LEVERAGE
Nathan Ford really hates corrupt executives, so when the BP spill happens and CEO Tony Hayward goes on the news wishing that his life could return to normal, Nate’s mad. When it becomes clear that nobody from BP is going to jail over the spill, Nate mumbles something about “repeat offenders” and sets his plan in motion.
While Hardison hacks into the National Geological Survey, Parker breaks into the Boston office of ExxonMobil dressed as a cleaning lady. She plants electronic devices on the security systems and on the computers in the conference room, then applies an unknown spray to the keyboard of the computer in the office next door. The office’s owner, Bob, walks in right as she’s walking out.
Sophie, meanwhile, meets Haywood at a fancy cocktail party for the American Petroleum Institute and introduces herself as Elena Campion, the new head of the Boston ExxonMobil office. She invites him to stop by to talk about the proposed sale of a Saudi oil field.
When Haywood arrives at the Exxon offices, paramedics wheel Bob out the door. They mention a peanut allergy. Spencer sits at front desk (we see two guards unconscious on the floor next to him). He sends Haywood straight to Ms. Campion’s office, which just happens to be next to the conference room. On the projector screen in the conference room is a geological survey image of a newly discovered oil pocket in southern New York state along the Delaware River. It’s huge and he’s shocked.
When Sophie tells him that she’s unhappy at ExxonMobil, Hayward sees an opportunity and asks about the Delaware River deposit. Sophie plays coy but lets slip that, because the site is close to the river from which 15% of Americans get their drinking water, they had trouble getting permits.
Hayward gets back to his office and checks the National Geological Survey data, finding Hardison’s planted files. The survey concurs – this is a bonanza of oil right in the middle of the Northeast – easy to drill, easy to ship. BP’s going to make a fortune. He wants this property, calls Sophie and invites her to join BP at a huge raise if she’ll help him steal this property from ExxonMobil. She tells him that she’s already negotiated the deal, but that he can buy it if he can do so in the next 24 hours.
We next see Nate, dressed as a farmer, telling Hayward and Sophie that he won’t sell unless the permits and the drill team are ready to go. He’s getting paid a royalty from the oil that comes out of the ground and he wants it as quickly as possible so that he can move to Beverly. ExxonMobil is ready to go. Hayward says he can have drillers there tomorrow, but that the permits are going to be impossible. Sophie asks about the permits and tells him she’s familiar with the local EPA administrator.
This time, Parker breaks into the local federal building, helping Harbison in through an elevator shaft. A faked emergency call from a local chemical plant empties the EPA office, so that Hayward and Sophie arrive to find Hardison acting as the local administrator. He accepts a bribe to get the permits moving. They go back to Nate and sign for the property.
The next day, drillers start putting up a platform and getting ready to drill. Hayward is there to check their progress. Then the media, police and real EPA arrive. It turns out that just months after the Gulf disaster, BP has just attempted to set up a secret, unpermitted drilling platform on the Upper Delaware Scenic and Recreational River. This US National Park not only protects the drinking water of 17 million Americans but also houses a number of endangered bald eagles.
For a foreign company like BP, killing bald eagles is really a PR nightmare. Bald eagle chicks? That much worse.
America gets furious. Congress throws a fit. Hayward goes to jail.
THE END
Click through for the Ocean’s 11 plan
One problem with the Ocean’s 14 plan. Bernie Mac is dead. Here is a short list of African American actors to replace him in the same role, presumably playing a brother, cousin, or other relative.
Jim Brown (good in Mars Attacks and many other action type movies)
Cedric the Entertainer (would be more convincing faking a accident)
Fred Williamson
You don’t have to replace him with a African American actor, but I can’t see Hollywood doing anything else. Unless they went for another “minority”, say, Hispanic. But then who do you pick? Ooh…Danny Trejo? I just say him because I really like him as actor and wish he’d get more non-bad guy roles…
In the Ocean’s 11 scenario, are you trying to say that BP’s evil plan involves DRAINAGE!!! DRAINAGE ELI!!!!
Maybe the crew from The Italian Job could take the oil spill on, but there would have to be a safe involved, otherwise Charlize Theron would be more or less useless.
First off, thanks to Mr. Belinkie for thinking through this with me. Thanks also to Mr. Fenzel, who had a couple of great suggestions that I forgot include. Sorry Pete. Here they are – commenters, add your own.
Human Target – Christopher Chance signs on as bodyguard to a southern louisiana environmentalist, disguising himself as the environmentalist’s pet pelican. Meanwhile, Guerrero creeps out and harasses the IT team that handles BP’s e-mail servers, discovering BP’s plan to scuttle a supertanker in the gulf of mexico, devastating the last clean beaches in the Mississippi delta, and drowning its main political enemies in oil. But when Christopher Chance gets to the beach first, wings spread and a decoy oil-soaked fish in his mouth, the spiller is about to become the spill-ee.
It is not exactly clear how this happens in the second-to-last scene but it looks awesome.
Prison Break – Michael Schofield is a former commercial fisherman living in Mobile Alabama. Ridden with credit card debt, with his compensation from BP caught up in legal appeals, and with no reasonable hope for near-term employment, the show follows Michael’s attempts to escape Mobile – his only help, his alcoholic, belligerent brother and the tattoos of the Alabama economy he has all over his body.
Oh, and I imagine that Bernie Mac could be added in through the miracle of CGI.
:( this was kind of sad. Even mastermind criminals can’t really make BP pay for what they’ve done, or put any effort into a clean-up.
Great job, well thought through (no doubt more so than the plans of Beyond Petroleum), entertaining and no doubt inspiring some real world Danny Oceans to clean up their namesakes. Also, I am glad the requisite TWBB reference was inserted correctly.
I guess the Hustle team would do their best to sell that section of the ocean to some random Middle Eastern oil barons, as well as some technology to extract it from the water. As usual, Ash would be the only one to do any work, and Albert would impersonate a senator.
Love this. Go the A-Team. My personal preference is for things to be resolved 80s style… We all live happily ever after, and no-one really gets hurt anyway…
I’m sure the Eliot feels left out of the Leverage plan ;) He could be posing as a waiter at the party and glare at Haywood from across the room or be Sophie’s PA.
“Leverage and Burn Notice, however, take place in Boston and Miami, respectively, and consistently demonstrate that the government can’t be trusted to protect its own citizens on its own soil. On top of that, villainous corporations have become a more frequent villain than the drug cartels of the 80′s or the terrorists of the early part of the decade. Corporations step on the little guy and the government is powerless to help.”
While I agree that Burn Notice demonstrates the uselessness of the government or calling in law enforcement, I think the drug cartels and terrorists are more often than not the villains on Burn Notice. The villains on the show usually fall under the category of drug dealer, mobster, organized crime boss, or vague sinister professional without ties to the government making most of their activities terrorist-like. There aren’t too many corporations as far as I can tell…
Other than that, great article. I think the A-Team plan would work best because somehow it seems the most realistic…not quite sure how I came to that conclusion.
Perhaps we could compile a team. An aquatic superhero, a brilliant scientist, a marine biologist, and someone wealthy enough to throw a lot of money and resources their way.
So Aquaman, Will Magnus, Orca, and Bruce Wayne?
Orrrr,… Namor, Reed Richards, Caleb Alexander, and Tony Stark?
Jean-Michel Cousteau gets tangled in the fishing net he’s removing from a dolphin’s fins. A cloud of oil surrounds him just as the dolphin escapes, and as he reaches the last of his oxygen, a storm moves in – lightning strikes the metal floaty-thing at the top of the net, frying his system and mutating his DNA, combining it with the baby sea-turtle and clownfish also caught in the net. Suddenly, Jean-Michel Cousteau is the Crustacean: He has gills, fins, super-strength, laser vision, a hard shell covering his spine, and a way with the ladies. He quickly hooks up with Nemo (hacker), Spongebob (engineer), and Ariel (whatever), to avenge and protect the largest population on earth, and their homes: The citizens of the ocean. First stop: BP and that despicable open well in the GoM.
If the oil endangered some mermaids or a society of sponges, BP would have to contend with the Sanctuary team. No one messes with Helen Magnus!
Henry and Tesla would construct something to stop the leaks but before they finish, Will realises that Tesla sabotaged the rig in the first place and it’s all part of his latest bid for global domination. Kate surprises everyone by coming up with a clever plan that helps save the day. The Big Guy thanks her with his typical affectionate head-whack.
Love this. Made even better with the fact that the A-Team movie is coming out. I love all the other suggestions of who can save the day out of the land of TV.