Necessary Evil by Adam Slutsky - Short, Thriller - To prevent an unspeakable atrocity, a young boy must commit a terrible crime. 5 pages - pdf, format 8)

Broken Link with this one

WOW! The ending is fantastic! I didn't see Hitler coming at all!


I noticed the following:

'A simple two-story square structure located in a suburb heavy with trees.' I don't know why but it was so difficult to digest this sentence! Almost as if it was written in Japanese!
'About 50 CHILDREN - ranging in age from 10 to 16'. I would put PUPILS.  I have problem to see a fifteen-year-old as a child.
Now who's  Friendly Boy? Is Friendly Boy the same as ANOTHER BOY? If yes, then pick only one name for him.


I wasn't too keen on the stabbing and blood. I've been watching recent films all weekend and I'm fed up with seeing blood in every movie. Can't Friendly Boy destroy Hitler in any other, more sophisticated, way? Push him off a cliff or something?

Adam

Some notes.

The beginning works for the most part.  It might work better if the sullen boy weren't a sullen boy but already a demagogue.  The Friendly boy shouldn't just fit in.  He can't.  In a small school, everyone knows everyone.  There should be some effort to discover who this boy is.  If he came from the woods and stream, and he hid his knife there, then could he have wet shoes? shoes that don't fit the era?  And the knife is a way to signal the audience what is going on--if you want that.  A modern commando knife would be anachronism, but would the audience recognize it?

As with all time travel stories, there's always a paradox.  The lack of a reference to hitler won't be the only change to the future.  And here you have a chance at irony.  The boy goes back, does his evil deed, and comes back to....well, pick a change.  Does his father now speak Russian?  Is there no internet because the US was never rich enough to invent it?  Has he come back to a worse world than the one he left?  Be careful what you wish for?

Or you might have an even greater irony.  No mention of adolph hitler, but a reference to heinrich hitler who turned out to be much worse?  I don't know.  Your call.  

Best
Richard

Adam,

This was delightfully dark!  I liked it.

I do have to say though that Richard has a point.  I recently read a Stephen King book, the name of it escapes me, where there was time travel involved and the main plot was to stop a major event from ever happening.  However, when they stopped it from happening the future they knew changed drastically, and for the worse.  

I think it could be better with that twist at the end with something else happening.

But regardless of that, I enjoyed the story.

Well done.

Nolan

Adam,

I just read your script and it was AWESOME! I loved the twist at the end about Hitler, and to echo another comment, I think it'd be interesting if you'd develop this further, where the protagonist creates an the conditions for a greater threat by going back in time.

I thought your dialogue was great, and so was the way you described the action.

The only thing I'd add as far as format is  a FADE IN: at the beginning as well as a FADE OUT at the end(I'm in a screenwriting class, and my professor was talking recently about opening and closing a screenplay). Other than that, it was a vey cool concept with great potential.

Matthew Lincoln

P.S. I'd appreciate it if you'd read a screenplay I wrote called "The Courier". It's about 24 pages, and is a neo-noir film influenced by Michael Mann's Collateral as well as Christopher Nolan's Following. Thanks.