thomas burchfield

In the noble tradition of movie comedies such as the oeuvre of Abbott & Costello and SOME LIKE IT HOT; the meditations of Mel Brooks and Richard Lester; the penetrating drama of AIRPLANE! and THE HANGOVER, comes WHACKERS, an original and unproduced screenplay by Thomas Burchfield, the author of the newly released novel DRAGON'S ARK (also published by Ambler House Publishing). WHACKERS is the story of Bryce Doolittle--a young man of great talent, but greater cowardice - and his brave retreat from the greatest choices a man can face: between being a Lottery millionaire law clerk, husband to the most beautiful, but exhausting girl in the world and best buds with happy-go-lucky hit man Jack Studd; or throwing it all away at the risk of becoming the greatest crooner in pop music since Tony Bennett. Written in the previous century and featuring an imaginary cast of ohhh, let’s see, a couple dozen characters by our guess, WHACKERS is a work infused with the same warm-hearted nuance and gentle insight that distinguishes such humanist classics as STRAW DOGS and FULL-METAL JACKET. WHACKERS was a sizzling success on its first release in 1996. As one reader at PHA (Powerful Hollywood Agency) said at the time [Insert later when they get back to us]. WHACKERS is a slapshtick anything-goes meditation on the dangers of success that dashes from the mobbed-up law offices, karaoke bars and FBI-sponsored sex clubs of San Francisco to the gi-normous mega-resorts of Hawaii where even the sharks pay to eat the tourists. Unhampered by the low budget demanded by reality, uninhibited by the respect for physical law that hampers movies like Transformers, and disdainful of the formatting rules demanded by Hollywood screenplays, WHACKERS is a rambunctious sex-and-gangsters farce devoid of any cheap moral lessons, aside from “whacking people is a bad idea!” The critics all agree! (And why not? We paid them to!). Whackers is a comedy screenplay that: “Unraveled the stitches from my last hernia operation”--Rush Limbaugh “Left me sexually confused”--Lady Gaga “Makes Michael Bay look like Werner Herzog! More fun than reading WAR AND PEACE in Cyrillic Russian with the lights off!”--Roger Ebert [Note: Ebert just e-mailed; wants to return money, take back endorsement.] “More fun than reading architectural drawings! It was like having sugar with my boiled spinach!”-“Is That Not Cool?” News “A wacky piece of weirdness. A real slapstick, whack-spittin, lickety-splittin rodeo. There's plenty here to work with for comic actors and the right director”-John-Ivan Palmer, author of MOTELS OF BURNING MADNESS [Actual unpaid-for endorsement; writer probably unhinged stalker] WHACKERS will have you whacking your knees with laughter. Both of them. Copyright 2011 by Ambler House Publishing