Cross My Heart by Kujan - Action - The only two things professional thief Jack Cross wants in his life is to marry Darcy McCoy and never, ever get caught. When he accidentally exposes the Nazi past of an art-collecting industrialist, staying alive gets added to that list. 116 pages - pdf, format

This was really well done.  A very quick read.  I liked the characters and the various touches of humor throughout the script.  The back and forth between the characters was very entertaining.  You've got a way with dialogue.

This reminded me (as I'm guessing you intentioned) as a modern day Indiana Jones adventure.  Complete with Nazis and everything - but perhaps not as much action.  Maybe that was the one little thing you could add - some more action.  Although I'm not sure you'd want to remove much of the human story (ie relationship of the two leads).

DN, thank you very much.

I was afraid nobody would bother reviewing this. If you have anything you'd like me to read, I am happy to reciprocate the favor.

No problem.  

Yeah, you're going to have problems getting a script of this genre read on this site.  Seems like most folks here dig thrillers and horror.  

How long did it take you to write the script?  Have you submitted it in any contests?

I put it in the Nicholl and it didn't make quarters or top 15%.

It didn't take very long to write. Once I get an idea, I just sit and think it out until its complete in my head from beginning to end. Probably took 3-4 days to write, and a week to consider. The pain in the arse part of it was finding something the Nazi's stole that hadn't already been claimed, verifiably destroyed, completely unrecoverable or done in a movie before. A solid day of googling led me to the amber room.

Hey Kujan, I feel really bad that no one is reviewing your screenplay.  If anyone knows how hard it is to get stuff read on here, it's me.  It took me about four months and three scripts before anyone read my first screenplay, so I will take a look at this and respond to it ASAP.  I have been completely enthrawled with my latest screenplay because I am trying to market it when it's completed so it's taking me a while to get stuff down on paper and it's also the reason why I haven't been reviewing anyone's work lately.  

But anyway, I am also writing a art thief thriller so I look foward to seeing how you handled the topic.

Welcome to Simply Scripts by the way.  Once you're in, it's the best place to be.  

Hey Guy,

I have a newer, cleaner version if you're interested (and haven't started yet). I'll be happy to e-mail it, if you wish.

As for not being read, it seems like there are cliques here that are kind of hard to break into. Which is fine, and good. The best relationships involve small circles of writers.

anyway, I will be happy to receive any comments you might have, and to return the favor at any point you so choose.

Quoted from Kujan ...there are cliques here that are kind of hard to break into.

Hi Kujan -- it can sure look that way -- but that isn't it, exactly.

Sometimes you gotta be presumptuous and go first -- leave some reviews on good faith.

Look around for other members -- active members -- (that part is important) -- that are also looking for reads -- then leave 'em a surprise on their script.

You can hope those people will return the favor -- in a perfect world they would -- and they might -- but even if they don't -- create a reputation for giving solid feedback and the people who also want reads will start to seek you out.

Having people wanting you to read their scripts is the key.  Then you get all the reads you need.

Sorry to be rambling on your thread.  This is alot more than I set out to write here.  Maybe it was the "clique" thing.  Anyways, just sayin'  

First off, bert is absolutely right in his above post.  If you make the effort to read people's screenplays without asking them to read yours, it almost backfires and gets people to read your work anyway, haha.  It's a wierd thing but it works.  I finally have the standing now on this site where people come to me to read their work and I take pride in that because it tells me that people care about my opinion and trust it to be constructive.  As for the cliques, it seemes to go by genre.  Some people have certain genres on lockdown (i.e. Mike Shelton - Comedy, Alan Holman - Anime, Bert - Everywhere), but I have written in the four major genres now (Action, Comedy, Horror, Drama) and have had a decent amount of people read in all of them, so it's just about being generous and selling yourself.  I also think that your loglines have a big deal to with how many people read your scripts.  Just like the movies in theaters, if the trailer or synopisis catches your attention, you'll probably read it.  If it doesn't you'll skip it, so make sure your synopsis and loglines and the actual script are worth people's time.   Anyway, now that my narcisistic rant is out of the way...

Alright, I have finished reading your screenplay Kujan.  The Amber Room is a pretty interesting subject to use and you used it fairly effectively.  I had heard of it very vaguely in high school I remember, but I didn't realize that it was so valuable.  So I learned something today, haha.

Now on to the actual screenplay.  First the characters, because characters are the foundation of any screenplay.  Your two main characters of Darcy and Jack were pretty typical protagonists.  Good people doing bad things.  I did however love how you kept the marriage proposals running through the entire script.  I am a big believer in sybolism and I saw the rejections showing Jack that he is not in control of everything, even though he thinks he is.  Darcy was pretty brutal with her answers but it gave her thief background much more credibility.  Your minor characters such as Lootie, Arthur, and Tammy played more like comic reliefs to me than actual characters.  Lootie had a little background with his wife divorcing him, but it really wasn't used that effectively, in my opinion.  Your villian of Alec was menacing but there was one line that just made me lose total respect for him and it was during the scene when he was beating the crap out of Jack and he refered to his friend Arthur as "Artie".  I don't think anyone would refer to his enemy's comrades by their nick names.

As for the plot, it was simple, but interesting.  The only part that was confusing for me was when you had your characteres "Googling" like three different topics in five pages at the beginning of the third act.  But other than that, it was very cool to see how these thieves planned their heists and went though with them.  I was pretty impressed with the highway theft.  That was pretty cool to read and picture in my head.

I'm not one to critique on format, because I think everyone has their own writing style.  It read like a screenplay so I have no complaints.
  
Overall you have an interesting story going for  you here, Kujan.  For a newcomer I think this is a great opening script to show people.  It shows that you have story telling abilities, you aren't a dummy when it comes to plot lines, and you know how to create protaganists that should be rooted for.  I liked Jack and Darcy and was happy to see them finally come to their conclusion in the final scene.  That was a good ending.  The only things I say you work on are creating more plausible minor characters and a more menacing villian.  The buyer, Hal, seemed more like a villian rather than Alec.

Great story.  I am glad I read it.  Hopefully my review will get you out there in the Simply Scripts world now.  I'll try and recommend it to people myself.

Thanks, Guy. Like I said, what I posted was pretty much a first draft. I have a newer version that cleans up all the typs and crap (of which there were a ton), but also does more with Lootie's wife and tightens the relationship with Darcy and Jack so its not so dyslexic.

You said that you wre doing an art heist, too. The biggest problem I had in this, once I decided on the nazi background storyline, was trying to find something to steal. You can always go the Thomas Crown Affair route and just pull something off the wall, but I wanted to do more. Took quite some time and research to settle on The Amber Room (after discovering that my first choice, Faberge's Kalerian eggs, HAD actually been discovered).

If you don't mine me asking, how'd you do your plot?

This script should be a movie i could visualize the whole script great work

The only problems i see are afew sentences begining with and also you missed a few letters here and there  like about pg 75  and others if you read it one more time you'll see them.

I loved Hack his dialouge was very good .

Kujan,

Please send me a PM or an email - webmaster@simplyscripts.com .  I have received a query on one of your scripts.

Don