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Genre: Action Comedy
Premise: (from writer) A bipolar theater geek heads to school and gets cast in a role he never expected to play: a real-life hero who must battle a band of goons to stop them from kidnapping a fellow classmate.
WHY YOU SHOULD READ: (from writer) The script is a 2013 Nicholl Quarterfinalist, and it’s got a tone all its own. (Big talk, I know, but how else can I get you to read it?) if I were to pitch this is in one second, it would be: “Imagine if John Hughes wrote Die Hard.'”
Writer: Will Hare
Details: 110 pages
I was going to do a French script review today but of all the queries sent in, there was always at least one grammatical mistake in the logline. My experience has been if a writer makes mistakes in the logline, the quality of the script isn’t going to be very good. Now I know English is a second language for a lot of you, so I wanted to be lenient, but the truth is, Hollywood doesn’t provide any leniency, so why should I? Get those loglines and those scripts cleaned up, guys. We have an ESL editor working for us (scroll to bottom here) or just get one of your American friends to go through your script (and your logline!). You’re competing against perfect English so you have to have the same.
That brings us to today. I decided to give Second Place Hero a second chance in the Amateur Friday game. When it debuted during Amateur Offerings, it was getting a few too many rave reviews in the comments. I’ve been running this site for almost five years. I can count the amount of rave reviews for an amateur script on one hand. You commenters are tougher than me. So I went with another choice for AF that week. But a couple of people I trust did vouch for “Second Place.” Therefore I’d rather go with it than diving into the slush pile randomly. So, Second Place Hero, here’s your shot at redemption. Hope you deliver!
16 year-old Billy’s got issues. His mom killed herself. He’s got the same disease that did her in (he’s bi-polar). He uses a sock puppet to convey his feelings. And his only desire in life is to get the lead part in the school’s version of Guys and Dolls (that might be the most concerning of all his problems).
On this particular day in high school, Billy’s showing around Persimmon, a dark and mysterious new girl. He’s kind of digging her, but he’s so pissed off about pretty boy Flynn getting the lead over him, that he’s not really able to concentrate.
Unbeknownst to Billy and the rest of the students, a pair of helicopters land outside the school and a group of dudes in masks storm inside. They take over the main office (promptly shooting the poor principal) and immediately begin searching for a student with a special tattoo.
Our naughty villain is a man simply known as “Pink Suit” and he’s only got a few hours to do his job. In short, the student’s parents will be testifying in a big case tomorrow against his client. He needs to kidnap the student to use him/her as leverage to deter the parents from testifying. Complicating matters is that he doesn’t know the name of the student. All he knows is that they have the tattoo.
At a certain point, Billy figures all this out, and it’s looking like Persimmon is our tattooed mystery student. So he’s got to keep running around, keeping her safe, all while the peanut gallery tags along (the fat kid, the bully, the angsty chick). It’s Breakfast Club meets Die Hard, with Billy playing the part of John McClane, using lessons he’s learned from his police chief dad to take down the baddies. He even uses his acting skills to cleverly stay one step ahead of Pink Suit. But eventually the two are going to have to meet. Can a high school kid really defeat a criminal mastermind and his thugs?
On the surface, Second Place Hero has a lot of things going for it. It has a complex main character. Billy is bi-polar. He’s dealing with his mom’s suicide. He and his father have a huge chasm in their relationship. There’s a lot more going on here than your typical teen movie.
The setup itself is perfect for a film. You have the classic contained thriller structure, modeled after Die Hard. So we have a goal, stakes, urgency, naturally built into the storyline.
And I always tell writers to take chances with their writing. Mixing an action thriller with a teenage comedy-drama (a la Breakfast Club) is really unique. In a sea of “the same,” it was nice to read something that actually felt different.
HOWEVER, just because something’s different doesn’t make it good. And while I respect Will’s strange genre-mixing experiment, I think that may be the first problem I had with the screenplay. I could never quite wrap my head around the mix. You have a theater kid running around, wielding guns, killing bad guys, getting into teenage-y arguments with his crew… I don’t know. I was trying to imagine this onscreen and it all felt too goofy, too ridiculous.
Also, while I loved how much effort Will put into Billy’s character development, I’m not sure I ever really believed it. There’s this fine line whenever you’re developing a character, where if you’re not careful, it comes off more technical than real. I mean I can make my hero a schizophrenic orphan with face blindness and OCD, but if it doesn’t feel honest, if it doesn’t feel truly embedded into the character, then it’s no different than giving your character no depth at all. In fact, it’s worse, because it feels false. I encountered that too many times here. Like with Billy using the sock puppet to discuss his feelings. That felt more like a gimmick than Billy TRULY NEEDEING a puppet to communicate. Once I detect falseness in a script, whether it be through the story or the characters, I start to pull away.
There were other false moments too. Like Billy (because he’s an actor) being able to mimic the voices of the bad guys when talking to Pink Suit on the radio. I know Billy’s an actor. So I can see why the choice was made. But a 16 year old being able to sound like a grown Hispanic man to his boss? I don’t know if I’m buying that.
Or then there’s this whole thing where Billy’s cried wolf too many times to his Police Chief father. Therefore, when he calls the police for help, they don’t believe him and don’t come to the school. That’s one of those things that makes sense to a writer when he’s all alone in a room (“Oh yeah, I’ll just make it so they don’t believe Billy. That’s why no cops show up!”) but come on. This is total movie logic. There is no way, especially in this day and age, that the police are going to take any chances with a potential school massacre. There’s just no way!
As all those little things added up, it took me further and further out of the story. You’re already trying to sell a very delicate marriage of genres. You’re already asking your reader to make a big leap in believing this setup. So anything falseness you add ON TOP OF THAT is basically like putting an industrial fan in front of a house of cards. The script just won’t be able to handle it.
I think Will is a talented writer. But this feels like one of those early efforts we all have to go through. It has its moments, but there are too many things we have to buy into to enjoy it. I’d say to Will, at the very least, take some time away from this script, write your next one, and come back to it with some fresh eyes. You’ll be able to see a lot of these things I mentioned more clearly, and maybe even come up with some solutions. I’ll be keeping an eye on Will as he gets better, but this script wasn’t for me.
Script link: Second Place Hero
[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: “The late night writer bubble.” Come on, we all know the place. It’s late at night. You’re in the comfort of your favorite chair. At that moment, you’re the only audience for your script. This can be a very dangerous place. Because when you’re in your late night writer bubble, you’re not as critical as you need to be. You can do things like decide that the reason the cops don’t come to the school that’s under siege by a high-level crime syndicate is because your main character has cried wolf too many times. TOTALLY makes sense in the late night writer bubble. DOES NOT make sense to the 3pm Rushed Reader with 2 other scripts to read besides yours. THAT’S the person your choices have to stand up to, not your cuddly little alter ego who rewards you with a bowl of Frosted Flakes after you’ve made it through a particularly tough scene. That guy isn’t able to criticize properly.
