFT
Noble working class? You are aware that this is a movie where every single lower-class male character is a criminal, yourself included.
SOPHIE COOKSON
Meanwhile, I’m the token non-jerk aristocrat.
TARON EGERTON
And my love interest?
SOPHIE COOKSON
Not even a little bit, surprisingly. It seems that this parody of all spy movie tropes managed to forget about the sex almost entirely. The closest thing you get to a love interest is a Swedish princess who lets you do her in the ass.
Suddenly, the TESTING BEGINS! The room starts to FILL WITH WATER!
SOPHIE COOKSON
SHOWER HEADS!
EDWARD HOLCROFT
Oh yes, good idea! Every single one of us except Taron knows exactly what you’re talking about, as that standalone, context-free noun could only refer to that one obscure survivalist technique which is apparently taught to all military cadets except for the marines.
SOPHIE and the JERKS all jam SHOWER HEAD TUBES into TOILETS and BREATHE COMFORTABLY. Instead of NOTICING THIS and FOLLOWING THEIR LEAD, or possibly just because he thinks that that is SUPER GROSS, TARON punches out the bathroom MIRROR and they all escape to an adjoining OBSERVATION ROOM where MARK STRONG is watching.
MARK STRONG
You all fail because, as none of you noticed, one of the candidates drowned!
TARON EGERTON
Okay, I can understand how I missed that while I was flailing around looking for a way out, but the rest of you were staring out into the main room, calmly breathing your sewer gas while you apparently watched the other candidate thrash and die. What are you, a bunch of sociopaths?
EDWARD HOLCROFT
I guess. Except for Sophie, is that really at all surprising?
