"Last Dance on the Killing Ground"

[jtwg50]

I need feedback on whether this script is ready to go out for representation.
Title: Last Dance on the Killing Ground
Genre: Crime drama
Logline: After a psychological trauma in L.A., a troubled homicide cop retreats to a small Virginia town, only to face the toughest test of his career -- the implication of a homophobic U.S. Senator in the brutal murder of a prominent gay activist.
Thanks very much.

Attachments:

[napolyphonic]

Alrighty, just finished this thing. My overall impression is I like it. It's good. The detail is at the right level for a detective film. It certainly fits the bill. And of course you ended it in the Bahamas, because lets be honest...what producer doesn't want to visit the Bahamas and get paid for it?

Now, for some things I found need improvement(in other words, stuff that bothered me but likely not anybody else). I'll go in the order I started noticing them.

HEADERS - Some of them are REALLY long. Like the whole width of the page. This gets a little old. Most of the time, we can assume we're in Virginia, so you don't have to put "Virginia Department of...", you can just put "INT. FORENSICS LAB." This is a bit easier to read on the fly. I have the feeling readers will simply stop reading the headers, or God forbid, the entire screenplay.

FLASHBACKS -- By the end, I could anticipate when a flashback was coming, and it made me groan. Most of them were completely unneeded and interrupted the pacing. The first flashback of Jake looking into the dumpster, and the flashbacks to tell the murder story were the only ones I saw necessary.

THE CONFESSION -- when Jake gives up the info about the Senator to Lindsay, it made me hate him. Here, he just went through a bunch of shit to collect information, she touches his dick, and he completely gives it all up? I call bullshit. I would've been far more satisfied with him yelling at her to leave, and then have her sneak a peek at/steal his notebook on her way out.

DESCRIPTION -- All I really wanted to say was take another hard read through this thing to make sure all your description is as tight as possible. You separate lines a lot, and often to a negative effect. Where I think you're moving action along, you're actually just talking about the same thing. It becomes disorienting. Mainly, be consistent. And remember to consider what's going to be on screen and what's not. Also, check all of your spelling...please(exume is actually exhume).

JOEY -- I wrote this down after my first couple of impressions. I don't like this subplot. I would rather her mother was dead and Jake was struggling with child services about his violence and drug consumption. And I don't entirely understand the purpose of Joey, other than to take away Christy, which I also don't see the purpose of doing. I dislike Joey, by the way, and I think I'm supposed to, but...(more about this in the ending discussion). Also, your page numbers are off, and in the wrong font.

JAKE'S CRYING -- I don't like when protagonists cry. It better be for a good goddamn reason, otherwise, let me feel the emotion for myself. I don't see any reason for someone as hard as Jake to to cry...ever. He may come close, he may glaze over, but ne'er a drop may fall. I don't like this sharp, hard, cunning detective flooding the story with his tears. It's actually a minor point, but I think it's valid.

THE FINAL STRUGGLE -- This was another source of groaning, and if I didn't like the rest of it. First of all, why does Jake get so close to the Senator? It's the same argument as when Jake gives Lindsay info. He shouldn't show up to arrest a psychopathic, celebrated ex-marine who butchered dead men in vietnam without some sort of backup. He should have a goddamn caravan behind him. Lets so he wanted to fly solo on this one anyway. Once he gets the gun back while running up the hill, he should've just shot the Senator. At least in the leg. The man's in crazy-ass marine survival mode, he's not just gonna roll over and give up. Shoot him! Even if Jake killed him, it wouldn't change the story at all. Senator dies while running from an officer after being accused of murder? Of course he's guilty. The same outcome would've resulted, and Robert would've been better off without him.

JAKE'S ENDING -- This is where I wanted to stop reading, except I figured there would be some sort of reveal at the end about Robert, so I stuck with it. The whole custody thing I didn't like because it's too happy ending. I wanted to know Jake had dealt with his shit without having to rely entirely on his little girl. Like maybe the judge looks at his past and when he took her out of school mysteriously for a night, she would rule that the custody be split equally. He's okay with it, Christy isn't, but he assures her it'll be okay because he'll get another chance to get her back. The important thing is that he's off his meds and doing a helluva lot better. Okay, so the custody thing's not so big a deal. What really made me groan was when he hooks back up with Joey! What?! You just fought your wife for custody (granted he was letting Christy make the decision), and now you're gonna get back in bed with her? And it's all rainbows and glowing Santa Monica Pier sunsets? Ugh. Too happy of an ending for this hard-R of a movie.

Okay okay, so it sounds like I actually didn't like any of it, and I'm ripping your awesome screenplay to tiny little shreds. I swear, I enjoyed it. It's good, but it needs some final tweaking and polishing before it comes to rest in front of a reader. That's why I'm a little more harsh. If you would've said "Hey, here's my latest draft, what'd you think?" I wouldn't have been as picky. Remember, it took far longer for you to write this than it did for me to read and pick it apart. You don't have to please me. As long as you know it's ready.

This is good work. Keep it up. And don't forget to peruse the board and contribute your own critiques!

-G

[jtwg50]

Napolyphonic: Thanks very much for the quick and detailed response. I think your points are all valid. Obviously, as writers we get so buried in our own material at the end that we can't see straight. That's why I wanted GITS feedback -- my first.
Thanks again,k and I will do a new draft based on your notes and others I get here. Great stuff!

[supermikhail]

I concur with napolyphonic on a lot of points... well, maybe except for the dick - it seems to me Jake is having real problems with this thing, so Lindsay might have touched too sensitive a spot...

Headers weren't as much jarring as ridiculous. Made me stop and think, "Is the writer trying to make a point here?"

Flashbacks, I also found a lot of them unnecessary. Especially that one of the last flashbacks introducing Jake and Joey's lovemaking - repeating a previous flashback completely.

I actually don't have anything against Joey. The fact that Jake bounces between multiple women is a very good indicator of how screwed Jake's life is, for me.

On the topic of women. In description you've got a sentence there about a 13-year old girl who is very attractive. With sexuality basically permeating the script, I'd feel much more politically safe with "cute" or "pretty".

Another technicality - you've got a phone number there, with 556, and I thought you could use only 555.

The final struggle, beyond what napolyphonic said, I wasn't satisfied with how it read. I got the impression that it's supposed to be the climax, but you write it all in short regular sentences as if to get it over with sooner, and it doesn't feel as a climax. At least to me. Although, I compare all action scenes with the script of the Matrix since the summer when it was introduced to me by Scott on the blog.

Jake's farewell to pills felt out-of-the-blue for me. Well, it had to happen, but there was no trigger, no premise. Instead, we've got a Senator's interview before it.

Let me finish this quick sweep with saying that I actually liked the script. It's got a lot of facts, a lot of complexity, and the fact that in the end the odds were pretty much 50:50 for Robert and the Senator, seemed very cool and realistic to me.

[jtwg50]

Thanks, Supermikhail. I really appreciate the help. All duly noted and valid insight.