Sins of the Scapegoat -- SECOND DRAFT

[napolyphonic]

Here's the second draft of my latest screenplay.


"After he finds a winning lotto ticket in a dead body, a depressed coroner's assistant on the verge of bankruptcy is pulled into an underground crime world full of lies and corruption, while a lone detective seeks the truth with guidance from a mysterious serial killer."

All suggestions/critiques/rants are welcome. Thanks a lot for taking the time.


117 pages

-G

Attachments:

[supermikhail]

Oooh. I just thought about it today, along with other awesome scripts I had pleasure to read on this forum (awesome as in involving strong emotions, invoking strong feelings about the characters, having a... well, "sad" is not the right word, but it'll have to do... ending). I'm gonna get on reviewing the script at the first available... 2 hours.

[Deleted]

Looking forward to reading this version!

[mydoggeorge]

Napoly-

I read through this and really liked it - I do have some comments.

Ok - I went back through the first posting of sins and came across mybrains comments. With that said - I think if you want the protagonist to be Stuart then the story should revolve around him - but currently I feel the story revolves around Catch. Which is fine because it works.

Here are some general things that did not make sense to me -

Page 5 Conversation should be tightened - something about the "Damn you" I thought maybe - "Damn it!"

Page 9 - I don't understand what Burton says about him - What does - "He's your on Monday." - mean???

Page 48 - Jimy reaches a quivering hand to her ankle... Hmmm - seems off to me.

Page 59 - Marie tells him she doesn't want him there - Stu says - Sorry and hangs up? Why does he hurry up and hang up? Seems like he should be saying something else.

Page 74 - Why does the rider call and ask - "What to do now?" The the person on teh other ends says just watch them. Then the riders says what if they're dead and the voice says - leave them.
Huh? I would definitely re-word that to maybe have the voice say - Search the fucking car! Find that ticket!

Page 78-79 - Why does Catch go to the brother's house and ask about the daughter and then leave? Why wouldn't he check the whole place out - just in case on the off chance that Stu is there?

Also - Why bring up that one of the cops is dirty Burton maybe??? It really never ends up serving any purpose - you never really explore that.

How far is the producers house to Dharnis place -- seems really close. At another time - I thought Dharni's was close to stu's work? Maybe I'm just missing something there.

Ok - so there are some holes along the way but the vast majority of this screenplay is good. I will have to think about this some more and may post again.

The Serial Killer dude needs to be a little more worked into this - like maybe put some more emphasis on him being there to help Catch - I know it's stated - but just a little extra something (not sure what but it's just something I'd like to see.)

p.s. - definitely like the brutality of Houdini and how he just blows the shit out of anyone he wants. Nicely done - it's like the first time it happens - your like shit I can't believe that just went down and then the second time your like...is he really gonna do it again and POP!

The flow of this screenplay is really good.

Well - that's all I have for now. Thanks for sharing. Like I have said before - I'm new at this sort of thing - so take my comments anyway you like -- keep um' or chuck um'

[napolyphonic]

george,

First of all, thank you so much for reading this and getting to it as quickly as you did. I really appreciate it.

Thought I'd address some of your questions, and maybe ask for some tips?

I know I said Stuart was the protagonist before, but he's obviously secondary to Catch. He probably has about the same screen-time, so maybe he's a secondary protagonist. I added the flashback about Louisiana for the purpose of focusing more emotion on Catch's character.

Page 9 - Just a typo. Should read "He's yours on monday." Meaning, he'll get to interrogate him.

Page 74 - The idea is these riders can't exactly get in too deep with all these cops around, so they're told to watch where they go, instead of getting involved. I guess I could add a line like "Leave them. We'll hit the ambulance on the way to the hospital." That might solve the problem?

Page 78-79 - This is a minor problem. Maybe a couple extra lines between them with Catch asking and Billy being obviously honest. Catch is a good reader of people, so he kinda knows he won't find Stuart there. He really just wanted to know if Stuart's a good person at heart. He knows he can't be found with Stuart, much less bring him to headquarters. At this point, Catch is on the fringes of the law.

The whole dirty cop thing - Almost every cop is dirty, especially the higher-ups. This idea is mentioned in Rasha's description of Houdini. Burton seems to be in on it, but he might be feeling guilty. Bristol's a complete asshole son-of-a-bitch, so he's obviously taking a draw, he might even be after the ticket himself, thus why he doesn't care about Stuart dying and why he asks them to search the body after he's dead. I could add more about that little subplot, but I'm already at 117 pages and it doesn't add anything to Catch's story. The line about taking a cut is a buried allusion to the fact that the police know about Houdini's ticket, and they're going to get a cut once it's found and cashed. They can't get into it themselves, and cash the ticket because the media is everywhere on these murders, and the whole thing would blow up in an instant.

I would love to give Gabriel more screen-time, but it's just not possible. I have tons of stuff written for him: his description of all 20 murders, explaining his technique, him talking extensively to Catch about existential ideas. This isn't good for the film, unfortunately. It wrecks the pacing and falls heavy on the ears. It's tiring. Fascinating, probably, but very non-cinematic. In the end, I feel okay with it, because Hannibal Lecter only got 16min in "Silence of the Lambs." Gabriel gets ~20.

Thanks again. I'm glad you enjoyed it. Hope I cleared up some things? If you have any suggestions on how to clarify these problems further, please don't hesitate.

-G

[supermikhail]

I'm kinda... I'm going to read it to the end some other day. I'm sorry but somehow since version 1 it became not up my valley. I'm at the morgue currently, Stuart meets Sam, and at first it's like they're "How long's it been?" but then, all of a sudden, they start dividing the money. It feels to me it wants some transition.
Also the exposition is just too blunt for me. I didn't bring it up last time - apparently my expectations have grown since then - but I just can't handle it now. First, Stuart's daughter who's just to provide some anticipation when the baddies start chasing him, then Catch's flashback, as you say, to focus more emotion on him. I cared about him as much in the previous version without any flashbacks. And it probably wouldn't feel so jarring if you didn't stress it with montage of Stuart and Emma's together time.
That's probably just "one man's opinion". To me the exposition feels forced and I feel hesitation to read the script further. But in hope that this impression somehow helps, I'm going to post it. And so that I didn't lie when I said I was going to read the script.

[napolyphonic]

mikhail,

I've been thinking about your comment about exposition. I'm not sure what section you're talking about, or if there's just too much exposition in the first 20 pages, or what. If you have any specific pages or sequences that you can name, I'd really appreciate it so it can be discussed further.

Thanks a bunch!

-G

[supermikhail]

Well, page 10 to 12, Stuart picks up Emma from her mother's place. I even thought, maybe I'm visualizing it wrong, but even very slow-paced it doesn't seem to work for me. Just blunt exposition of the main character. Maybe you've changed their screen time later, but I have a feeling that they're going to be as secondary as before and only reappear at the end to see their father's death, or something, but still at the end. What's the point of Emma, anyway? I don't see her like a big motivation for Stuart's actions - there is a lot of people that would kill for 127 millions. Has there appeared a particular, very pressing reason for which he needs at least a large part of this sum desperately, since the last version?

Oh, as an example of good character's family I'll venture to mention another script on these boards - "Last Dance on the Killing Ground". The protagonist's family, or parts of it, don't do much in the story, but they are constantly in it, the protagonist really cares about them, seeks opportunities to interact with them. I think there's really a rule that you shouldn't put a character in if you're not going to use him/her/it. How is it in your script?

[napolyphonic]

Well, the theme of the thing is "everybody has their purpose," so yes everyone does. I don't mean to argue about this, but maybe you should finish the screenplay and then get back to me.

I'll be even more appreciative after that.

Thanks again

[supermikhail]

Alrighty. Personal problems under control, I've finished reading it. One point that's definitely changed for the better since the previous version is Houdini. His actions are quite well justified now, if I may. However, still a bunch of questions:

What does the "montage" where Stuart spends time together with Emma in the beginning, accomplish? Is it a lousy way to establish their emotional connection?

Why does Stuart start dividing the profits with Sam so quickly (p. 28)?

STUART
Alright, so maybe I have it. What's in it for me?

After looking at this sentence from different angles for some time, what's in what for him? It's like there's been some unspoken exchange where they decided they were going to go to Houdini together.

Why does Stuart leave the ticket at the house of a man he doesn't know? Why does he change the tickets at all?
Why does Stuart gets himself killed by the cops? I don't follow his motivation.

Is Catch motivated enough to give Houdini to Gabriel?

Well, maybe it's not the right way to do critique, but I suddenly feel that it's one man's opinion and it would be wrong to just state my opinion.

[napolyphonic]

Thanks for finishing it, I really appreciate you taking the time. I'm fine with having even a one person discussion, because it keeps me going.

I've been thinking about certain scenes and aspects of this thing, but haven't actively rewritten it with those things in mind. If I do another rewrite and cut some stuff and add a little bit of exposition about the ticket, would it be read by you or anyone else?

Basically, would you like to read it again? Or should I leave this thread alone and finish it up without more reads by you guys. I just don't want to post anything if it won't get read.

-G

[supermikhail]

Well, there's a whole basket of dice to roll on whether I'm going to read a rewrite or not (mostly not concerned with this forum or this script), but... wow. So there's a problem with the ticket? Honestly, it seems to me that you've ignored some criticisms raised about the previous version, I've repeated some of them in my previous post, so maybe if you know what you can do to the script yourself, you should work on it, and only when you can't come up with more things to edit or you get stuck, you should post the rewrite here.

[napolyphonic]

I don't feel like most of these things need to be added. When you picture the film in your head, you can put the pieces together, and figure some stuff out yourself. But I think a lot of people miss that when reading.

For instance, it's my intention to show Bristol wants to get the ticket himself, but for most people it's too subtle. Stuart has this notion that the ticket really isn't safe in anybody's hands, so he leaves it somewhere he can return to later, with some excuse that he left his wallet, and get it back. This is all quite veiled in the writing, so I'm starting to feel more exposition or off-hand spurts of dialogue is needed to make intentions more obvious.

I guess I'll work on this a bit, taking it further into thinly-veiled mystery and post a new version.

-G

[Deleted]

I'm actually reading it again. I have just been ridiculously busy. If I recall, I am about halfway through.