From Afghanistan with Peace by Jahongir  - Action, War, Adventure - A young and spoiled man joins the army and goes to Afghanistan in the pursuit of some changes in his life, but the change doesn't come until he is captured by a ruthless Taliban leader who threatens to behead him unless the Americans meet his demands. 110 pages - pdf, format

The US don't negotiate with terrorists. Enter SEAL team six.

Can't open the file. Either it hasn't been made public, or it's just a bad link.

Hi guys. Any criticism or notes are highly appreciated. Don't worry guys it's not about terrorists or USA, it is about a soldier's transformation in captivity.

Hi Jahon,

I'll have a read for you. Just give me some time to catch up with other reviews and then I'll get onto this

Hope you stick around SS, though. Would hate to see feedback fall on deaf ears.

Dan

Thanks Dan. I sure will.

First thoughts - the setup is very cliche. Young guy who parties a lot has parental issues , and father wants him to grow up so he's thrown out of house. He then joins the army. You might want to revisit this setup.

The line "I don’t want to live my life according to a book that was written thousand years ago." felt on-the-nose / forced. That entire scene felt forced. I get your intention in writing this scene, but you need to be more subtle. Something like the mother hands  Rassul a brown bag filled with his favorite candies AND the Koran. He smiles at the candies but frowns at the Koran. He hands back the brown bag/Koran to the mother and says "I'm too old for this, Ma" or "Ma, men don't bring cookies to boot camp". Or something like that. Point is when designing scenes - be more subtle in conveying your point as a writer.

The time jump was jarring. It went from the bed room to Afghanistan in a flash. This is why I think you need to rethink your first ten pages. Ideally, set it in Afghanistan and push back all the back story in Act 2. If your genre is action, then set the tone early.

The Insert with the Letter doesn't work. The better way to do this is the Mother reads the letter and hears Rassul's voice (V.O./O.S.). Maybe insert a montage as he tells the story. But dumping a letter in an insert won't work. Imagine this on a theatre - will the audience read a letter on the screen? It's not cinematic.

Good luck.

Thanks a lot for your notes body. I will definately do those changes. Now that you pointed them out they make perfect sense.

Thanks regards

Jahon

When I read the scripts on this board, I typically am willing to overlook some things because I know this is a place for people to post their work in a way to learn the craft and get better at what they do.  I want to read an entire script and provide my opinion, but in some cases there are so many mistakes in grammar or formatting that I couldn't get past the second page.  So I can't really comment on the story itself.

Let me just provide some of the errors so you can go back and correct them:

1.  First slug line:

INT. OFFICE - DAY (LOS ANGELES)

Well, first off, don't put L.A. is a parenthesis at the end.  Second, we have no idea what kind of an office we're in.  Since I didn't get past page two, I assume it was an immigration office.  Don't make us guess.  This slug would work better:

INT. LOS ANGELES IMMIGRATION OFFICE - DAY

2.  First action sequence:

A young, presumably Muslim couple sit across his desk,
nervous. RASSUL AHMAD, 26, long beard, long hair, missing

BOTH EARS.

No need to make the reader guess whether the couple is Muslim.  That shouldn't be a mystery.   "Sit across his desk" makes it appear they are sitting on Agent Sean's desk.   It should read "A young Muslim couple sit across from Agent Sean."

Also, don't put BOTH EARS on a line by itself.  You've created an incomplete sentence when you don't include it after "missing" on the line above.  You do the same thing further down the page where you leave TWO FINGERS on a line by itself.  No need to do that.

Further down page:
AGENT SEAN
Are you in rush?

S/B "Are you in a rush?"

Further down page:

"Clean shaved, short hair, both ears are on place."  S/B "in place."

Further down page:

"Rassul robs her shoulder"  s/b "rubs her shoulder".

On page two:

RASSUL
Is that an interview, or an interrogation?  S/B Is this an interview...


I don't like to be a negative or nitpicky reviewer, but I do like to be honest, and no one will read too far if there are too many distractions in the writing.   This obviously needs some editing, so go back and do that and re-post, and I'll give it another look.

Gary

Hi Gary thanks for your effort. I appreciate your notes and will definitely edit them.



Regards from Jahon