Stand off by G. Howard Gutshall - Short, Drama - A police officer has an exceedingly bad day. 8 pages - pdf, format

New writer interested in feedback on this work

Hi Howard,

Can’t say I really enjoyed this one. It didn’t make much sense or have any point.

As I mentioned in my previous review, you still write very passively.

The dialogue feels quite force and unnatural. It’s also very expositional.

Quoted Text ROBERT (slow & unruffled) Listen, at this moment, there is a 50 caliber Barret sniper rifle aimed at your head Sergeant Evans

I know you want Robert to sound cool, calm, and collected but it really doesn’t fit because we know absolutely nothing about him. Need a comma every time you address someone directly in dialogue. Also forgot the punctuation at the end of the sentence.

Your writing feels very padded; I think scripts need to be leaner.

SPOILERS

Quoted Text Evans is aghast.  Clearly someone had found his home, collected his dog and somehow got it through the ring of police security that now encircles the property.

What of the purpose of this entire piece? We will obviously assume this. Don’t force feed your readers the story; we are smarter than you think. Also none of this is filmable, get rid of it completely.

Quoted Text  straight, I've broken no laws.  You people can't just bust into a man's home unannounced in the dark of night, destroy his property and endanger his family for nothing more than an unsubstantiated tip. ... Now understand this, if you come for me, if ANYONE, even from another agency comes for me. ... YOU personally, Sergeant Evans will pay. ... If anyone makes any sort of move on my family, ... YOUR family will pay. ... If any of you try to move your family out of the line of fire, you will pay. ... We have operatives in your police station and we will know.  Do I make myself absolutely clear?

What is the purpose of all the ellipses? Their general use in screenplays is to indicate trailing thoughts or dialogue. I don’t understand your intent here. It looks bad and slows the read.

I’m not sure what I’m meant to be left with, are we to assume this guy just gets away with it? That’s not realistic in any way. Also if the siege was a few hours earlier how has Robert gotten information on every one of the cops, placed snipers, stolen a dog? I know we suspend belief when watching films but really, this is too much.

I will say one thing, I kept reading because I wanted to see how it all played out. I thought there was going to be some insane twisted reveal, but there wasn’t, it was a huge let down.

If you can give this some reason why it all fits together I think it could be a good story. At the moment stuff just happens because it’s convenient to the story, unless of course I’ve completely missed something.

You are still making some of the same errors I addressed in your previous script.

Storywise this doesn’t work, but it has the potential to.

Quoted Text Logline: A police officer has an exceedingly bad day

For me, this logline is meaningless, do not be curious to read the story. Maybe this logline would be better:
By threatening a sniper, a police officer experiences the worst day of his life.
It becomes clear that the police officer is in danger, and not clearly whether he dies or remains alive, which increases the curiosity.
Then, you should revise the dialogues, especially those of Robert. They look as unnatural as if Donald Trump said he was telling the truth. Nobody believes him. If you want Robert to be cool, then you have to make him a bit overbearing. According to the motto "I determine the game, nobody else!" This also makes the conclusion more credible.