Dark Streets, Dark Lives

The general etiquette is to establish yourself on the boards by preemptively reading some peoples stuff, and critiqing.  plenty of shorts and such if you dont want to commit to a feature.
And yours being 130 pages is a tad on the long side...

First couple paragraphs are a tad overworded, imo.  This seems to be common, and might just be a taste thing.  Seems like writers want to show a little eloquence right off the bat, but not really sure it fits the situation here.
After that though the writing is nice and sparse, befitting the noir theme.
Getting the bum to blow up the car seems a tad pat, but alright...
"This man is named Frank Morrison, 38. His mean look
reflects a world that has betrayed him. The innocent are
a myth, the guilty are you and me, each passer by has
something to hide."  This kinda writing is pretty questionable in a screenplay, some people would scold you for it.  I guess it works for me just for the overall tone, but I would be careful.
Your wrylie for reids dialog should be formatted correctly, but is probably unnecessary, and probably not the right word in any case.
Morrison seems to take reids threat pretty pussified, just accepting that some random politician will have him killed.
p 14   run of the mill city car, city doesnt need to be capitalized.  Also in tact should be one word.
MORRISON (V.O.)
I withdrew my eyes from my now
empty fingertips and ran them
slowly up the woman standing in
front of me. Katherine Reid, an
angel among demons.
I know VO is kinda a staple of noir, but stuff like this is going a little overboard.  This would be much better expressed with the camera just panning up her looking radiant.

Also things like "she is head strong, but not big headed"  are unfilmables.  Leave it with just describing her sexy yet classy outfit.
p23 I think burley is spelled burly
Kinda a lot of characters to keep track of, between all the rich people, the dead priest/mafia guy, now the police constable.

"A living juxtaposition"  you're using the word incorrectly, I think you mean contradiction
Why would the couple suddenly run?  Seems like the bad guys would have to move first, just to give them the impression that there was something worth running from.
The random people walking into the meeting scene was all a little hard to swallow.  Obviously theres more to it, so well see.
But some issues:  Why do the innocent couple run off first...how does morrison find the girl so easily when the other goons couldn't...I guess that's all, though if jason is a killer or something the setup doesn't make much sense.

Erin's reaction seems a little quick and easy.  Oh those men killed my husband, you didn't save him, I want in...
You say the cafe is bright and full of color, different from what we've been accustomed to. I know its obvious since its noirish, btu you never mentioned a brown and grey pallet earlier.
I think it might work a lot better if she wasn't so sure her husband had been killed.  Like Morrison assumed it, but she was in denial, and wanted Morrison's help to find him again, or whatever.  that would be a lot more believable given the situation.
Also it might be better if we had never seen her husband pull a gun, that could be later with a flashback.  Might give it more of an impact whenever the big reveal comes up.

And erins talking about decorating her new place?  didnt her husband just die?

That up to page 48
In general:  good atmosphere, slightly convoluted plot, but not bad.  The hardest part to swallow is the whole erin story, that needs to be seriously reworked.  other than than pretty cool so far, not a bad read.
Hopefully ill get to the rest soon.

Print Topic