After going off and making Lone Survivor together, Mark Wahlberg and Peter Berg will be teaming up once again for the true crime flick American Desperado. Based on a novel by Jon Roberts and Evan Wright, the story revolves around “super criminal” Jon Roberts, a man who worked in the mafia, with drug cartels and then somehow, found a job with the American government.
Oscar-winning writer William Monahan (The Departed) will be penning the script and Paramount Pictures is hoping to move into production sometime next year.
Check out Amazon‘s plot summary of the book for even more details.
American Desperado is [Jon] Roberts’ no-holds-barred account of being born into Mafia royalty, witnessing his first murder at the age of seven, becoming a hunter-assassin in Vietnam, returning to New York to become — at age 22 — one of the city’s leading nightclub impresarios, then journeying to Miami where in a few short years he would rise to become the Medellin Cartel’s most effective smuggler.
But that’s just half the tale.
The roster of Roberts’ friends and acquaintances reads like a Who’s Who of the latter half of the 20th century and includes everyone from Jimi Hendrix, Richard Pryor, and O.J. Simpson to Carlo Gambino, Meyer Lansky, and Manuel Noriega.
Nothing if not colorful, Roberts surrounded himself with beautiful women, drove his souped-up street car at a top speed of 180 miles per hour, shared his bed with a 200-pound cougar, and employed a 6”6” professional wrestler called “The Thing” as his bodyguard. Ultimately, Roberts became so powerful that he attracted the attention of the Republican Party’s leadership, was wooed by them, and even was co-opted by the CIA for which he carried out its secret agenda.
Scrupulously documented and relentlessly propulsive, this collaboration between a bloodhound journalist and one of the most audacious criminals ever is like no other crime book you’ve ever read. Jon Roberts may be the only criminal who changed the course of American history.
From that description alone, this sounds like an extremely interesting crime story and one that will lend itself very well to film.
Unfortunately, I don’t care much for Peter Berg. His last film, Battleship, really left a sour taste in my mouth and there are several other directors who I’d rather see step behind the camera for America Desperado. That being said, I’m a fan of Wahlberg and with William Monahan writing the script, things look pretty positive for this one.
What do you think? Does American Desperado sound appealing to you?
