Attorney Chasers by Antonio Gangemi - Short, Thriller - A personal injury attorney defends his ethics in a kangaroo court.  It’s a death penalty case with no appeals. (19 PAGES) - pdf, format

Huh, this was an interesting read.  It had good action. It moved fast.  The characters were thought out.  And while I didn't exactly like Dan I was cheering for him in the end. Everyone had a proper dramatic need.  And it had a nice climatic, as well as cinematic, ending.  I'm impressed.

The last few lines are on the corny side, but it doesn't bother me that much.  Overall, a very good short.

Dethan

Excellent premise, one of the brightest ideas I've seen.

The script starts off superbly but I was very disappointed with the way it devolved into meaningless action.

Dan is constantly looking to use force to escape rather than the power of his wit which goes against the charcater that you have established.

The finger bit was gratuitous and screamed Hostel.

The idea is so strong and the film so visually arresting that I think it's something of a tragedy where you chose to take it.

What I would do is:

1. Get rid of the wife. This guys wife should be work. He should also be a medical negligence expert.

2. Establish the fact that another big case is coming up, that's why he goes home early. One that's worth millions.

3.Have the ambulance stop in front of him and have the paramedic come out and inject him. The crash would leave too many clues, better if they don't leave any evidence.

4. Change the brother's death part. Make it more general, his cases are costing lives in hospitals across the country. Give statistics in evidence.

5. Play the scene out in court, make more use of medical equipment to torture Dan, shock paddles etc Make it scary but not life-threatening. Also with the opening statement you should mention that they are seeking the death penalty. It raises the dramatic stakes.

6. Have Dan fight the case better, but have him fail due to ridiculous obscure rules that he doesn't know. A nice reversal of real-life.

7. Cut out all the violence and the escape and instead have Dan sentenced to death. Inject him with something and then Fade to Black.

8. Have Dan wake up in his car with a bruised arm. Leave it up to the audience to decide what he is going to do in the future.

I think you'll have a much shorter but far tighter and intelligent film if you just stick to the topic that you have chosen. It has far more meaning and dramatic strength than the chase.

The film should also be called Ambulance Chasers, because that works on both levels;

Dan =Ambulance chaser

Medics= Ambulance Chasers

Great premise though and huge potential. Very dramtic, very visual and relatively easy to shoot.

Maybe it's just me but I'm about as tired as it's possible to get of slashers.

Cheers, Rick.

Another good script from Antonio and Aimee.

But like Rick said, CHANGE the ending!

The action feels amputated and completely redundant. I noticed this is the second script in a row where you have some guy lose his finger? What's with that?

The heart of the script is the absurdity of the mock trial. The car chase only prolongs the plot, not the suspense.

Honestly I liked that first half so much, and I just feel you threw it all away with the ridiculous ending. It was like the third act of Adaptation, only without any point to it.

I think you ruin a lot of the mysterious nature of his accusers by having them quip lines like "Shut the fuck up!" to each other during the chase scene. They're so calm and collected about torturing and sentencing him to death and suddenly they're yelling stuff like "you're dead meat!". It just took me right out of the story.

Great premise, and engaging first half, but the ending needs to go.

Thanks for everyone's feedback on the shorts.  I agree with a good deal of what's been said.  We entered Attorney Chasers into the nyc mmm contest of '05.  Hopefully, our '06 entry "scorned" will show an improvement in our writing... I believe that's next to post.

By the way, I couldn't agree more about slasher films.  To me, horror is the original Dracula, and other Creature Feature equivalents.  Gore, in my opinion, is the easy way out.

T

[quote=Death_Monkey_Lives]I noticed this is the second script in a row where you have some guy lose his finger? What's with that?

Uh oh... you're onto us.  We HATE fingers!  

Seriously, thanks to everyone who's posted feedback.  We didn't realize that we could post scripts here until recently, and we're really looking forward to checking out what's up here.  Anybody who's critiqued our stuff, please let us know if you have scripts up here as well so we can return the favor.