Genre: Family/Holiday/Musical
Premise: When a toy factory tour guide is framed for Santa’s kidnapping on Christmas Eve, he sets out on a race against time across mythical Christmastown to clear his name, and save Christmas.
About: Every Friday, I review a script from the readers of the site. If you’re interested in submitting 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 and fake title). Also, it’s a good idea to resubmit every couple of weeks so that your submission stays near the top of the pile.
Writer: Patrick Bonner
Details: 107 pages

Ho Ho Ho! MERRY CARSONMAS!

Oh man. That was lame. I gotta be honest with you though. It’s gonna get lamer. All I can think about is all of the presents I’m going to be opening in 48 hours! Yahooooo! Dot com. I still remember when I was so excited about Christmas that I would secretly open my presents the night before then sloppily wrap them back up and tell my parents (completely unprovoked of course) that I saw the cat hanging around the Christmas tree and he’d scratched open a lot of the presents so I found it appropriate to tape them back up. And I was convinced that I got away with this every time.

Which brings us, appropriately, to today’s gift under the tree. Yes, I’m talking about Sammy Jingles!

Sammy Jingles lives in a faraway place called Christmastown, where elves and Christmas-like creatures frolic around like college kids on shrooms. Or wait. I mean children on sugar-highs. Let’s keep this PG. But to be honest, Christmastown isn’t one giant American Idol dance routine. No no no. You see, there’s a lot of pressure in this business, especially around this time of year, when Operation Chimney Assault is rapidly approaching.

It’s also a stressful time for our hero, Sammy, as Christmastown’s retiring governor is about to name his successor. It’s down to Sammy, the nerdy but cute Emma, and the Brody Jenner lookalike, Arnold, who also happens to be the big maestro’s son.

Sammy, who works as a tour guide in Christmastown for visiting elves, needs this job. Not just because he’s been working towards it for years, but because Sammy desires to be important. His goal in life is to be the number one celebrity in Christmastown.

Well, a few days later he gets his opportunity, though he doesn’t realize it at first. Santa Claus, who spent the last 360 days working out to get rid of his Rosie O’Donnel’esque pepperoni pouch, is kidnapped by someone (or something??) and dragged into the Ice Forest, where even the bravest elves won’t follow. But when Evil Arnold places the blame on Sammy and Emma for the kidnapping, they have no other option but to go find Santa and prove their innocence.

Along the way they meet some lonely trees, a Frosty the Snowman who’s sort of gone insane, and eventually Santa Claus himself, all with the appropriate amount of jingling in between. The question is, will they get Santa back in time to save Christmas? Or will that even matter to Sammy when he sees an opportunity to grab Kardashian-like celebrity status?

The first thing you realize about Sammy Jingles is that it’s written with love. And I mean a LOT of love. Believe me, readers are well aware when the writer is passionate about the material and when he isn’t, and there’s no question that Patrick is passionate about this story. I might even wager that he lived in Christmastown once. I mean how can you argue with a song called “Hangin’ Stuff” set to the Backstreet Boys’ “Hanging Tough?” Or a deliriously insane Frosty The Snowman? Or Sammy Jingles making an audition tape for MTV’s The Real World? Or a best friend named Emo who’s the most emo emo you’ve ever met?

This is Christmas and with any Christmas movie you want to have fun. You want to rack up the puns (CNN’s “Anderson Cooler”), you want to inject it with a heaping of heart, and you want to sing that heart out. Patrick does that here. The sheer level of detail that has gone into each character and each scene and each location and each song tells you that this man loves his story.

But not all is well with Christmastown. Sure the city is beautiful, but it’s also oddly constructed and over-decorated in places. I’ll start with what I believe is a critical scene mistake. The tour guide scene. This happens in the first act when Sammy is showing a group of elves the toy-making building. Patrick uses the scene to set up the rules of his world.

The problem is just how many rules there are (you will always face this problem when you have to do a lot of world-building in your screenplay) and if you try and pack too much explanation into a single scene or sequence, it becomes exhausting and grinds the story to a halt.

First we have the wish book which should have its own movie for how complicated it is. There are five different types of wishes, all color-coded, and we go through each painstaking one of them. Then the exposition shifts to how Sammy is up for a big job promotion. Then, after we’re all tired out by that, we go through a whole song. And then after that, the Mayor/Governor comes in, and we broach, once again, the job promotion issue, meeting all the major players. This kills the momentum of the story before it’s even started.

Yes, of course, you have to set up your story. But you also have to make your setup ENTERTAINING. Too many writers forget about the second part and are just happy to get all their exposition out of the way. Moving forward, I would split all of this info up into different scenes and simplify where possible (i.e. take the wish book down to 2 wishes, not 5).

My second big issue has to do with Santa Claus. And I told Patrick this. It feels odd to me that Santa Claus is completely separate from Christmastown. I think Patrick told me that that’s what he was striving to do. He didn’t want to tell a traditional story about Santa Claus but rather a story about the elves. Still, it’s very hard to watch a Christmas movie where Santa Claus is treated as an afterthought. It’s kind of like being told you’re going to the ice cream shop but there’s not going to be any chocolate. It’s strange, right?

There’s also a huge structural issue with the big guy. Santa Claus gets kidnapped near the end of the first act…AND NO ONE CARES! Just the fact that Santa Claus is kidnapped from the North Pole would be a huge deal I’d assume. But the fact that it’s also a week away from Christmas!!!??? Why wouldn’t everyone be on DEF CON LEVEL 10 searching for the guy?? Instead, here, everybody goes and sings at a bar.

It isn’t until 15 to 20 pages later, when Sammy is blamed for kidnapping Santa, that he decides to go after him. This needs to change immediately, particularly because of who Sammy is. Sammy is a character who desires celebrity. The second that Santa disappears, you need your celebrity-starved hero to realize that this is his ticket to stardom. Save Santa and everyone will love you.

In addition to just making more sense, making your hero more active, and having your hero act more within character, it would get rid of the worst part of the script, which is those 20 pages after Santa is kidnapped and nobody does anything.

If Patrick could fix these two problems – the early doomsday exposition scene, and getting characters out after Santa immediately – I honestly believe the script would be a thousand times better.

Finally, I should mention the songs because this is a musical. I’m not going to pretend like I understand musicals that well. I’ve read maybe five in my life. The tough thing about musicals is that it doesn’t matter how good your lyrics are or how amazing your writing is, you will never come close to conveying the way a song feels when you hear it. And so a lot of times I was skimming through the songs because I didn’t know anything besides the chorus and therefore couldn’t match the lyrics to the melody. That said, I loved Hangin’ Stuff. “I Love Mistletoe,” was great. And “Put Some Tinsel On Me” was cute.

I think this script has a ton of potential. I love the way Patrick’s mind works. I love his sense of humor. I love his dedication to exploiting every little crevice of his story. There’s no doubt he has that elusive “voice.” We just need to get some of the mechanics on par with the passion.

This script hovered somewhere between a “worth the read” and a “wasn’t for me.” So what does it get, two days before Christmas? Hmmmmmm….

Script link: Sammy Jingles

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] A Merry Carsonmas (and people call me a Grinch. Humbug!)
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: Patrick’s writing suffers from a habit of staying in his scenes too long. I saw it in numerous places where the scene had already ended but Patrick kept writing. I pointed out the tour guide scene as one example. I saw it with the tree scene as well (when they first meet the trees in the forest). And I saw it scattered about in a bunch of other places. Remember guys, you not only want to get into your scene as late as possible, you want to leave your scene as early as possible. Don’t be the guy hanging around the party after everybody’s left. When the party’s over, it’s time to go.

Happy holidays to Scriptshadow Nation!

Genre: Thriller
Premise: When a group of bank robbers kidnap his wife, an accountant must try and save her. But when they all end up in a strange Rube Goldberg-like trap-filled mansion, the kidnapping becomes the least of their worries.
About: John Burch, the writer, has informed me that he plans to shoot the first 11 minutes of this movie himself to drum up interest. You can donate to the movie or find out more over at his Kickstarter page – Every Friday, I review a script from the readers of the site. If you’re interested in submitting 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 and fake title). Also, it’s a good idea to resubmit every couple of weeks so that your submission stays near the top of the pile.
Writer: John Burch
Details: 99 pages

I have a schizophrenic relationship with this script. There is some really good stuff in here. But there’s also some really questionable stuff. One page I’ll be flying through it, excited and feeling like I’m right there in the theater, and the next someone will say something cheesy or do something nonsensical that takes me right back into my living room. Knowing now that John plans to shoot this himself, I think I understand the inconsistency. He obviously has a strong visual sense of what he wants, which is why the house and the situation itself feel so compelling. But from a storytelling perspective, I don’t think the story is as intricate or as “thought through” as it needs to be.

The script starts out great. We wake up in the trunk of a car with our hero, Kole, an accountant who’s recently been having some problems with his wife, Nicoletta. But right now those problems are on hold because Nicoletta is up in front with five bank robbers who just snatched their ride when their own getaway car was blocked in after their robbery.

Kole tries desperately to phone for help but service is spotty and the next thing you know there are cops chasing them and a lot of shooting and bulletholes are puncturing just inches above Kole’s face. Our bank robbers shoot back, taking the cops out. The robbers then ditch the car with Kole still stuck in the trunk.

After tearing through the backseat and getting out just before the thing blows up, Kole realizes he’s in a half-deserted dead suburb with no help in sight. He follows the trail of the bank robbers and ends up at an enormous mansion, presumably where the robbers have taken his wife. It’s there where he meets Gunther, a slow witted caretaker of the mansion, who guides him into the basement.

In the meantime, our bank robbers are tending to their wounds trying to figure out what to do next. But when one of them sets off a tripwire, a series of mechanisms shifts into place locking all doors and windows and holding them captive. If that isn’t bad enough, the place is a hoarder’s paradise, with junk and trash stacked from floor to ceiling blocking every potential exit and making the house one giant maze. All of a sudden that money they stole doesn’t seem so important.

Back downstairs, Kole is trying to get Gunther to help him save his wife. Gunther eventually shows him a way to climb through the walls, which not surprisingly have been rigged for the specific purpose of climbing around and spying on people.

When our bad guys figure out that the cops are hot on their trail, they speed up their attempts to get the hell out. But when they come to learn that the reason the house is so protective is because it’s hiding something valuable inside, everybody’s plan changes. In the end, Kole will have to find a way to pry his wife away from these men and get the hell out of here before things get really bad. But if the house has its way, that will never happen.

So before I get into what I really liked about Captive, I want to point out some issues I had, because there are a few. The first thing I’m concerned about is the role of our hero. I’m not a fan of the main character being stuck in a wall for a large portion of the screenplay. I always get nervous when the main character isn’t driving the story. And in this case, Kole is definitely more of an observer than an active participant. I mean, imagine if John McClane just observed our terrorists from inside a wall during all of Die Hard. It probably wouldn’t have been a very good movie. I’m still not sure how I would change it, but I’d definitely like it if he were more active .

My next concern is the promise of the premise. For newbies who don’t know what this means, the promise of the premise is what the audience expects to see when they hear a cool idea. So when you hear about a movie set at a dinosaur park, you want scenes like Tyrannosaurus Rexes chasing your main characters. I think the Captive house only fulfills half of the promise that it makes. It’s a really cool house. It’s a really creepy house. I absolutely love this ticking time bomb bowling ball creepily rolling around the track that you can always hear in the bowels of the house. But after a while, it starts to feel a little repetitive. I would like to see more imagination going into the house other than basic traps that involve things shooting at you or slicing at you. Each room should probably be unique with a unique way to harm or kill you. Think Cube.

Problemo number three is the bad guys. Unfortunately, a lot of the time they come off as cliché. I thought Brody was a really solid leader. He was focused and he was scary. But the rest of the bad guys sort of bleed into each other. One of my problems with these types of movies is that all the bad guys basically become these faux macho meatheads who seem more concerned with spewing out witty one-liners than tackling the problem at hand. And the problem here is a pretty big one. They’re trapped inside a killer house where one wrong step could get them killed. So a lot of the banter didn’t feel authentic. I think it’s okay to have humor in these situations, but it has to come from an organic place. A nervous joke here. An angry justified outburst there. But guys can’t be making the same jokes that they would make walking down the street on a Saturday afternoon.

Finally, the ending needs work. It’s rushed and it doesn’t make total sense. This idea that the owner of the house is trying to protect the treasure is a neat idea. But right now it’s not exactly logical. (Spoilers follow) If the house is rigged to collapse into a giant heap in order to bury the treasure (a bunch of gold coins), well then all it would take was a day or two of construction company cleaning to uncover the gold. Even if it’s in a safe, it’s only a matter of time before somebody breaks into the safe. So if the objective is to never have anybody get the gold, it seems like a poor execution of that objective. Then there’s the twist of Gunther himself. There’s no real script analysis that needs to go into this. It just feels wrong. Sometimes we try so hard to come up with a twist, that we convince ourselves that as long as it’s surprising, it works. I don’t believe this works and is one of the key things I would change in the rewrite.

Now, onto the good stuff. There is a lot to like here. I love the opening. I love how we’re just thrust into this story right away. I like how we end up at this mansion. I had no idea where the story was going – at one point I thought we were going to be stuck in the trunk the entire screenplay and boy was I not liking that- so when we ended up in this mansion, I was like, hmmmmm, I didn’t expect this to happen. As you know, I love when stories do unexpected things and I did not expect it to go in this direction.

Then once we get inside the mansion and there’s all this mystery involved with the hoarding and the Rube Goldberg traps and this weird halfwit caretaker — I was all in. So many times, I read screenplays that are anywhere between fairly well written and really well written, that don’t have a chance of being purchased or made because the story is not a movie – not something people would pay 10 bucks for. Here, you definitely have a movie. Throughout the first 50 pages of Captive, I kept thinking to myself, if I were a producer, I would probably purchase this and develop it with the writer. Because I could see the poster. I could see the movie. And it’s just a little bit different from what we’re used to seeing with these types of films.

I also liked Gunther. I think he’s an intriguing obstacle to our main character achieving his goal. I mean what’s more frustrating than being 50 feet away from your wife, not knowing how to get to her, and the only thing that stands in your way is convincing a dim-witted simpleton to help you who could care less? Not to mention, he was kind of creepy, which fit the theme of the house.

Story wise, we have a clear objective. Get out of the house. We have twists and turns. The gold throws everything for a loop. We have urgency, with our characters monitoring the cops getting closer and closer. The stakes are high, obviously, since everybody here could potentially die. I know I’m on to something good when even though I’m encountering mistakes, I’m actively trying to solve them in my head.

Like I said, this is a schizophrenic script. It has some really great stuff and it has some really not so great stuff. There’s no doubt it needs to be developed more. But I like this idea so much and I’m so sure that this could be a real movie someday, that I would say it’s worth giving a shot. I’d also like to hear some of your insightful ideas on how to solve the problems I listed above.

Script link: Captive

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

What I learned: I still think it’s dangerous to have your main character not affecting the storyline for such a long period of time. Especially in a thriller, which is a genre built for active main characters. Besides the story implications (that your main character isn’t close enough to the action), I have questions about whether big actors would be interested in a role where they’re basically watching things from behind a wall. I don’t think it doomed the script because we do want Kole to save his wife. But there’s just something that never feels quite right about our hero playing such a passive role for the majority of the story.

Genre: Action
Premise: A convict and a construction crew inadvertently spark a gun battle when they rescue a woman on the run from her violent husband and his dangerous associates. Trapped on a mile-long bridge and cut off from the outside world, they have to band together to survive a 5 hour siege.
About: Usually, every Friday, I review an amateur script from you, a Scriptshadow reader.  But today, I’m going to change it up a little. Today is a “Repped Week,” where I’ll be reviewing a script from a pair of repped writers who have not yet made a sale. The change-up is meant to help writers understand the level of quality it takes to secure representation. If you are a repped or unrepped writer, feel free to submit your script for Amateur/Repped Friday by sending it (in PDF form) to Carsonreeves3@gmail.com. Please include your title, genre, logline, and why I should read your script. Also keep in mind that your script will be posted. The Bridge made this year’s “Hit List” of best spec screenplays, and its writers are managed by Jewerl Keats Ross and represented by APA.
Writers: Dominic Morgan & Matt Cameron Harvey
Details: 100 pages – Dec. 2010 draft (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).

The Bridge is one of those titles that you can’t say without using Trailer Man Voice, harkening back to the days where everything was “Die Hard On A…” and every promo was a tongue in cheek inside joke between you and the moviemakers. You both knew where this was going, and you were both going to have fun getting there.

This isn’t the first “Die Hard On A Bridge” premise though. There’s been a few of them over the years, including “Suspension,” a near million dollar sale from Joss Whedon back in the late 90s. So how does The Bridge stack up? Does it get you from one side to the other? Or does it collapse midway through?

Destin Ryder (whose name pretty much guaranteed he’d be in an action movie one day) has earned the coveted right of work leave, a way out of the 24 hour prison cycle that’s dominated his life. Once a very bad man, Dustin’s made some big changes in his life, and he’s ready to leave the thug life behind.

The job he’ll be working is construction on a mile long cantilever-truss bridge spanning the Mississippi River. His new co-workers are noticeably wary of him, beginning with the heart and soul of the construction crew, fellow alpha male Steve Knapps. Knapps considers this crew to be his family, and Destin is the drunk uncle who’s flown in to fuck up Thanksgiving.

Before these silverback gorillas can tango, however, a speeding car driven by the pretty but dangerous Marlie Steward swerves out of control, causing a huge multi-car pile-up spanning both lanes. McDonald’s trucks, 18 wheelers. This shit makes those crashes on Chips look like fender-benders.

They save Marlie, but soon learn she was being chased. And not just by anyone. By The Dixie Gang. A nasty glut of organized rednecks with blood on the brain. Marlie has something they want, and because these  construction workers are witnesses, the Dixies are going to mow them down like crab grass on a Sunday.

Destin realizes he has no choice but to draw on his mysterious past and organize this hodge-podge group into a military unit if they’re going to survive. He quickly puts together make-shift weapons like Molotov cocktails, using them to keep the Dixies at Bay, who are closing in from both sides of the bridge.

This all-night battle gets more complicated as time goes on. The big boss of the Dixies rolls in to organize the assault. They realize the cops in the area have all been bought off. Half the men don’t trust Destin. Redneck snipers start taking them out from the adjacent forest. Can the group hold out til morning when the prison SWAT team comes looking for Destin? They sure hope so cause holding out is the only way they can survive. On….(Movie Trailer Voice) The Briddddgggee.

The Bridge takes a simple premise and adds just enough complexity to it to make it worth your while. I liked it quite a bit. It definitely suffers from some of the clichés impossible to avoid in the straight-action genre, but overall there were just enough tweaks to keep you entertained.

The first thing that gave me confidence in the script was how the writers set up the bridge. One of the complaints a couple of weeks ago in the amateur script “Wrong Number,” was that we were just thrust into the story before getting a feel for the geography and the situation. If we’re not introduced to the uniqueness of the space our movie takes place in, our mind’s forced to substitute a generic version of it. And if your reader is imagining a generic space throughout the story, there’s a good chance they’re going to think the entire movie is generic by association.

Here we get a detailed layout of the bridge as well as a description of what the workers are doing. We see them lift the steel girders off the back of the truck then send them up to the “skywalkers” on the top of the bridge. It does take a page or two of crucial “first ten pages” real estate to lay this stuff out, but because this bridge is where we’re going to be spending the next 100 pages of our movie, it’s something you have to do if you want your story to be taken seriously.

As far as screenwriting basics, The Bridge does a solid job. We keep a 40 yard dash pace here. 100 pages. Perfect for an action spec. Paragraphs are nary more than 2 lines long. We have our ticking time bomb (hold them off til 6 a.m. when the SWAT team shows up). The stakes are high for both sides. In fact, one of the things I really liked about The Bridge was that it made the stakes high for BOTH parties. (Spoiler). We find out that if the Dixies don’t get these diamonds, they can’t pay off the cops. They can’t pay off the judges. Their whole operation comes to a halt unless they can secure these diamonds. So you really feel the urgency of their pursuit.

I thought Destin was a solid protagonist. There were lots of things to like about him. First, you have the anti-hero thing going for him. A hero who’s dangerous and who has problems is always more interesting than a hero who’s perfect. You have the built-in mystery behind his past, so we’re eager to find out what’s going on with this guy. Although they could’ve done more with it, I liked how Destin was fucked either way. If he didn’t do anything, the Dixies would move in and slaughter them all. But if he fought back, he was going to jail for the rest of his life. And I loved how clever he was. Whenever you can make your hero outsmart your villain in some way, your audience is going to fall in love with him. When Destin holds those diamonds over the bridge in the trade-off, knowing they’d otherwise shoot him dead and take the loot, then grabs Walt Jr. afterwards, taking him hostage and ensuring them a shot at survival, I was onboard with whatever this guy did.

On the downside – like I already mentioned – no matter how you look at it, there’s always a feeling of “been there, done that” that plagues The Bridge. It’s an action movie on a bridge. There are only so many new angles you can introduce.

Also, there were a couple of plot things that bothered me. First, after the big multi-car pile-up, the police and ambulances and firetrucks come to take all of the wounded/dead away. By my estimation, in a pile-up of this magnitude, this is going to take something like 3 days of non-stop work to clean up. Instead, for some reason, the cops and everyone else just leave this huge unattended pileup on the bridge, which, conveniently, is when our bad guys decide to strike. It’s almost as if the Script Coincidence Gods showed up to clear out all the plot inconveniences so that the story could begin.

Also, I didn’t completely understand why the Dixies had to kill the construction crew in the first place. The reason given is that the construction crew saw who they were, and could therefore identify them. But if the Dixies own all the police and judges, why are they worried if some construction dudes know they were chasing a crazy chick who stole some diamonds from them? And if “being discovered” is really their fear, aren’t they worried that the tens of thousands of bullets and the organized attack left at the scene might point towards the most well-known gang in the area?

Still, I love movies where an underdog group has to take on a much stronger enemy. And I love when the conflict inside the group is just as dangerous as the conflict outside the group. The Grey. Pitch Black. And here with The Bridge. Again, it’s not perfect, but this is a solid little action script, and more importantly, something I could see on the big screen.

Script link: The Bridge

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

What I learned: Been seeing writers screw this up lately and The Bridge handled it well so I thought I’d bring it up. The size of your action paragraphs should be in accordance with the pace of your story. If your characters are sitting down in a bar after a long day, the length of the paragraphs can be 3-4 lines long. But if you’re in the heat of an action scene, keep your paragraphs razor-thin, two lines at most. Read The Bridge to see how they do this.

Genre: Action
Premise: Eight hostages are held inside a city bank. Their only hope is a man who has called the wrong number and is told that if he hangs up the phone, the hostages will die.  Phone Booth meets Die Hard.
About: Every Friday, I review a script from the readers of the site. If you’re interested in submitting 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.
Writer: Nick Everhart
Details: 98 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).

I thought as long as we’re on this Die Hard kick, why not tackle a screenplay that’s not only inspired by the action classic, but repeatedly references it as well. Wrong Number is the kind of spec idea that gives you the best chance of getting noticed as an unknown screenwriter. It’s contained, it’s intense, it’s short (98 pages) and it’s got a hook. Everhart definitely has the right idea here.

My question is, is the hook enough of a hook? Wrong Number’s premise dangles precariously close to parody, a fingernail away from falling into a Simpsons episode. If Funny or Die was around in 1988, might they use a premise like this to make fun of Die Hard? I don’t know but maybe. That was a big question going into this. Would it be able to make its premise compelling for a full 98 minutes?

We don’t know much about Carl when we meet him. He’s just a guy who spent last night in a Motel 6 and who doesn’t seem comfortable wearing his wedding ring.

So when his first call of the morning goes to the bank, we’re not sure why. But boy does his world turn upside-down when that call is made. A man – a very bad man – has answered the phone. This man is holding eight people hostage and for some odd reason, he wants Carl to stay on the phone with him. In fact, he tells Carl that if he hangs up, he’ll shoot one of those hostages.

Carl pleads with the man, who we’ll come to know as Jack, that he’s just a guy who dialed the wrong number and doesn’t want to be involved. But since Jack’s a high-functioning lunatic, he gives Carl a big fat “tough luck” and the game is on.

What the game is becomes the question of the day however. Jack doesn’t seem to have a plan here. He just spouts off his philosophies on human existence, concluding that sometimes you gotta shake shit up to remind yourself you’re alive. For most people this might mean quitting your job or running a marathon. For Jack, it’s holding a bunch of innocent people hostage.

Soon, we find out Carl’s secret, that this was not, indeed, a “wrong number,” but that he was calling his wife, Ashley, who’s actually one of the hostages. And somehow, between attempts to placate Jack’s insanity, he’s gotta find a discreet way to get her to safety.

Complicating the wife-saving is the huge police force that sets up shop in front of the bank, headed up by newly appointed Captain Holly, a woman trying to prove she’s “man” enough to handle the job.

(Spoilers) Little do she and Carl know, however, that Jack’s had a plan all along. This *is* a robbery, and every single moment has been carefully planned out, including this call with Carl. Carl will now have to ditch the confines of this phone call, race over to the bank, and save everyone before it’s too late.

Wrong Number is a tough script to analyze because while its structure is reasonably familiar, the limiations of the premise lead to some offbeat choices which I’m not sure do the story justice. For example, the script starts off with this phone call (and I have to give it to Everhart – less than 2 pages in and the call is made – we’re right in the thick of the story by page 5), but the villain has no goal. He just wants to talk.

And talk.

And talk.

And while Everhart does a pretty impressive job with most of the dialogue, that lack of a driving force starts to drag the script down. I’m not saying it ruined the script, because we know at some point a goal will emerge, but my biggest fear when seeing this premise was that there would be too much talking and not enough plot. Unfortunately, through the first half of the screenplay, that’s exactly what happens.

Now once the second half kicks in and the various threads shift into gear, the script picks up pace. Except it does so in the wrong places. The most developed character in the script is Captain Holly.  Don’t get me wrong. I enjoyed the depth here (her having doubts in herself – the force having doubts whether she can handle the job), but to me, Captain Holly is not the character we should be spending so much time on in Wrong Number. That character should be Ashley, Carl’s wife.

We barely learn anything about Ashley in Wrong Number and yet this is Carl’s whole motivation for staying on the phone. It’s for her. Think about Die Hard if we just got one 60 second scene with Holly, McClane’s wife, talking to Tagaki. That’s basically what we get here. We’ve been debating “unresolved conflict in a relationship” a lot lately. Well here, we don’t know what the hell the relationship is because outside of a couple of vague moments with Carl’s wedding ring in the opening scene, these two are a mystery to us.

This leads to my biggest problem with the script, which is that we don’t know any of the hostages. As someone pointed out in the Die Hard 2 comments, we didn’t really know the hostages in Die Hard either. But this is a different movie. It’s much more intimate, with only a single robber and a small group of hostages. We need to get to know these people, especially Ashley. The more we know her, the more we’re going to want Carl to save her. I’d actually recommend giving her all of Captain Holly’s screen time, or, if you wanted to try something different, making Captain Holly Carl’s wife.

Another problem is that Carl knows too much about what to do for a random Joe Schmoe who paints houses for a living. How does he know, for example, every intimate detail of calming a person down who’s having a panic attack? And he seems to be quite comfortable jumping into the middle of this chaotic urban battleground in the final act. This is why writers usually make characters in these situations cops (like McClane). So it’s somewhat believable when they start kicking ass. I mean, would you have believed everything McClane did in Die Hard had he been an electrician? Or a janitor?

So yeah, there’s a lot of stuff here that makes you go, “Hmmmmm.”

BUT! Wrong Number has a lot going for it as well. First of all, I thought the dialogue was good for an action movie. If you’re writing a movie where dialogue is going to be featured, such as a movie based on a phone call, you better be good at dialogue, and I thought Everhart was. The back and forth between Jack and Carl didn’t reach the heights of classics like Die Hard, but it was better than most action flicks I see.

I also thought the ending was pretty exciting, even if there were a lot of loose ends. For example, the series of events that led to Jack kidnapping Carl in an ambulance were…ehhhh…how do I put this nicely?…eccentric? Jack going through all this trouble to isolate Carl alone in an ambulance would imply that he had been planning this whole thing from the very first second. Which would of course mean he’d have known Carl was going to call, known that Carl was going to come to the bank, etc. It was silly and over-the-top and fun, but one thing it definitely was not, was believable.

So in the end, there were too many plot holes in Wrong Number, the key characters (mainly the wife and the other hostages) weren’t explored enough, and I’m not sure this premise was enough to sustain an entire movie. But I’m definitely a fan of Everhart’s potential as a writer. If I were covering this for an agency or a production co., I’d recommend Everhart for a further look.

A flawed but fun script.

Script link: Wrong Number

Script rating:

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

Writer rating:

[ ] Stay away from the Final Draft
[ ] Still needs work
[x] On his way up
[ ] Moneymaker
[ ] The next Frank Darabont

What I learned: Be careful you’re not too subtle when setting up your characters and their problems. While I respect not hitting the reader over the head with a piece of information, you still need to give us enough information so that we understand a character’s predicament. In Wrong Number, we see Carl discard a Motel 6 receipt and then take off his wedding ring before calling the bank. It was enough to tell us that there was something wrong with his marriage, but I don’t believe it was enough. I wanted to know what led to their problems, how long ago these problems occurred, and overall, just a more specific detailing of their situation. Because I wasn’t clear on what had happened in their relationship, I wasn’t that interested in seeing them get back together.

Genre: Drama/Period/Thriller
Premise: November 1944, Strasbourg, France. A Solider wakes up with amnesia in “La Zone Occupée”. The only thing he remembers is his duty to deliver a package on the corner of Rue St. Aloise and Rue Du Cheval at 10:30pm. No name, no date, and under no circumstances is the package to be opened.
About: Every Friday, I review a script from the readers of the site. If you’re interested in submitting 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.
Writer: Samuel Clark
Details: 97 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).

Samuel’s been a Scriptshadow reader for a long time, offering up very well-thought out responses whenever he joins in on the discussion. He’s submitted a few entries for Amateur Friday but none of the loglines really caught my eye – until this one.

I know they say amnesia is one of the most overused devices in screenwriting, but for whatever reason, I never get bored with it. Now of course if you apply it in a really stupid way or don’t attempt to do anything different with it, it gets lame fast. But in no way does a story that begins with a character who’s lost his memory turn me off.

And that’s exactly how “Rue Du Cheval” begins. It’s 1944 France, and Pierre, a soldier in his late 20s, wakes up in a makeshift church/hospital with a bandage over his head and no memory of how he got there. With him is a package that reads: “Deliver the package. AT ALL COSTS! 10:30p.m. On the corner of Rue St Aloise and Rue Du Cheval. DO NOT OPEN UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.”

Confused but determined to carry out his duty, Pierre heads over to the address a couple of nights in a row, but both times gets there late. Eventually, he stumbles into a nearby bar run by the pretty but sad manager, Hannelore.

When one of the nastier German generals stops by the empty bar for a late drink, he notices Pierre’s package and starts asking him about it. It gets to the point where Pierre has no choice but to shoot and kill the man, as well as the officer who’s with him.

After this shocking turn of events, Hannelore and Pierre look at each other, realizing they’re in this together til the end now.

Pierre starts splitting his time between Hannelore’s place and the church, continuing to try and deliver the package every night, but he’s always too late or the area is too well guarded. During this time Pierre is also having dreams about the package, remembering bits and pieces of how he became involved and why it might be so important. However the dreams always end before he can find out all the answers.

As more German officers start snooping around the bar, looking for Ullrich, Pierre and Hannelore realize they’re going to need to get rid of the bodies soon, and start planning to take them to a far away river, which will require passing a couple of German checkpoints, not an easy task.

Pierre continues to try and deliver the package in the meantime, but the stars continue to misalign and he’s never able to accomplish his mission.

Samuel Clark noted to me in his e-mail that this script was very European in nature and I agree with that. This definitely doesn’t take the obvious route that a Hollywood version would explore. However this is both a blessing and a curse for the story, as I think the Hollywood approach could’ve helped solve some of the more redundant problems in the script.

My big beef with Rue Du Cheval is the repetitive nature of the screenplay, starting with Pierre’s continued missed attempts to deliver the package. The way I envisioned the story when I saw the logline was that it was going to be one long extremely difficult journey to deliver this package to its destination. The fact that the destination is only a couple of blocks away presents some problems.

First, you have to figure out a reason why the main character can’t just deliver the package right away. And that reason turns out to be that he gets there a few minutes late. I wasn’t thrilled about this reasoning (10-20 minutes difference in the delivery time being a major obstacle that prevents our hero from achieving his goal feels a little too simplistic) but I went with it. My problem is that this obstacle repeats itself over and over again throughout the story. The combination of – what was in my mind – a thin obstacle, along with our protagonist conveniently missing the drop over and over again was simply too difficult to buy into. To be honest, it felt like we were stalling the story so it could last a full 100 minutes.

Another aspect of the script I had a problem with was the dream sequences. I’ve always felt that dream sequences were kind of film-schooly, an excuse to create trippy visuals that didn’t need to make sense. To Clark’s credit, he uses the sequences (at times) to reveal backstory about Pierre’s situation, but he ended up killing one of the best mysteries in the process.

I think we’re all wondering what the hell is in this package. When we’re told that it’s the key to ending the war, that takes a lot of the mystery away. You can make an argument that this information raises the stakes for our hero (a package that ends the war is a really important package), but to me, sacrificing the biggest mystery in your script was a lot to give up for those added stakes.

As for the good stuff, there’s plenty of it. I thought all the Ullrich bar stuff and the killing and suqbsequent hiding of the bodies was good. I really liked their trip out to the river where they stashed the bodies in beer barrels and the subsequent checkpoint scene. It was an easy script to read.

It just took an adjustment to get used to the fact that THAT story (dealing with the aftermath of the killings) was the real story, and the package stuff was secondary. I think I would’ve preferred the package story being the star, since that’s what lured us in and that’s what we were originally excited about.

Samuel’s a good writer. Everything is succinct, descriptive, there’s plenty of conflict here. In the end it comes down to the treatment of the idea being a little different from what I was expecting. Will be interesting to hear if you guys agree or not.

Script link: On The Corner of Rue St. Aloise and Rue Du Cheval

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

What I learned: Get on message boards. Comment in the comments section. Develop relationships with people online. Throw them a nice e-mail every once in awhile. People are more likely to read your script if they’ve heard of you in some capacity and that takes time. It takes getting to know someone. I’ve seen Samuel on here forever. He’s e-mailed me a few courteous e-mails before, asking me to read his scripts. So when he finally came up with something that sounded good, I was more than happy to oblige.