The Abridged Script
FADE IN:
INT. ABANDONED OLD HOUSE
GUY PEARCE shoots CYPHER in the face.
The entire movie is then shown backwards, which is CLEVER and CREATIVE, and not GIMMICKY at all.
INT. GUY PEARCE'S PLACE - MOMENTS EARLIER
GUY PEARCE
I have tatoos telling me things like "John G. raped and murdered your wife." My favorite one says "FIND HIM AND KILL HIM" across my torso, which is not upside down so I can read it nor is it backwards so I can read it in a mirror. In fact, there are no regular circumstances under which I can see that message clearly. It's actually to scare other people.
CYPHER
Hey! You ready to go kill me now?
GUY PEARCE
Didn't I already shoot y--oh yeah, backwards. Right. Okay. Let's go.
INT. CARRIE-ANNE MOSS'S PLACE - MOMENTS EARLIER
CARRIE-ANNE MOSS
I am Carrie-Anne Moss. Please notice the casting choices. They are meant to predispose you into thinking I am good and Cypher is bad.
AUDIENCE
Actually, I kinda figured Guy killed him wrongly and the whole movie will be showing us how.
Just to make things difficult to follow, we suddenly cut to a series of black-and-white scenes that seem to take place before all of this. These are shown in NORMAL ORDER.
DIRECTOR
Okay, you see, my silly little gimmick is cute, but it makes it really hard to tell necessary parts of the story.. so I break the whole idea with these black-and-white shots, but that's not a problem, right? So color scenes are in reverse and black and-white scenes are in order. Got it? Remind yourself of this constantly. Oh and the ending scene was literally shown backwards.
AUDIENCE
My head hurts.
DIRECTOR
Then perhaps you won't be able to realize how cheap I am.
INT. GUY'S CAR - MOMENTS EARLIER
CYPHER
Hey. I'm still alive. I will now make some pretty good points about your suit and car, illustrating you're not exactly who you think you are.
GUY PEARCE
I, along with the audience, will ignore those points because you are Cypher and Cypher sucks.
INT. ABANDONED OLD HOUSE - MUCH EARLIER
GUY kills a guy who he believes is the man he is looking for.
CYPHER
I will now become Joe the Explainer and overload you with information as a justification to the rest of the film.
(pause)
You see, I am a cop. I have, for some reason or another, spent some time going around with you, finding guys to kill and convincing you to kill them. You killed the real guy a long time ago but didn't remember. You may have been doing this for a very long time. I don't know why I never just videotaped one of them to convince you later. Or for that matter, why I'm stupid enough to hang around you all the time when my initials could implicate me in your eyes.
GUY PEARCE
You're quite stupid.
CYPHER
Tell me about it. First I expected the machines to put me back in the matrix, and now this.
GUY PEARCE
Kill ya later.
CYPHER
Don't you mean earlier?
GUY PEARCE
No..I..er..wait.. don't try to confuse me.
CYPHER
Sorry. Hey, I was wondering, how did the guy you just killed know you? He knew what you looked like and he told his girlfriend about you but I don't recall that being explained.
GUY PEARCE
I...er..uh.. Memory loss, you know? Heh, I don't know how that works..
CYPHER
Oh.. and how, exactly, can you remember that you have this condition? You would have found that out after the attack..
GUY'S HEAD explodes.
CYPHER
Ha! Not gonna kill me this time, I already saw the end of the movie.
END