Double Take by Silva Mungai - Short, Thriller - A professional cat-burglar, after a two year hiatus, decides to get back into the game. With the help of his old partner in crime, he plots to rob a wealthy mark. Little does he know the surprise that lays in store for him.   9 pages - pdf, format

Interesting enough.

The conversations between Ethan and Franics seemed to indicate something larger, but this is small time, these two are small time. The neighborhood is not fancy that I can tell, so that does not indicate big money. If the stakes were higher, I might buy into the murder, but otherwise I'd be thinking that Francis would run away instead of killing someone over some old clocks and Hummels.

I like the dialogue.

After getting to the flashback, the action thinned up nicely, but prior to that it was novelish (too verbose).

ON BLACK:

Soon we’ll meet Francis, but all we hear is him puking his guts out.

FADE IN:

INT. BATHROOM - DAY

FRANCIS - 38, on his knees, gripping the toilet and wretching.

One last heave and he gets up to the sink and splashes water on his face, then stares in the mirror. He looks like he’s been drug though a knot hole ass first and is scared shitless because of it.

Francis looks back, through the open bathroom door, to n main entry way. In his partial view he sees a woman’s legs on the floor, the rest of her hidden behind a staircase.

He looks back in the mirror. Dead people can scare the shit out of you.

...or something like that. But then Francis didn't get sick until he saw the jogger, so maybe seeing the dead body was no big deal. I don't know.

You can do a lot with Double-Mint and I guess killing is one of them.

Silva

First off, I want to say, I appreciate what you are trying to create here. I found this a rather engaging story, well structured and paced with a good twist. You have an intriguing opening, plenty of suspense, it drew me in to the story straightaway. However, you need to seriously tighten up the writing, it’s far too wordy and descriptive. I may sacrifice the build up and tension by doing so but such is the nature of screenwriting. Forgive the hackneyed phrase but "less is more" in this medium.

The opening exchange between Francis and Ethan is well scripted, solid dialogue although some would accuse for being too long. Maybe think about cutting it a little.
I like your three adjective description of characters. Might not follow the rule of "don't write what the reader/viewer can't perceive” but I think they work in this case all the same.

Very clever structurally. I loved the flash forward beginning and how you inserted a premature line from the next scene before it changed. Simple techniques sure, the whole set-up sort of reminded me of “Before The Devil Knows You Are dead” but they fitted the type of story perfectly. Again, it was this style of storytelling that gave your piece an edge for me. The flashbacks running concurrently with the story was another nice touch that drew me into the plot.

"The morning crisp air still lingers on in this perfectly maintained neighborhood" -- There is no way, we the audience could ever detect this, thus it shouldn’t be included.

For a nine pager I feel this has a lot of potential. The main problem is the writing which as I’ve already said needs to be sharpened up a lot. As a rule, blocks of prose should be no longer than 4 lines, while the use of “we” is cardinal no-go . Luckily these are easily learned as they soon come with practice and experience. The most vital fact is, you’ve got a good story. I mean, if this managed to get on screen, the lack of professionalism in the descriptive wouldn’t matter as what happens and how it unfolds is pitched brilliantly, in my opinion.

To sum up - Strong story, realistic, fluent dialogue, with waaay too much unnecessary prose. My humble recommendation would be to read, read and read some more. Check out some script information sites and give this another look. I believe it has the making of a worthy script.

Best of luck.

Col.

"A Novel writer"

How ironic that's what you might be best suited for yourself... Way too descriptive. Way too varied. You have detailed walkthru's of nearly 80% of your script. If you were to cut out all the unwanted overwriting you would have about a 4 page script...

Some of the dialouge was alright... Some of it was a little flat. The story could've still been held together without much of it, tho.

Then again, you over wrote it a great deal too.

Short sentences. Little burst of information in no more than 4 lines... Be as blunt and on the nose as possible within these action slugs.

Less

"We focus more on one particular house that looks identical to the photos in Francis' possession. This is the client's house. A car is parked outside the garage."

"He slowly uses the toilet to prop himself up. He heads to the sink and turns the faucet on. His trembling fingers slowly tease the water. He splashes water on his face and rests his hands on either end of the sink as he stares at himself in the mirror. There is fear in his eyes. Something bad has happened. He turns his head to look out the bathroom. We follow his gaze."

and more of

"Ethan gets up and re-adjusts his pants while Francis opens up a manila file folder."

that...

Even still I'd have worded it a bit different.
"

Nice little twist at the end.  Took a long time getting there, but I didn't see it coming.

Your action paragraphs are huge.  Pare them down drastically and focus only on what needs to be told.  This is a challenge for myself as well, but you have to try and remember to keep it easy on the reader's eyes.  

I didn't see the twist coming and I liked it although





spolier alert








I wasn't sure how The twin ended up sprawled on the floor rather than Francis, so assume he simply overpowered her after she swung for him with the bat.

As someone mentioned, this seemed like a very elaborate plan for such a low key robbery. I wanted to know why they, or someone else (whoever wrote up the plans in the floder, wss it Ethan?)  had targeted Tricia. It might have felt more plausible. given all the planning,if Francis was a hitman. While I really liked your script and found it well structured and enjoyable, it made me question the logic of Francis' actions . He does an awful lot of reconnaissance for a smallish robbery - staking the place out for a week . Also, he had been inside once before, if I understood it correctly, to take photos of the items he wanted to lift. That would have put him in greater jeopardy of being caught, especially by the twin, and most robbers of this nature are just opportunists, from what I gather, so it made me wonder why he just didn't grab these things when he had the chance first time.  At one point, with all the talk about egos, I thought Ethan might be setting him up for this fall.

That said, really thought it was written well but felt it should be about something bigger.

This is pretty good. I was engaged for the entire time, but the ending is kind of a let down.

Story
I like almost everything you did with the story before the ending. The intro of Francis and Ethan at the breakfast diner was great. It gives us all we need to know about their relationship and roles without dull exposition. After that, the time confused me a bit; along with the flashback, it got even worse. So it was 12:30pm at first, then it was 12:15pm, and then 12:55pm in the flashback. I cannot piece those few scenes together and I do not understand what you were trying to do there. Now about the ending: first, why would Francis eat an orange out of someone's fridge; second, what's the purpose of having Francis vomit; and third, discovering that Tricia has a twin sister does not really tie in much to Francis' burglary and so, it is anti-climatic.

Characters
I like both Francis and Ethan. You illustrate their characters pretty well with distinct personalities. Francis is more like a specialist and Ethan is his sidekick/partner. BUT having Francis eating the orange is out of character. Isn't there a rule of burglary where you don't touch anything that you don't steal?

Dialogue
This is another highlight. Full of subtext. Very believable. Both Francis and Ethan talk like real people. Their dialogue discussing about the burglary gives us a lot about their characters.

Writing
Some problems here, but it's easy to fix. You never end the page with a person going to speak or a slugline. Move that to the next page. Your description of the bathroom and Francis action on the first page is too detailed. For example, "He splashes water on his face and rests his hands on either end of the sink as he stares at himself in the mirror." You might want to leave the "hands on either end of the sink" part to the actor. Everything else is good.

Good job here! I enjoyed reading it.

Hey, some question I had reading:
How is francis 'poised' as hes puking his guts out?  
Why does francis ask for the files when they're right in front of him?
You describe Tricia as dauntless?  how is this shown?  I think this goes with the above comments that you're slipping into writing like a novelist.
In the bar ethan asks "why can't you both at night?"  do you mean go at night?
How come ethan doesnt know what francis is getting, isnt he commisioning the job?  What exactly is their relationship?  
The ending didn't work for me.  It wasn't that big a deal and didnt really seem like much was at stake.  Francis can still run off and escape, and though he seems like a nice enough guy, who cares that he wacked some girl in the head?  We don't even know she's dead.  For it to mean much we'd have to have a serious impression that he was such a nice guy killing a girl would devastate him, plus show that the girl was in fact dead.  Or have the police arrive before he can escape.  
Also we know he's retired, but we still don't know if he has any life that's at stake outside of crime.  Does he have a wife, kids?  will anyone care if he goes to prison?
Good luck working on it.