Restricted by Mitchel Taylor - Short, Thriller, Drama - A man sent to terminate another finds out the true identity of who he is after. 3 pages - pdf, format

Mitchel,

Unfortunately this one didn't do it for me in the slightest.

So a guy enters a house with the intention of killing the homeowner. He's shocked when he finds out that he knows the hit. He decides to not kill the guy, when he gets a change of heart. However, before he gets a chance to kill the hit, the hit stabs him, but before he dies, our hitman manages to shoot the hit. And then we end, with the hitman's phone ringing...

That's not a story, in my opinion. That's a scene from a story. We've never met either the 'assasin' nor the 'target', so what I presume was meant to be a shocking moment, when the assasin realises that he knows the target was not surprising in the slightest, because how are we supposed to be aware of the relationship between the two?

Why had the assasin been sent to kill the target? Who was behind the hit? Why does the assasin get a change of heart when he gets a phone call from the 'restricted number'? Who is the person calling from the restricted number? What is the significance of the phone continuing to ring, after the assasin has been killed? Why was the hit sitting there with a knife?

Too many questions for this to be a satisfying piece, in my opinion. The reason so much is left unanswered is because the script is only a page an a half long. As a result, not only do I have little idea about what is going on, but I don't care for the characters in the slightest.

Expand this. Develop the idea and the characters further, because at the minute, this was far too short to be satisfying.

On the plus side, the writing itself wasn't too bad.

All the best,

Toby.

Michael-

Tough to tell a story in only one page, which is what this essentially attempted.

The descriptions fell flat for me. I couldn't really envision the characters or the mood. Also, if the target was his best friend, how could he be surprised to find him at the location?

Sorry, just didn't come off the page for me.

-Rich

Hey Michael.

One pagers are tough, man.  One cliche that always gets me is the cocking of the gun before the kill.  You'll see it in movies all the time.  I would think the assassin would cock the gun before leaving the car but that's just me.

Bogey brought up an interesting point that the location should have been familiar to the assassin if they were best friends.  By the way, the fact that they're best friends would technically be unfilmable as we the audience would have no possible way of knowing that from images alone.  Perhaps a few photographs in the home?

I'm surprised the roles aren't reversed in this scenario as Adam appears to be more of a cold assassin than the actual assassin.  I mean the assassin has a change of heart and turns his back on the target he just pointed a gun at while Adam stabs him in the neck with no hesitation.  Just a bit jarring for me.

Like the others, I don't know what to get from this.  It feels like the climax to a bigger story which I think you could work with.  All in all, the writing was brisk and moved along nicely.  A little trimming of the fat and you could make this an actual one pager but I recommending expanding this story.

In either case, good luck with it.  I hope this helped a bit.

-Johnny

Not reading the other comments, so please forgive me if I repeat what's already been said.

Spoilers...

Well what we have here is a basic hit man story. Problem is there is no personality what so ever. I don't mind it being super short. Hell, I write super shorts all the time. Problem is this didn't go any where. No pay off.

Formatting for the most part is solid. But your descriptions need serious work. I have no idea what the Assassin or the target look like because you didn't describe them. All I know is that the Adam is the Assassins best friend, but only because you said so in a description. If this were a short film... well, the viewer wouldn't have any idea who Adam was to the Assassin. By the way, if Adam was his best friend, why didn't the Assassin recognize that this was Adams house? Weird.

Not trying to sound negative. Like I said, you have basic formatting down. Now just work on the descriptions (show, don't tell) and make sure your stories have a payoff.

Good luck.

~Zack~

Thanks to everyone who read this. This being my first screenplay I was really curious as to what I needed to work on.

Everyone who has read it have all said that it needs story development and more details, so obviously its something I need to work on.

Thanks for the compliments on the writing, as a beginner that helps a lot.

Mitchel

Hi Mitchel,

I think this story would work better with more of a back story to it.

One problem plot line I would say is, if Adam is indeed his best friend, how does he not know where he lives?

Also, when the guy leaves the car, walks up to the back door, he's EXT. HOUSE...

All the best,


Javier

I agree with some of the previous posters. How would the assassin not know it's his best friend's home? Plus, ASSASSIN is kind of lazy, a name, or codename, would have been better. Plus, you told us this was his best friend, I felt that was a bit cheap. This was also just a scene. Not a full story. Not to be harsh, but just keep writing. Read other scripts as well. Good luck.