Here’s how I would do it.
The setting is Bali.
Victor is trying to get to Australia.
Ilsa is American, met Victor at MIT.
Rick is ex Special Forces.
Victor is Pakistani, educated in the US, and has the complete list of who Pakistan has sold nukes to. (That’s the MacGuffin.)
Victor was captured by the Taliban in the process of trying to confirm that a site in Warzistan was secure. It wasn’t, it was where he found his information (the hard copies of which he destroyed) before being captured. Pakistan declared him dead instead of negotiating with the Taliban.
After enduring months of torture by said bad guys, Victor is rescued by an (illegal) operation by U.S. special forces.
The leader of that operation was in Victor’s dorm at Harvard. Seeing that Victor has been on the wrong end of an ass-kicking machine for a very long time, he isn’t wrapped up as one of the usual suspects.
Victor has his reasons for wanting to get to Australia instead of the United States. (Let’s throw a bone to the anti-U.S. executives here.)
Rick and Ilsa’s affair had been before she met Victor. (Leave it in Paris.) She was studying at the Sorbonne, he was on assignment to the French Government, advising on counterinsurgency tactics. “I understand you had advice for the interior minister about situation in the banlieues? Then you left Paris.” “I really can’t say anything about that.” “His nose was already quite large before that conversation, you know.”
About Ilsa: I went to high school in West Virginia in the ’80s with a smoking hot Iranian/American girl. The melting pot is a wonderful thing. Make her an LSU grad.
Renault? Make him a modern, devout Muslim fed up with what the Wahabis are doing. Not a huge stretch.
Who are the Nazis? That’s the most problematic point. Of course you’ve got Al Q, but Nazis were so 20th century, i.e. government sponsored and condoned. (Well, not so different I guess….) I’d go with having Pakistan accuse Victor of selling nuclear secrets, and sicing Interpol on him, and getting the Indonesian government on his tail. In addition, Al Q is now after him because they didn’t know what he knew when they were feeding him rat droppings and rain water. (We wouldn’t want to turn this into a Bourne Identity thing, but some extra action would make it an easier sell.)
Songs? How about some sad song from Lucinda Williams’ catalog? (Lafayette?) Sam could be a woman, and leave the name “Sam” as a kicker.
Who plays Rick? First choice would be Bruce Willis, I think. A little long in the tooth, but then Bogart wasn’t a spring chicken either.
Anyway, a fun exercise. Hopefully someone who knows their stuff gets interested.
