INT. EAST VAN CHURCH – NIGHT
The rain hammers the stained glass. Candles flicker. The faces of the congregation are hard and haunted. POPE PIUS XIII (LENNY BELARDO) stands at the altar — robes torn, eyes burning with righteous exhaustion.
LENNY:
You call yourselves holy because your hatred is aimed at monsters. But I tell you — the mob is a monster too. You are just as evil as the pedophiles you want to kill.
(A murmur of rage moves through the pews. Someone spits. Another man clenches his fists.)
LENNY (CONT’D):
My father once said, “Put them on an island.”
And your orange messiah — he said reopen Alcatraz.
(Lenny’s gaze pierces the crowd, calm but defiant.)
LENNY:
But I say — call the authorities. Call the firefighters. Call the police.
Because the moment you take justice into your own hands, you lose your soul.
He looks out the door — flashing lights from squad cars dance on the church walls. Sirens echo. The mob disperses, some ashamed, some furious.
LENNY (softly):
I woke up the neighborhood. I told them to do the right thing.
And for that… they called me a traitor.
For that… they punished me.
Lenny kneels before the altar, whispering a prayer that sounds more like a confession.
LENNY (whispers):
Forgive me, Father, for saving them from themselves.
INT. EAST VAN CHURCH — LATE NIGHT
The church smells of wet wool and wax. Rain drums the stained glass like a second heartbeat. LENNY sits on the altar steps, robe dirty, fingers locked as if to hold himself together. The door opens like a verdict — ROBERT DE NIRO fills the frame, all weathered bone and restless energy, a face that’s learned the language of rage.
ROBERT DE NIRO
(voice low, gravel and regret)
You saved them and they spit on you. That’s what this town does. Saves the shape of something and punches the soul out of the rest.
LENNY looks up. Exhaustion and a fragile steadiness in his eyes.
LENNY
I kept them from becoming what they wanted to be. I kept them from becoming killers.
DE NIRO eases into a pew, the room swallowing the sound. He folds his hands like a man composing himself before a confession.
DE NIRO
You ever watch Taxi Driver? Guy goes out, thinks he’s cleaning the streets. He shoots the pimps, feels godlike for a minute—then what? You become a headline and a hollow man. That’s the trick. Violence dresses itself up as courage.
LENNY
Vigilantism calls itself justice. It’s still sin with a better costume.
DE NIRO’s jaw tightens. He’s a man who’s carried both temptation and the ruin it leaves behind.
DE NIRO
So what do you want me to do? Stand here and clap while paperwork crawls through the city? The people want to see something done. They want a show, Padre.
LENNY rises slowly, the candlelight outlining the bones of his face.
LENNY
We gave them a different kind of action. We woke them up. We made them call the police, the firefighters. Real institutions, real accountability. It’s slow. It’s ugly. But it doesn’t make victims into icons of vengeance.
DE NIRO leans forward, staring as if he could puncture the air between them.
DE NIRO
People call you a coward for not giving them spectacle. I used to think courage was pulling the trigger at the right time. Maybe I was wrong.
LENNY meets him, not a sermon but a human pleading.
LENNY
Courage is staying human when everything inside you screams to stop being human. Courage is choosing a system you can haunt with truth, not your fist.
For a long beat, DE NIRO looks like he’s trying to remember how to do that. The old animal in him eases; a new ache takes its place.
DE NIRO
(softer)
I don’t know how to wait. Waiting’s not a thing I was taught.
LENNY places a steady hand on his shoulder — not a rebuke, only an offer.
LENNY
Start with honesty. Start with naming what you will not become. Use that anger to build a case that can’t be ignored.
DE NIRO closes his eyes, breathes out a sound like a man dropping weights.
DE NIRO
(small, half-joking)
So I become a lawyer now?
LENNY cracks the smallest, bittersweet smile.
LENNY
Become whatever keeps you from the cheap thrill of being the executioner. That’s harder and rarer.
Outside, sirens close in, methodical and indifferent. DE NIRO stands. He does not look like a movie vigilante; he looks like a man who might try the harder, duller thing: staying, reporting, testifying, working the long angles of truth.
DE NIRO
(grudging)
You either make me a coward or a saint, Padre. I’m still deciding which I can live with.
LENNY
Either is better than becoming what you hate.
They move toward the door together — not as allies made by spectacle, but as two damaged people choosing a messy, human path forward.
