Unreliable Witness by 0 - Short, Thriller - Strangers, held hostage in their captor's car, work to discover why. 8 pages - pdf, format

Writer interested in feedback on this work

Second read in.

Four total characters - 4, spot on.

Page length divisible by four: 4, 8, 12, etc - 8, no issues there.

They must be confined to an automobile (no part of the script takes place outside of an automobile) - Same as the other script I read, in the sense that you see some stuff through the windows, perfectly fine by me.

Can only be of the Horror, Thriller, Drama or Mystery genres - I can see that the situation should be thrilling, so it gets a pass. I wouldn't actually say that I did find it thrilling though at any point.

Story Notes:       WITH POTENTIAL SPOILERS!!!

Quoted Text Two MEN, unconscious. Handcuffed together, driver’s right arm to passenger’s left. Their joined wrists rest against the roof of the car, held in place by an invisible force.

I am a little bit confused by this image. I'm not 100% sure I know what I'm meant to be seeing.

Just came back to this, notes as I read, I think they're upside down? Okay, maybe a magnet. I'll come back to this at the end. And it was a magnet :)

Quoted Text soft, rich look.

I don't understand what kind of look this is.

Quoted Text JESSE I’m Jesse. The man that’s gonna beat your ass, you don’t treat me with respect.

The dialogue feels a bit forced and unnatural.

I've read on a bit further and the dialogue really needs to be tidied up, it's very wooden.

I'm mid-way through page 4 and it's starting to feel a bit like a Saw scenario. They're trapped, don't know how or why and there's a message for them to follow.

All the THUMPing is a bit much.

Quoted Text #METOO

Oh no.

Done. So yes, very much a Saw setup, everyone's linked by an injustice they performed and they pay the price. Just unlike Saw they have no means of redemption.

It was okay, just okay.

Code JESSE, male, 28, sits upright, unconscious, in the back seat of an old rust bucket of a car.

ON the back seat, IN a car. How can he be sitting IN the seat? He's also sitting, so naturally upright. This is your very first sentence, it's not a good idea to have it read like shit.

Code Beat up by life, he’s in particularly bad shape right now.

This is your second sentence and things aren't getting any better. Telling us he is in bad shape is not visual storytelling.

Not one for me.

I can see what the writer was going for and it's laudable. However the mystery was better than the payoff. Requires a pretty good amount of suspension of belief. She's abused by three men - boyfriend (or date), boss, and her father - and then not believed by a detective - and then suddenly turns superhuman in that she's able to trap all of them in the same car, render them helpless, and rig a junkyard so that they can suffer and have a perilous death...

The voice of her father, in the end, got a chuckle out of me - not sure it's what you want.

Overall, it's a pretty good story. I liked the fact you have an explanation for each to be in that car. And I like that they are in the car for a definite purpose.
Don't know how she did it though. YOu're asking a bit much here from a reader. Too much suspension of disbelief I guess. Maybe she got superpowers. She could have a letter of explanation for them to read that, in turn, would tell us how she did it as well.

I’ve read the script. Will provide my comments after voting has closed.

0

I liked this one, gave me a few laughs.

Yeah some of the dialogue is a little ripe, the scenario requires serious suspension (yep) of belief (I guess the implication is she drugged them...or maybe she had help. Who knows, I don't think its that important) but it kept me hooked and had a killer last line.

Jesse's impaired speech, which was a great touch by the way, seems to disappear after the first couple of lines. It would've been good for comedy's sake to have kept it up consistently throughout.

Reminded me a lot of the first story in the Argentine anthology film "Wild Tales". I wondered was that an influence.

Good job.

Col.

I agree with the others.  This pushed my suspension of disbelief too far.  

Decent story, but unlike Saw, I didn't buy into it.

Dan

3 out of 5

As Jesse might put it: "Thit, that was awesome."

So many questions left unanswered but who cares. I loved Carly's final message of #metoo - very timely. The whole thing is so ridiculous and unbelievable, I couldn't help but to have fun while reading it. I really enjoyed this one. Good job writer!

Quoted from JEStaats I loved Carly's final message of #metoo - very timely.

That's the Pokemon with the purple tail, right?



I actually had less of a problem with the serial victim Carly getting all these people in the car, just wondered why the gun was left in there. If it was in a tamper-resistant holster then it would still be holstered, and if it wasn't then she should have removed it entirely.

I'm not thure Jethee thould have even reconithed Carly's name. Maybe a picthure thtuck in the thunvithor?

Nice touch that the cross wasn't real (magnets pull real silver very weakly and don't pull real gold at all), might be making a statement about the deterctive's shallow commitment to justice. Or I'm just overthinking a neat visual.

"Beat up by life, he’s in particularly bad shape right now." Cut this line.

An invisible force?

Why is everything pinned to the roof? They upside down? Or are they taped/glue/stapled to it? Oh a magnet. Unique idea. Ok, I like it now.

JESSE
I’m Jesse. The man that’s gonna
beat your ass, you don’t treat me
with respect.


Bloody and woken up in a car of strangers, I doubt this is a proper greeting.

A cool setup with the men in a car attached to a giant magnet. But that's about it. The dialogue is not great and not much seems to happen afterwards. I got lost halfway through and ended up skimming. Sorry.

Great set up.

There are elements of this that I liked but the dialogue seems a little off and stilted in places... liked the 'I'm your father line'

Decent effort.

I like the concept but it's tough going early on. Descriptions not very efficient, not visual enough. With a re-write, I think this could be good. I liked the last line. You just gotta pull us in right from the start and never let go. And I don't mean have them physically at each others throats right away. Build your characters, four distinct voices, then conflict boils over... only it's too late for them.

Writer,

Not bad at all, just didn’t blow me away. Think you could’ve lost the #metoo hashtag, but that’s just me. Thought a lot more bickering could have gone on between the men to give this a little more urgency and tension. As is, there’s just not enough for a thriller. However, once I realized exactly what their predicament was, it did add a certain amount of peril, and I thought that was good.

Steve

It's okay, plays by the rules.  The setting was good.  Quite topical throwing in the movement too.  I'd vote for this one.

I think this is a good idea. It was a little messy for me keeping track of who was who but on screen I think that'd be clearer. Some talent being able to fix a dislocation, but possible I suppose. I think the slugline towards the end where we finally pull back to see the men's predicament should be an EXT.

The #MeToo at the end - very good, made me chuckle. I just couldn't quite work out where every character fit in, nevertheless if you could streamline and edit this a bit so that these conversations play more of a role in the actual script/story, then I think this would play very well on screen.

Quite a predicament these guys are in.

Their impending demise isn't new; I've seen quite a few movies featuring the old junkyard crusher. Nor is the reason they have to die. Nonetheless, this situation could still be pretty interesting if a few things in the script were done differently:

1. Improve your characterization.

2. Improve the dialogue; the stuff they say sounds like movie dialogue, not real people talking.

3. Don't mention the "big-ass magnet" until near the end when we actually see it. This lets the reader/viewer figure it out on his own.

Mes deux centimes:

1. Great opening visual. Everything about it made it very clear that they’re were hanging from a giant salvage company magnet, and now I’m intrigued how they got there and why they’re all together. Something obviously connects them. I think we all know where they’re heading, but we want to know why.  Jesse speaking with a lisp because his tongue stud has been ripped out is a nice touch, although I noticed the lisp kind of came and went. Or maybe it only worked on the “sh” sounds.  

2.  Writing is pretty on-point. Action lines are concise but descriptive, and emotive visuals are given. Characters maybe needing a little buffing up, which is difficult given the page limit and the setting, but I didn’t feel like I knew much of any of them, only their predicament. The detective and Jesse I understood why they were there, and I can infer on the father, just wasn’t too clear on Brandon.

3. Dialogue is fairly straightforward. Nothing really on the nose and fortunately the back and forth between the characters didn’t come off as expository.

Would really like to see this as part of a larger piece, as I think there could be some great backstory  about how they all wound up where they are.  Sort of like Jodie Foster’s “The Accused.”  

Great job here.
Best of luck,
Gary

Here was my thinking:

I needed to go big. Final Four. Can't win without taking it to another level. So, I wanted to write something really gritty. That's not generally my style. But, what the heck. Let's have some fun, right?

For me, it started with the visual. Where could I put four guys in a car, but have it be unique?

Once I landed on: suspended in the air, hanging by a giant magnet... I had to figure out why. I knew I wanted to do a #metoo script at some point in the tourney, so, this seemed like the place for it.

When I rewrite, I'll be focusing on the characters. If I can better define them, and find ways to pit them against each other a bit, I think the dialogue problems will sort themselves out.

The other main complaint I see: too unbelievable. I'm just not sure how much I want to address this. Give me more pages and I'll show you exactly how she pulled it off. (I don't know, but I guarantee I can come up with the how. Wait. I just did... ooh, a pretty good one, too.)

Okay, my question: several people talked about Jesse's on-again, off-again lisp. This was a huge point of attention for me. I wasn't sure how to handle it. I wrote the lisp consistent through the script and it became a real distraction. Lost all effectiveness. So, I finally landed on this thought: only write it in when it's important to the action/interactions. I knew it was problematic, but figured I would lean on the director and the actor to find the right balance. Feels a bit like a copout, but, I might direct this one myself, so I'd argue I didn't cop out too bad.

But, I'm very curious: how would you handle Jesse's dialogue?

Thanks for all the comments everyone!!!

PK - As I said in my review, this was so unbelievable and far fetched that I didn't care about how realistic it was. Some stories need to be just as you wrote it as long as the dialog and story is sound. In this case, keep it fantastical! It's like martial arts movies (i.e. Crouching Tiger or Kill Bill), they're so far out there that you don't even dwell on how realistic the story is. But if the dialog and motives are lacking, ouch.

BTW, the lisp: I didn't have too much of a problem with how you approached it. You made it obvious to start (which is necessary) but then it is left for the character/actor to pull off for the rest of the story.

How would you write dialog for someone with a hard Brooklyn accent? I would describe it as being such and only write jargon or slang that is specific to the region and not try to recreate the 'dis, dat and the utter ting' throughout (I learned that the hard way in my first OWC of Trapped in a Taxi).

Quoted from JEStaats BTW, the lisp: I didn't have too much of a problem with how you approached it. You made it obvious to start (which is necessary) but then it is left for the character/actor to pull off for the rest of the story. How would you write dialog for someone with a hard Brooklyn accent? I would describe it as being such and only write jargon or slang that is specific to the region and not try to recreate the 'dis, dat and the utter ting' throughout (I learned that the hard way in my first OWC of Trapped in a Taxi).

I originally had it in every line... introduces himself as Jethe.. ath, instead of ass... awethome... etc. It made the entire script read as comedy, and undercut everything. So, I either had to knock it WAY back, or eliminate it altogether. But, I really wanted each character to be dealing with the  effects of the magnet. A tongue stud seemed like a decent way to show peril immediately (the bloody mouth/chin), and introduce just a touch of comic relief.

I think your point regarding thick accents is a good one. Still, I don't know how you avoid the "on-again/off-again" critique.

PK, I'm thinking it takes a really really good thriller and whatever else (comedy/action or else) to win over a really good drama. (two "really's" versus one "really")
Just saying.

Quoted from JEStaats (I learned that the hard way in my first OWC of Trapped in a Taxi)

Paul - these were my comments related to the script:

Quoted Text JESSE, male, 28, sits upright, unconscious, in the back seat of an old rust bucket of a car. Beat up by life, he’s in particularly bad shape right now

A nit – but just couldn’t wrap my head around “upright” and unconscious. Maybe slumped in the back seat? (told you it was nit). Don’t think you need beat up by life.

Quoted Text Their joined wrists rest against the roof of the car, held in place by an invisible force.

Rest not the best choice here – pressed up against the roof would be better – implies force.

Quoted Text In the passenger seat, tethered to the Detective, BRANDON, male, 35, leans face-first against the dash. Perfectly coifed, he’s got that soft, rich look.

Having a hard time with the visual of him leaning against the dash AND having his arm
extended to the roof of the car at the same time. Also – soft look – we really can’t see his face can we?

The dislocated shoulder sequence a bit unrealistic and not needed IMO.

Not sure why the only words Jesse can’t pronounce with his torn tongue are S words.

I couldn't understand why no one remembered anything?

This was a good story - well written.