Escape by Steve Meredith - Short, Drama, Crime - As Bomb Squad technicians, Jason Sanchez and Pierce Riggins have one of the most dangerous jobs in the world.  They discuss their reasons for joining the squad while they dismantle a bomb. 9 pages - pdf, format

Steve,

Thought I'd give this a read as I'm busting to watch The Hurt Locker. I ain't seen a good film since District 9 blew me away.

Anyway... We not met yet. Er, I'm a cheeky monkey me. So bear in mind I mean no offence. Just tryin' to help.

Bit too much tell no show going here. An example...

Quoted from Escape His name is FRANK SLOAN, and he is the head of security for the business tower.

I'm sure he is but how do we know this? And what's he look like? How's he act?

A character description is supposed to be about how they look, and what their character is like. But just telling us he is the head of security doesn't work well.

Erm, dare I mention 'and' usage? Read my recent posts for more info on this lickle nugget.

You've a logline which could do with a bit of work but attracted me.

The dialogue doesn't sound very real to me. There should be a few action lines to break it up. People don't stand still for that long. Give an idea what they are doing.

Stay away from camera directions if possible and keep it in the present tense.

Overall it's a good idea and not bad. It needs work. Anyways, there's a few things in it I liked. So well done for that. And I do this to everyone so don't feel bad. No offence meant.

Ren

A solid effort, I think. It's interesting, especially the contrast between what they were doing and what they were talking about. Disarming the bomb but doing causal talk.

However, I think the entire conversation between Sanchez and Riggins can be tightened up. It took almost 5 pages, that's more than half of the script. It's nice to know about what Sanchez is as a person, but I still don't get why he wants to commit suicide. And isn't it easier to just kill himself than disarming the bomb at a business tower?

I would also like to know about their ages. As of now, I don't know who's older. I'm assuming it's Sanchez, maybe a lot older.

I think if you iron out those glitches. Flesh out the story and the character's motivation. You can have a nice short script.

Good luck.

Hi,

Here's my review - hope you find it useful.

On the positive side......

The Logline hooked me instantly making me want to read your short.
The story grabbed me, developed smoothly, keeping my interest and ensuring I wanted to read to the end - I wanted to find out what happened to these guys.
Good structure to the story in that it has a start, middle and end, which is all very easy to follow.
Liked the character development of the two main players (although see below re: minor actors)
Enjoyed the paradox between the highly, stressful dangerous job and their mundane routine conversation - bomb disposal experts are normal people too!

On the negative side.....
Sorry, but I was really disappointed with the ending (more disappointed probably because I had enjoyed the build-up!) Maybe I'm being a bit thick, but I didn't really get it.....did Sanchez commit suicide? And if yes, why? Were there clues in their previous conversation that I didn't spot? It was obvious that someone was going to die (nothing wrong with that!) but unless I'm missing something, I thought I was in for a clever twist, or a wide-eyed shock moment of 'I wasn't expecting that!'.
More minor points easily fixable:
Dialogue is too long-winded in places and therefore, not believable.
Minor characters don't add much to the story, so I wouldn't bother particularly with names and what they do - this can easily be conveyed by what they say.
Quite a few grammatical/spelling errors (unless it's because I'm a Brit)

Overall, I would very much like to read it again with a more wham-bam ending.