Blurred edges
Backdrop-filter: blur.MAX
(whispering)
Why'd you have to do that? You couldn't wound him? The guy had a family, maybe parents, kids who gotta grow up without a dad, he was a good guy, and he believed me...
VINCENT
I shoulda saved him 'cause he believed you...?
MAX
No, not just that.
VINCENT
Yeah, that...
MAX
Yeah, so, what's wrong with that?
VINCENT
It's what I do for a living...
MAX
Some living.
VINCENT
Head downtown...
MAX
What's downtown?
VINCENT
How are you at math? I was hired for five hits. I did four.
MAX
(grim)
One more.
VINCENT
There you go...!
MAX
Whyn't you kill me and find another cab.
VINCENT
'Cause you're good.
(shrugs)
We're in this together. Youknow...fates intertwined. Cosmic coincidence. All that crap...
MAX
You're full of shit.
VINCENT
I'm full of shit?
(beat)
You're a monument of it. You even bullshitted yourself, all I am is taking out the garbage. Bad guys killing bad guys...
MAX
'Cause that's what you said...
VINCENT
And you believe me...?
MAX
What'd they do?
VINCENT
How do I know?
(beat)
But, they all got that "witness for the prosecution" look to me. It's probably some major federal indictment against somebody who majorly does not want to get indicted... I dunno.
MAX
That's the reason?
VINCENT
That's the "why." There is no reason.
(beat)
No good reason; no bad reason. To live or to die.
MAX
Then what are you?
VINCENT
(looks up)
...indifferent.
Vincent hesitates, then back out the window...
VINCENT (CONT'D)
Get with it. Get over it. ...millions of galaxies of hundreds of millions of stars and a speck on one in a blink...that's us. Lost in space. The universe don't care (about you).
(beat)
The cop, you, me? Who notices?
MAX
What's with you...?
VINCENT
As in...?
MAX
Man, if someone had a gun to your head and said: "You gotta tell me what's goin' on with that person across the street, there, what they think, who they are, how they feel, or I will kill you"...they'd have to kill you...wouldn't they...?
(beat)
'Cause you don't have a clue...about...anyone.
(struggling for the words)
...I don't think you, you have a clue, period. Did anyone "do" for you in your life...? Ever? When you draw breath in the morning? Open your eyes in the a.m.? You anticipate...anything? Want anything? Expect anything? I don't think so...
(beat)
'Cause you are low, my brother, way low... and some standard parts that are supposed to be there?...with you, aren't. So what happened to you, man? What happened to you?
VINCENT
...all the cabbies in LA, I get Max, Sigmund Freud meets Dr. Ruth...
MAX
Answer the question.
VINCENT
Look in the mirror.
(on the attack)
...with your paper towels...a bottle of 409...a limo company someday. How much you got saved?
MAX
None of your business.
VINCENT
Your business "plan?" Someday? "Someday my dream'll come..."?
(beat)
And one night you'll wake up and discover it all flipped on you. Suddenly you're old. And it didn't happen. And it never will. 'Cause you were never going to do it, anyway. The dream on the horizon became yesterday and got lost. Then you'll bullshit yourself, it could never have been, anyway. And you'll recede it into memory...and zone out in a Barcalounger with daytime TV on for the rest of your life...
(beat)
Don't talk to me about killing. You're do-in' yourself. In this yellow-and-orange prison. Bit by bit. Every day.
EXTREMELY CLOSE: Max is soaking up every word.
VINCENT (CONT'D)
All it ever took was a down payment on a Lincoln Town Car. What the hell are you still doing in a cab?
The needle on the speedometer is creeping past forty...
MAX
'Cause I never straightened-up and looked at it, you know...?
VINCENT
Slow down.
MAX
(igoring him)
...myself, I should have. My brothers did...
(beat)
Tried to gamble my way out from under. (That was) Another born-to-lose deal! Then, "it's gotta be perfect to go!" You know? Risk all torqued-down.
Needle pushing sixty...