Today’s script won 25,000 dollars. But will it win the hearts of the Scriptshadow readers??

Amateur Friday Submission Process: To submit your script for an Amateur Review, send in a PDF of your script, a PDF of the first ten pages of your script, your title, genre, logline, and finally, why I should read your script. Use my submission address please: Carsonreeves3@gmail.com. Your script and “first ten” will be posted. If you’re nervous about the effects of a bad review, feel free to use an alias name and/or title. It’s a good idea to resubmit every couple of weeks so your submission stays near the top.

Genre: Faith/Drama
Premise: (from writer) In the Mid-Twentieth Century a mysterious boy with Christ-like healing powers must bring together a racially charged town before the vindictive Mayor’s son murders him.
About: This is the script that generated the most discussion from last weekend’s Amateur Offerings. It recently won the $25,000.00 GRAND PRIZE at KairosPrize Screenplay Competition sponsored by www.movieguide.org.
Writer: R. W. Hahn
Details: 117 pages

I wasn’t too excited about the way the Amateur Offerings Weekend went two weeks ago, particularly in response to this script. I find that whenever a script wins a contest, it also hops inside a piñata. A piñata at a party attended by every screenwriter in the world. And they’re not leaving until they bash that thing to pieces. Why this is, I don’t know. I think there’s some frustration there that THEIR script didn’t win a contest. And that taking this other script down will somehow alleviate that pain.

But then I found out this was a Christian-themed script (“Faith based” I think you’d call it?) and that it won a Christian-themed contest. I don’t think you could put a bigger target on your back. Contest winner AND faith-based?? People have such strong opinions about religion. Get two opinionated people with conflicting beliefs in the same room and it isn’t going to end well.

And I understand the reaction. You read something you don’t believe in AT ALL and it gets you riled up. You want to scream, “Do you really believe in this???” And the same can be said of the person/people writing the script. “How could you NOT believe in this?” So to bring that kind of script into the mainstream is one hell of a risky move. I give R.W. major props for taking that chance.

Truthfully, though, I don’t care about any of that stuff. All I care about when I sit down and read a script is being entertained. I don’t care if you write a screenplay about bathtubs. If it’s a damn good bathtub story, I’ll be happy. So with that established, it’s time to see if Gideon is any good.

60-something African-American preacher Leon Swanson’s just run out of gas in a small town. He pulls up to a tiny gas station, but is frustrated to find that it’s closed. However, a sign has been left, “Open After Service.” So Preacher Leon, who you’d think would be understanding of this type of delay, trudges over to the local church to look for the gas station attendant. However, when he walks inside, he’s greeted by a church member who tells him they’ve been waiting for him! Their previous Preacher died, and God told them a new one was coming. Leon appears to be that someone.

Even though Leon isn’t interested in leading someone else’s congregation, he gets the feeling that they’re not letting him go anywhere until he gives them something. So he goes up to the pulpit and tells a story.

Cut back to the year 1939, where we meet 35 year-old Jenny. Jenny’s a maid at the local town motel and seems to live a pretty sad life. Even though she resides in the biggest house in town, everybody hates her. We don’t know why, but when Jenny walks into a store, everyone turns the other way.

Lucky for Jenny, as she’s cleaning out a room one day, she finds a baby! Naturally, she snatches that little ball of drool up and takes it home, not telling anyone about it. The baby, whom she names Gideon, starts to grow up, and it’s clear right away that he’s different. As in when he touches animals that die, they come back to life. THAT kind of different.

Back in town, we meet a group of young friends. There’s Young Leon (the old man telling the story), overweight Leftover, stump-legged Petey, bucktoothed Weasel, and skinny Skeeter. This group of misfits also includes the town bully, Josey, Petey’s older brother. Why you’d allow the town bully to be a part of your group, I don’t know. But that’s the case here.

Getting back to Jenny, we eventually learn why she was shunned. Her grandfather built the first colored church in town, and the white folks didn’t like that. So of course when he died, they shifted their anger over to Jenny.

But things have started to get better for Jenny. When her boss dies, Gideon puts his hand on him and he rises from the dead! Now it isn’t just animals Gideon’s healing, it’s people! And more and more people get wind of this and want in. Pretty soon, if you have a hangnail, you’re marching up the mountain to get a little Gideon love.

As you’d suspect, Josey isn’t keen on someone other than him being a local celebrity. So as the town gathers for some mass miracle-making, Josey prepares to end this Miracle Party once and for all. What happens next will test the faith of the town, not only in God, but in themselves.

Before I get into any deep analysis, I want to point out a couple of things. First, I can see why this did well in a competition. The writing is borderline impeccable. R.W. should consider writing novels. The dialogue also felt really authentic, which isn’t easy to do when writing 1939.

With that said, this story didn’t capture me, and I’ll try to explain why. I always tell you guys that the best engine to drive your story is a goal – a character going after something. The second best engine is a mystery. Set up a good mystery and we’ll stick around to find out what’s behind it. If you’re not using one of those two things to drive your story, it gets exponentially harder to keep a reader’s attention.

The only mystery really keeping my attention here was why everyone hated Jenny. That mystery deepened when we found out she lived in a mansion. However, once we know it’s because her grandfather built a “colored” church, there really wasn’t anything left driving the story for me. I didn’t understand why I was supposed to stay interested.

Gideon is a mystery in himself, but there are a couple of things wrong with him. One, we don’t learn anything about Gideon the person. We know Petey lives every day under the threat of his evil brother. We know Josey’s jealous and full of rage. But what do we know about Gideon? Nothing.

And he’s potentially the most interesting character in the script. He has a special power. He can heal people. He can create miracles. Imagine what kind of burden that is on a young child. How much pressure comes with it. But we never see any of that. We just see Gideon when he’s healing and happy.

Another thing that bothered me about Gideon was how repetitive his storyline got. He would heal someone. They’d be happy. Then someone else would come along. He’d heal them. They’d be happy. Then someone else. Heal, happy. Then someone else. Heal, happy. I began to roll my eyes because I always knew what would happen next: Gideon’s going to heal someone and they’re going to be happy.

How come nothing unexpected ever happened with Gideon? How come someone didn’t come along that he couldn’t heal? Or why not have an evil character kidnap Gideon and use him and his powers for his own nefarious purposes?

What this script needed was a good mid-point shift. It needed something to make the second half of the story different from the first. Cause that was a huge problem. Once Gideon starts growing up, nothing surprising happens. I’m not saying that my kidnapping idea is a great one, but do you see how, if it happened, it would make the second half of the story totally different? We wouldn’t just be repeating what’s already happened over and over again.

There were some story/structural choices that confused me as well. This movie starts off about Leon, then becomes about Jenny, and then, out of nowhere, jumps into this group of kids. I didn’t understand how we got to these kids or why we were all of a sudden following them. I eventually got used to it, but I never felt like they were a natural extension of the story. I thought this was Jenny and Gideon’s story.

That’s not to mention Young Leon. He’s our preacher. He’s the one telling the story. Yet of all the kids we follow, he’s the least significant. Shouldn’t he be the most significant? As the person telling the story, shouldn’t Young Leon be the main character? There’s even a moment towards the end (spoiler) after Gideon is killed when Leon says something about him being his best friend. His best friend?? I never saw the two talk to each other once.

Yet I thought that would’ve been a much more interesting story. You have Jenny on one side, who’s been shunned from the town because her father built a black church. After years of turmoil, she’s finally starting to make headway with the town. They’re starting to accept her again. Then her white son, Gideon, becomes best friends with Leon, a black kid, and the scrutinizing begins all over again. Jenny has to make a choice. Does she pull her son away from that friendship to make her life easier, even though she knows it’s the wrong thing to do, or does she allow them to continue their friendship, even though it’ll make her life miserable again?

However, this leads to another problem I had, which is I didn’t think the race storyline was well integrated into the story at all. It was a problem for Jenny’s grandfather, but outside of one scene where Young Leon gets picked on for being black, race isn’t really a central part of these characters’ problems. To be honest, the race stuff feels like one of those things that’s been painted on or left over from an old draft. It doesn’t feel INTEGRATED. If this is going to be about race, then MAKE THE STORY ABOUT RACE ALL THE WAY THROUGH. Not just at the beginning and the end.

For me, this story became too predictable and too straight-forward. It didn’t surprise. It needed more twists and turns. It needed to take more chances and go to more unexpected places. As it stands, the quality of writing is really high, but the story itself needs an engine. I thank R.W. for submitting it and going through the always torturous experience of getting critiqued in front of the world. As tough as it is, there hasn’t been a single Amateur Friday writer who hasn’t gotten better from it. So I know he will too. ☺

Script link: Gideon

[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: These days, there’s usually a specific contest out there for your kind of script. While Gideon might have struggled in a traditional contest, it was perfect for a Christian-themed one. Heck, China just opened a screenwriting contest for scripts that center around its cities. So find the competition that fits your kind of script and you’ll have a much better chance of winning that top prize.

Can it be true? Has a new amateur screenplay sliced and diced its way to an elusive “impressive” ranking?

Genre: Drama/Horror
Premise: (from writer) A secluded boy’s way of life is threatened when he befriends Rose – the girl whom his parents have imprisoned in the family attic.
About: I’ve started to include 5 amateur scripts a week in my mailing list, telling readers to read as much as they can of whatever they wanted, and to give me their thoughts afterwards. “Rose In the Darkness” has gotten a nice reception, so I added it to the Friday slate.
Writer: Joe Marino
Details: 107 pages
Status: Available

Black Friday. What the hell does that mean anyway? I heard it means that it’s the day that all the stores in America “enter the black” because it’s the biggest shopping day of the year? That’s a fine explanation but do you think they could name it something a little more upbeat like… “Fun Friday” or “Fantastic Friday” or “Kip Kalamahama It’s Time To Shop!”

I bring this up not to contribute to the marketing of a day designed to strip you of your 2012 savings, but because today is a great day. It’s only the second day in Scriptshadow’s history that I’m giving an amateur script an IMPRESSIVE! “Say whaaaat?” That’s right. And you know the last time I gave an amateur script that prestigious rating. A little script called “The Disciple Program.” Now “Rose In the Darkness” doesn’t have that perfect combination of elements to make it an easy sell like Disciple (a strong male adult lead, a good hook, and the easy to market “Thriller” genre), but this is still a movie that could be made for a cheap price with an easy-to-market horror angle. It’s kind of like Scriptshadow-fave Sunflower, and almost as good.

“Rose In the Darkness” starts with a great opening scene. It’s Mississippi in the year 1994. A young boy, Micah (13), is having dinner with his parents, Lily and Judah. While the three casually pass the potatoes around and say grace, there is a horrifying screaming going on above them, in the attic. It’s relentless, loud, violent. And yet nobody acts surprised or concerned.

Finally, however, wanting to eat in peace, the mother casually walks upstairs, and after a moment, we hear something (someone?) being beaten badly. Then silence. The mother comes back down, a huge bloody handprint on her dress, and the family resumes their dinner.

Over the next few days, we learn a couple more things about this odd family. First of all, Micah has never gone anywhere. He’s lived his entire life on this property. In fact, there’s a line of chalk that extends around the edge of this rural farmhouse that he’s never walked beyond. Second, the grounds are littered with dug-up holes, holes where, presumably, bodies have been buried. It turns out that whoever’s in that attic hasn’t been the first.

Religion’s also a big deal in this household. According to his parents, his family is the last of the righteous, and everyone else out there are demons. It is their job, then, to take down the demons one by one. That’s why his parents go out and capture people, put them in the attic, torture, then kill them. It’s the “right” thing to do.

Now up until this point, Micah’s gone with the flow. If his parents said the sky was purple, he believed the sky was purple. But Micah’s growing up fast, and he’s starting to get curious. So, when his parents accidentally drop the attic key, he snatches it up and goes into the attic for the first time. It’s there where he meets Rose, a beautiful 14 year-old girl who looks like she’s been through hell. She’s locked up in a cage and she’s terrified.

But after talking with Micah for awhile, Rose starts to cheer up. Micah goes upstairs to read to her whenever his parents are away. They form a friendship, and it’s through this friendship that Micah starts to learn that the world his parents have told him about may not be the one that really exists. According to Rose, there are good people everywhere, and it is Micah’s parents, in fact, who are the evil ones.

This is a lot for Micah to digest, and he’s not sure who he believes. But when his parents start becoming suspicious about his newfound curiosity, and he overhears them saying that they’re going to kill Rose within the next few days, he’s going to have to make a decision soon, a decision that will drastically change the rest of his life.

We’ve heard it all before and yet I continue to read scripts that don’t apply it. Hook us with your opening scene! Give us something interesting/exciting/mysterious so that we’re lured in right away. This opening scene where a family is casually eating dinner while someone screams above them let me know right away that “Rose In the Darkness” was a contender. Especially because it’s a slow-build type of script and Marino didn’t start with a slow boring scene. See, that’s the mistake a lot of writers make when they attempt the slow-build. They make it slow and boring from the very first page, not giving up the good stuff until at least page 40. Unfortunately, by then, the reader has already given up.

With “Rose,” of course, we not only have this great opening scene to keep us reading, we have a mystery that’s been set up, one we have to keep reading to get an answer to (“Who’s up in the attic??”). I don’t see anybody opening this and not wanting to continue until they find the answer to that question.

But I liked how Marino didn’t stop there. He created an entire history for this household. We have the newly dug up holes in the backyard. We have the chalk outlined border circling the property, the one our main character refuses to go beyond.

And then Marino creates this really creepy mother and father. The way these two manipulate the bible’s teachings, doing so as a way to push their own hypocritical agenda is enough to get you revved up for hours. You’re thinking, “How could they be DOING that to this kid?” That’s when I know I’m reading something good. When I’m getting emotionally amped up about one of the characters, and not the writer.

Then the script has this nice little midpoint shift where we finally meet the girl in the attic, Rose, and the narrative shifts into a sort of “Let The Right One In” love story. I loved watching these two together and wondering if Micah was going to be able to save her. And of course, I loved the internal battle Micah had to go through himself. Who does he believe? His parents, who are the only people he’s known up until this point, or this girl who, up until a few days ago, was a stranger? I could actually feel that choice eating away at him. And it’s not easy to make an audience FEEL an internal battle going on inside a character. In fact, it’s damn hard!

And there were other moments that just screamed, “Good writer!” For instance, there’s a scene early on where Micah’s mother tells him a bedtime story about a princess. But as she tells it, we flash back and realize she’s really telling a story about her childhood. Not only was it a clever way to reveal backstory, but the story of abuse actually made you sympathize with her, which was essential for her character development later on.

But these stories only work if they have a good ending. You know? Because the whole point of a slow-build is that it’s all going to lead up to something big. If we’re going to allow you to take your time telling your story, it better have a damn good payoff. And “Rose In the Darkness” does! I won’t spoil it. You’ll have to read the script yourself. But, in short, it was cool!

If the script has one negative, it would be the dialogue. It didn’t quite work for me and I’m not sure why. It was a little too simplistic but, more importantly, the kids spoke like adults most of the time. Here’s an exchange between Micah and Rose near the middle of the script. Micah: “So that’s why you’re so resigned.” Rose: “We didn’t do anything to deserve what happened. But it didn’t matter. Not with them. And now not for me.” Does that sound like a 13 year old and a 14 year old talking? I guess Micah’s only ever been around adults. But Rose is a normal teenage girl. Why is she talking that way?

However, this weakness is only evident in spots. The scene construction was so strong (there was always tension or suspense) that the dialogue didn’t become much of a factor. That’s why I say, learn to construct scenes correctly. If you do, the reader’s more focused on what’s going on in the scene than they are the dialogue.

I really liked this script a lot. I’m in contact with Joe Marino as we speak. Check it out yourself and share your opinion in the comments section!

[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[x] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: I don’t know if there’s a specific lesson I learned, but my favorite part of the script was the late arrival of the police officer. 9 out of 10 writers would’ve stayed with Rose alone up in that attic. But adding a police officer to the mix gave the third act a fresh unexpected feel. I always love when an ending develops in an unexpected way, and you rarely see it, so kudos to Marino for coming up with that inspired late-story choice.

NEW Amateur Friday Submission Process: To submit your script for an Amateur Review, send in a PDF of your script, a PDF of the first ten pages of your script, your title, genre, logline, and finally, why I should read your script. Use my submission address please: Carsonreeves3@gmail.com. Your script and “first ten” will be posted. If you’re nervous about the effect of a bad review, feel free to use an alias name and/or title. It’s a good idea to resubmit every couple of weeks so your submission stays near the top.

Genre: Comedy
Premise: (from writer) A lost cache of Nazi gold could save the crumbling hometown of a failed actor. But the key to the treasure, an antique shaving mug, is also the key to his doom. He must outwit, battle and defeat weird and dangerous Nazi sympathizers who have skulked into town searching for him and the treasure.
Writer: Michael Wire
Details: 108 pages (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).

It’s comedy time here on Amateur Friday. I hope your laugh buds are tingling cause we got ourselves a wild one. Our writer, Michael Wire, is definitely insane in the membrane – but in a good way! “Shaving Mug Fracas” is a wild ride that may not have the focus a story this ambitious needs, but I see a lot of promise in Michael. If he can learn to sharpen his storytelling skills, he might very well be a comedy writer to watch for.

“Fracas” starts with former B-grade movie star Chad McSteele III (the actor who portrayed the superhero “Flying Falcon”) putting the finishing touches on one of those giant mechanical dinosaur heads you see in Monster Truck shows. McSteele used to have it all. The women. The fame. The house in the hills. But after a Youtube video surfaced of him screaming like a girl when his wire-frame harness malfunctioned on set, no one bought the illusion of Flying Falcon anymore. McSteele’s career was McSeeya.

So he moved back to his hometown, Verona, Arizona – a desert dump with a higher evacuation rate than Chernobyl, and started his auto-body business. In many ways, Verona IS Chad McSteele – a past-its-prime town that’s just wasting away.

With the banks moving in on Verona, demanding money that the town, and our hero, don’t have, McSteele is looking for any source of income to stave them off. So he starts selling old junk on Ebay. To his surprise, one item, a seemingly innocuous shaving mug, is garnering a serious bidding war. In fact, it’s already up to 1500 dollars!

Before McSteele can figure out why the hell anyone would want a boring mug, a German bombshell, Evita, and her creepy brother, Maxwell, show up wanting to buy the mug directly. When that plan fails, they hire some local skinheads to steal it for them. The skinheads do the job, but in the process see the letters “A.H.” inscribed on the mug. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out who those letters refer to (but the skinheads still need it explained to them). And that means it’s time to up their asking price.

In the meantime, a plump dorky 40-something Brit named “Eggman” shows up ALSO willing to do anything for the shaving mug. It turns out he’s collected a whole set of Hitler’s toiletries and this is the last item he needs to complete it. When he learns that it’s been stolen, he hires McSteele to steal it back.

But that’s when things get really crazy. Evita and Maxwell’s boss, the ancient “Grandfather,” who may or may not have been a Nazi Zeppelin pilot back in World War 2, flies into town himself. He quickly buys some property near the town’s pride and joy, a famous American tank used in World War 2, and hires a number of shifty fellars to move in with him.

It turns out that that mug wasn’t really what our guests were after afterall. There’s something much bigger hidden inside the town of Verona. And the evil Grandfather is going to find it. It will then be up to McSteele to put those tights on one last time and stop him, and maybe, in the process, save Verona.

“Fracas” is reallllllyyyyy ambitious. And I think Michael may have chomped off more Nazi war crimes than he could chew. One of the hardest areas to nail in this kind of story is the first act – because you have to set up so many people and so many storylines in such a short period of time. If you’re not careful, the entire act can turn into an exposition dump. And I’m afraid that’s what happens here. Michael is exerting all of his energy on just making sure every piece of information is conveyed, as opposed to telling an entertaining story. In the process, scenes feel like numbers on a checklist. There’s no flow to them. Nothing evolves naturally from anything else.

I mean we start with a superhero, then cut to a dinosaur head, then cut to a German grandfather in another country, then cut back to McSteele’s body shop where we go into some exposition about a rival body shop, then a quick switch to McSteele trying to pay his workers, then to a mug McSteele’s put up on Ebay, then to Evita showing up, then to a really long bar scene setting up McSteele’s old flame, Julie. I mean I didn’t know which way was up after the first fifteen pages.

And it boils down to a writer trying to jam so many things into his setup without considering how the reader is going to process all of that information. You can’t just use your first act as exposition. It still has to entertain. It still has to read smoothly.

Another thing that bothered me was once we got through those 15 pages of exposition, we had a really long bar scene that had no discernible purpose.

We were just talking about this yesterday. You don’t want to write scenes that convey the same information you’ve already given. So in the bar, McSteele runs into Julie, his old flame, and the two partake in a game of pool. The conversation they have is about A) how McSteele is down on his luck. B) How he’s lost all his money. C) How his superhero career ran out. Yet we already know all of these things. They’ve been conveyed to us quite aggressively. So the scene just sits there.

The scene does have conflict but nobody wants anything out of it and therefore there isn’t anything at stake. If I were to write this scene, I would’ve established beforehand that he and Julie don’t talk anymore – that she dislikes him – but she has something he really needs (possibly something that will help save his business). Now when he approaches her to play a game of pool, he secretly wants something from her. Ahh! Your scene now has a point, something at stake, and therefore some entertainment value. I wanted to see a lot more of that in the first act – entertainment value. Not exposition.

On the flip side, Michael has a wild imagination and some really great moments in his script. Eggman may be one of my favorite characters of the year. His obsession with the mug is hilarious. I loved that McSteele was a former movie super hero. I loved the Germans coming in to steal a secret treasure. I loved that the final battle takes place on Independence Day. I liked the huge mechanical dinosaur they used to attack the Germans. The plot with the gold hidden inside the tank was really clever. The set pieces, like the cop dressing up like a gorilla to take a wasp’s nest off the radio tower, and then the model planes swarming around him, was inspired.

So there’s a lot here to be excited about. But Michael just doesn’t bring it together. You have to work too hard to understand what’s going on. And in a comedy, you shouldn’t have to work hard at all. It should be breezy and easy to understand. I don’t know anyone who goes to a comedy to be challenged.

So that’s what I would say to Michael. Work on hiding your exposition more. Work on adjusting your plot so you don’t have so much exposition in the first place. Work on making all of your exposition scenes entertaining – not just info you’re conveying to the reader. And work on sharpening your explanation of the plot. There are a lot of moments in the script where you’re not clear enough on what’s going on, and I think it’s because certain plot points aren’t clear enough.

So I like Michael as a writer. I like his ambition here and that he’s pushing himself. The other day I chastised a script for making too many obvious choices. This script is anything but that. I can’t think of a single obvious choice Michael made. He just needs to do some simplifying and some smoothing out so the script reads more like a story and less like a prep-sheet for what’s to happen later.

Script link: The Incredible Shaving Mug Fracas

[ ] Wait for the rewrite
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: You have to be careful with your openings. Remember that an opening is the door you use to bring the reader into your home. If the reader walks in and there are monkeys on the ceiling and a plate of food being thrown at them and aliens having sex and a hot Columbian woman whispering sweet Cantonese nothings into his ear, that reader’s probably going to turn around and leave. It’s too hard to process all of that craziness right away. And that’s how I felt reading the opening here. I walked into a house and had no sense of where I was or what was going on. Invite your reader into your house and let them look around a little bit before you start throwing the batshit crazy at them.

Hey guys.  I’m going to do a little shifting around this week.  I’m moving my Tuesday review to Wednesday so I can do a full post about Twit-Pitch on Tuesday.  I want to answer some questions, explain why I chose the loglines I did, and just shed a little more light on the process.  I’ll also be revealing the 25 alternates that made the list.  In the meantime, I’ve been closely monitoring the comments section.  I’ve picked 13 of the 25 based on your collective enthusiasm so far.  So keep the discussion alive.  Oh, and thanks!  That post will be the first ever 1000 comment post in Scriptshadow history!!!

Today’s amateur screenplay teaches us that Grandma may not be as cute and cuddly as you think she is.

Amateur Friday Submission Process: To submit your script for an Amateur Review, send it in PDF form, along with your title, genre, logline, and why I should read your script to Carsonreeves3@gmail.com. Keep in mind your script will be posted in the review (feel free to keep your identity and script title private by providing an alias name and/or title). Also, it’s a good idea to resubmit every couple of weeks so that your submission stays near the top of the pile.

Genre: Thriller
Premise: Before he can break up a well-connected ring of terminally ill senior citizen suicide bomber killers for hire, an FBI agent must confront the sweet little old lady sent to kill him.
Writer: Patrick J. Power
Details: 100 pages

I have a soft spot for people who’ve been trying to get their scripts read on the site forever. Especially people who have been so supportive of Scriptshadow. I feel like they deserve to be rewarded. Which is why I chose today’s script. Patrick has been very persistent (yet polite) in his attempts to get his script read so I felt like he deserved a shot.

But before we get to that, I want to point out why I never would’ve read it otherwise. The premise feels goofy to me – one of those premises where you’re not sure if it’s a thriller or a comedy. And while that’s fine if it turns out to be a comedy, it’s not fine if it turns out to be a thriller. Old people suicide bombers? I don’t know. It sounds like the beginning of a bad joke. Am I off base with that?

But hey, once I pop open a script, I’m MORE than ready to be proven wrong. Every script deserves a fair shot and believe me, I wanted nothing more than to love this.

Paul Lucas is a San Diego FBI agent hanging out at the federal building, preparing to watch a Colombian drug lord walk free. Then, while the lawyer makes an official statement for his client, a large blast blows both of them to pieces. When the FBI takes a later look at the security footage, they see a little old lady named Juliet Ivy standing next to the duo. Hmmmm. I knew old people were gassy but this is too much.

After 15 more characters are introduced inside roughly 7 pages, Paul decides to take a closer look at the little old lady. He heads over to her son’s home and learns that Juliet had cancer and belonged to an upscale hospice known as “The Healthful Healing Medical Center.” Paul speeds over there and meets the suspicious manager, who confirms that Juliet had a one million dollar life insurance policy. Paul rightly wonders how an 85-year-old woman secures a one million dollar life insurance policy.

Off in another part of the city, someone on a gondola blows up another few people and when they look into it, they find that that too was done by a senior citizen. As if allowing these people behind the wheel wasn’t enough! So now Paul realizes they’re dealing with organized attacks. But where are these attacks being ordered from and why??

Eventually, Paul finds out that it all goes back to that Healthful Healing place. So he finds an old retired FBI agent, Norman, who has cancer (I think – he might’ve been faking – I’m still not sure) and sends him in undercover to find out exactly what’s going on.

The focus of the story then shifts over to Norman, who realizes that one of the women at the center, Mary Margaret, has been there for a long time. In a place where people go to die, this stands out as a red flag. Indeed, Mary Margaret turns out to be the leader of this crime syndicate, sending old people out there to blow pre-determined targets up. I have to admit that I never figured out what her scheme was, but it seemed very important to Mary Margaret. And I suppose that’s all that matters.

Patrick and I have an interesting relationship. He used to write me all the time with these nice e-mails pointing out plot synopsis mistakes I’d made in my reviews. If I said that the aunt slept with Larry, he would send me an e-mail explaining that, no, it was actually the ex-wife that slept with Larry. Over time, however, he became less cordial, and just started sending messages like: “Not Don. Joe!”

I bring this up because I’m sure I screwed up at least some of the synopsis here. But in my defense, there were like 35 characters in this script. Which is actually a great place to start. I’m kind of shocked. For someone I know reads the site all the time, why would they make the one mistake I rail against the most – insane character counts. ESPECIALLY on Amateur Friday! Instead of going on a thousand word rant about this issue like I usually do, I’ll just say that the insane character count made it impossible for me to keep track of everyone and everything that was going on.

But that issue pales in comparison to my main critique of the screenplay. And this is the part of my job I hate the most because it’s the most painful critique you can give a writer: The concept here simply doesn’t work.

It’s too goofy. You’re talking about old people suicide bombers. There isn’t a story you can wrap around that idea that doesn’t feel silly. I could never get past that while reading the script.

But even if the concept were squared away, there were still too many wonky choices in this screenplay. For example, you have Norman, who jumps into the script at the midpoint. We’ve barely met the guy, yet all of a sudden he’s thrust into, basically, the protagonist role of the story. That’s just a strange thing to ask the reader to roll with. You’re following one hero. Then midway through the story, you say, “Let’s go follow this other guy instead.”

And then you have the strange choice of giving Paul terminal cancer. That was the official point where I realized the train had gone off the tracks. You have a story based on a bunch of old people who have terminal cancer, then you also give your main younger character terminal cancer as well?? It’s just such a bizarre coincidental choice that calls into question the entire story.

Finally, I’m not sure what that climax had to do with anything. There were a few mentions of this boat called “Code Blue” over the course of the script. Since that was also the title of the movie, I tabbed it as important. But it didn’t play into the story until this final scene when, for some reason, everybody went out on the Code Blue for a big showdown. I just didn’t understand what was going on. And I’m still not sure what Mary and her group were ultimately trying to achieve.

I know how obsessed Patrick is with attention to detail so I’m sure he could lay out for me, in a specific line by line breakdown, all of the places in the script where this stuff was explained. But when you’re reading a script, it doesn’t work like that. Once you start losing confidence in the story, it becomes harder and harder to stay invested in it. I didn’t believe in the concept. The never-ending character count had me forgetting who was who. And the switch to a different story and different main character halfway in had me scrambling to muster up the energy just to finish the script, much less make sense of it.

I know how long Patrick’s been trying to get me to read this, so it sucks I didn’t fall in love with it. But I do think a good lesson can come of it. This script needs to be retired and Patrick needs to move on to a snazzier concept, something more believable, less silly, and that readers can really sink their teeth into. All of the problems in this screenplay come back to a writer trying to make a concept work that can’t work. I would love to see Patrick tackle something that has a chance from the beginning. And I’d also love to hear your thoughts about this premise. Am I right? Does it feel like a bad joke? Or am I way off base and this concept actually has potential? Believe me, I’d be more than happy to be proven wrong because I HATE telling writers to scrap an idea they’ve labored months over and start something else.

Script link: Code Blue

[ ] Wait for the rewrite
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again. The number one way to kill your chances of getting a script read is a bad premise. I hear writers say it all the time: “Nobody will read my script.” Trust me, if you have a great premise, PEOPLE WILL WANT TO READ YOUR SCRIPT!!! I GUARANTEE IT! I WILL BE ONE OF THEM! If you’re not getting that excited response when you send your idea out, take a second look at the idea itself. It’s probably the reason.