A metaphorical screen adaptation of a love-triangle pushed to the extreme. Maybe that's why it's a bit predictable - it's supposed to be so. The characters are painted in very broad strokes, more serving as functions, rather than being real people (I'm not criticizing this, just stating what it seems to me - maybe it's supposed to be this way and serves your script's purpose. Up to you to decide).

Kind of makes the viewer/reader bond with the Captive, since we don't know what's going on and his questions are our questions.

So who got arrested - the captive or the captor? And who got hospitalized? We kind of assume that the captive got hospitalized, but did he? That would be an additional twist - the woman frames the captive. But maybe that's redundant. This typo at the end ruins it somewhat (or is it meant to be this way?).

It also reads quite easy, so that is a great plus.

Hey,

the script lives from its twist, which should feel inventive - and it surely does plotting-wise. The back and forth, Q and A part, could have been shorter, so that we're out of the script with our satisfying twist quicker. There is not enough empathy (no clue who captive is) to prolong it or else there must be a fresher attempt as the fist to the face version – something that raises more tension, fear, excitement with fresh pictures to justify the length…  

Anyway, it's pretty okay and I generally like the structure you brought to the table.

I didn’t see the twist coming and enjoyed that aspect, the rest was quite cliché and nothing we haven’t seen before in many torture/interrogation scenes. You could have a lot of fun with this, play around with some cool Tarintino style dialogue and give it a lot of juice that would make it stand out. You have a great twist, now go work on making this a great script and you’ll have yourself a winner that would be very easy and cheap to produce.

-Mark

I could write this, but I wouldn’t.

Hi writer

Quoted Text CAPTIVE What the fuck?

There's that line again, fuck me do I hate that line lol not to take it out on you, but jeezus is it overused!

Well, that ended strangely - wife comes out of nowhere, kills him offscreen somehow - how did she know where they were? is he keeping him captive in his own garage?
Captive is led out in handcuffs towards police car and the next second he's on a gurney going into an ambulance.

The interrogation is a little stale, found myself drifting and skim reading - you need to find a way to heighten the tension in this. Maybe making the characters a little more interesting would help. but it's a constant
"did you fuck my wife?" - "no" - "did you fuck my wife" - "no" ... over and over, no escalation, no exchange of power, no reveal of new information, no nothing that could have spiced it up.

Anyhoo - Well done for entering

oh, I'm not giving you criteria met for this, others will I guess, but the song? what was the point? - I'll quote the criteria "It must have some impact on the action or your characters."
the song had no impact... no one even mentioned it or acknowledged it was playing.

I'm glad that I didn't write this. It's overwritten, passive, and poorly punctuated, making it a drag to read. Your action lines should flow. Commas matter.

Criteria Met (Y/N) – I don't care.
Story (1-5) –  0.5
Characters (1-5) – 0.5
Dialogue (1-5) – 0.5
Writing (1-5) – 0.5
Overall (1-10) – 1

Thanks to all who made the effort to read and give feedback. This is the first time I've entered so wasn't sure what I was supposed to do regards title. I know this is a shit title and doesn't relate, I think I had a blonde moment and thought the title didn't matter as it was anonymous.

Anyway, no excuse but I only wrote this the day before submitting. I've re-written it and added a bit at the beginning and the end and changed some of the dialogue. I've also given them all names.

Thanks again and well done to the winner.

Well done for getting stuck in with the comments and getting involved - it's what these things are all about (that, and providing inspiration for writing something new)

And Lol at not thinking you needed a title  

Hope you enjoyed the experience and will take part in future challenges

Quoted from Matthew Taylor And Lol at not thinking you needed a title

I know, like I said, blonde moment.
Yeah of course I will enter again, I've got no problem with criticism and can take it. Most of what people said was valid and I've changed stuff to my script based on people's feedback.

Cheers mate

Quoted from Arundel So the captor is a stalker obsessed with this woman who happens to be married. He believes her husband is actually the stalker and she is his wife, correct?

Pretty much, but the captor is so obsessed with the woman he thinks she is his wife. He thinks the captive is basically having an affair with his wife and not a stalker.

I'm not sure about:

Quoted from Arundel OK, the writer says it's based on a true story

Not sure where you got that from, I certainly never said it was based on a true story. Maybe it was because the author was "Actually I just did"

Some, or perhaps most, of these comments have already been mentioned.

Personally, I liked your dialogue.  It was short. Crisp. Certainly not expository.  There MAY have been a couple sentences that could have been removed, such as repeating  "did you fuck her" because it was used more than a couple times, but overall, I thought it was quite good.

As far as ways to make it better, I have only a couple suggestions.

First, turn off the "continued" except when there's dialogue at the end of the page and top of the other page.

Delete the "cut to."  We know we're cutting to another scene when we see the new scene heading.

"Avoid similar sounding names for your characters and names beginning with the same first letter to make it less confusing for the actors.   If you want to use "Captive," then rather than use "Captor," try a synonym.  Abductor. Kidnapper.  Something along those lines.  

If you tighten the action lines, I believe there will be more "white space" in the script, and directors like white space.  So, for action lines,  no more than three lines.  Even fragments of sentences work.  And keep them in present tense.  By using words such as "is," "are" and "ing" words you're making them passive.  Example, your first action line reads:  

"A CAPTIVE, 30, wearing a suit and tie, his arms and legs tied to a chair in the centre of the room with a hood over his lowered head. A single light hanging from the ceiling illuminates the scene."

We know from the scene heading we"re in the garage so why not let the audience see the garage first. Here"s an idea  and that's all it is, an idea which can, of course, be completely disregarded.  I'm only throwing it out to give you something to consider.

"A single ceiling light illuminates the scene.

"In the middle of the room, a CAPTIVE, 30, arms and legs tied to a chair, hood over his lowered head."

After reading the script, I don't see where his attire has any relevance to the story, so leave that up to the wardrobe staff.


All-in-all though, well done.  And I love good endings.