The Son of No One - Filmz.ru

together. I always mix up people I knew, and there was a kid we named Milk because he was so
white.”
Montiel explains his process of developing the story: “So I had this idea and just started
messing with it and writing some stories, then a long story. It started to feel like a book at one
point, but then it began to feel more like a movie.”
“It’s a bit of a crazy process I go through,” Montiel admits, “So I’m still trying to finish the book.
I always was the kid that watched the movie for the book report, so it makes sense that I’m
doing it backwards. When I wrote my book A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, if I knew then
what “INT.” meant, it probably would have been a screenplay first. It ended up close to being a
movie then. But it’s all the same to me,” says Montiel, who is also a musician and painter.
“Writing, directing, music, painting – art is art.”
And what Montiel has created with The Son of No One is both a captivating character piece and
a cleverly crafted suspense thriller in which there aren’t completely good guys or bad guys, but
rather all the key characters are painted in varying shades of gray. As Montiel explains, “It starts
off in 1986 about two kids living in the Queensbridge projects in Astoria, Queens, who kill two
people and get away with it. The rest of the film concerns how they deal with that as adults in
2002 when something occurs that impacts their lives and all the people around them.”
Montiel elaborates: “One of the boys, Jonathan White (then known as Milk), played as an adult
by Channing Tatum, becomes a cop because he needed the medical insurance. He and his wife,
played by Katie Holmes, had a baby, and he was tired of working at 7-11s and record stores. It’s
hard to get a normal job these days and getting a job as a cop gets you medical insurance. And
that’s why Jonathan becomes a cop at 30 years old. So he’s now a cop, working close to his
home in Staten Island and can live a relatively normal life with his wife and daughter.
“But then he gets transferred over to the 118 th Precinct in Astoria, Queens, where he grew up
and where much of the film takes place. He thinks it’s a bit weird, wondering why he’s been
transferred there. It’s all under this supposedly ‘Quality of Life’ program going on in Astoria,
where they’re trying to ‘clean up’ the projects—and basically run people out in order to
develop the land for nice condominiums.
“They’re bringing in a lot of cops from different precincts for this, so Jonathan thinks that’s
probably why he was transferred to the Astoria precinct,” continues Montiel. “But once
Jonathan’s been brought into the precinct, he begins to feel that he’s been brought back there
for other reasons. That’s where the interesting, weird twists begin—as his past slowly comes
back, and things start to happen.
“Al Pacino’s character, Stanford, is now Deputy Commissioner, but back in 1986, he was a
detective and Jonathan’s father’s partner—he’s known Jonathan since he was a baby. After
Jonathan’s father was killed, Stanford would always take care of him—the way some people
will just check in on a kid. I think part of it was that he felt bad for a little white kid in the
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