Sorry Charlie by William Applegate, Jr. - Comedy, Dark Comedy - Charlie Bright is the best Crisis Management Director.  Until he sufferes a crisis of his own: an apology owed to an ex girlfriend.  He better do it too.  His life depends on it. 91 pages - html, format 8)

I've read through the first act, and so far I'm liking this story. My main peeve though is that it takes too long to set up the plot. A lot of the first act is used to focus on Charlie's job. We already know what he does by the fifth page. This story isn't just about a crisis management consultant, it's about a guy, who, for all his arrogant crisis handling bravado, can't seem to find the words to say to the only person that really matters to him. I suggest you shorten Charlie's work scenes, and get to the point.

Thanks, Patrick.  Stick with it, though.  The work stuff has a reason you'll get at the end... and the first plot point twist comes in by page 14... right about where it needs to.

I'm interested in what you think... so let me know.  This is a very early draft... at 91 pages, I expect it to grow by about 15 more.

Bill

Oh, I'll stick with it. Overall I really am enjoying this script.

**SPOILERS**


Bill,

I just finished reading your script and I'm very impressed with it. I loved the humor and despite his flaws, Charlie was a likable guy. I found myself laughing pretty hard a few times. I do have a few things I'd like to address though that I felt were shortcomings in this story.

I'm not quite sure if I buy Rick's and Lilly's motivation. I guess Lilly, I can partially understand being somewhat psychotic but at this point in her life she seems too level-headed to conspire to kill an old college boyfriend. Especially if the pregnancy story turned out to be a sham (I'm not totally clear on that).

Regarding Rick and Charlie I'd like to see a pattern of mistreatment rather than just one scene of Charlie being mean to Rick. To me that isn't strong enough motivation to want to kill him.

All in all, with both Rick and Lilly, I'm just not fully convinced that they have good enough reasons to want to kill Charlie.

It was a pretty easy guess that Rick would be the masked man. Perhaps think of a way to hide it better until the right time.

How did Rick know that Charlie was at a Motel 6? I don't recall Charlie telling him.

Rick also seems to get from New York to Chicago pretty quickly.

How did the SS agents (or anyone else for that matter) not notice Rick heading to the bathroom while putting a ski mask on? A SS agent would have followed Charlie to the bathroom door and kept watch. Was Rick already wearing all black at the dinner table or did he change on the way to the bathroom?

Charlie cringes a little: why do they keep calling each other "babe"? This line doesn't reference anything in that scene, nor does anything come of it. I'm not sure what you were trying to convey.

A lot of attention was given to the Britney sub-plot but nothing came of it. I propose that should either be brought full circle or left in the first act.

Scene descriptions were great but giving scene descriptions in first person was a little unsettling, as was giving specific directions to the Director. Kind of took me out of the story a bit.

I think Charlie's change happens too quickly. It's like Lilly flipped a switch with the pregnancy story and all of sudden Charlie's different. I would have preferred to see it happen more gradually. His character arc is a little flat.

The setup was good but the resolution kind of falls flat in my mind. Although I enjoyed your script, I was a bit disappointed. I felt this could have been a pretty powerful character redemption piece ala Jerry Maguire (it seemed that way at first) but it turned into a revenge-betrayal-twist story with the antagonists having questionable motivation.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed it and look forward to reading the next draft.

Quick summary:

The first few pages were hilarious and had me hooked right at the start. The first plot point creates suspense & anticipation and gets things going. I was looking forward to see what happens when Charlie and Lilly meet again, but unfortunately, not much happens for quite some time. I started to drift away a little. It seems that meeting Lilly again has only minor impact on Charlie. During the pregnancy scene, the story almost me. I was disappointed that all the development I was hoping for is now happening in just one scene. A scene that also felt pretty cheesy, but hey, maybe thatīs just me ;) The resolution was when the story finally really lost me. Like frail47, I just didnīt really buy Rickīs motivation for wanting to kill Charlie. Why does he hate him *that* much?

Some other stuff I noticed:

- The bum gets quite a lot of attention, but then he just disappears from the story.
- When Rick is introduced, I had the impression that he is just one of his associates. It took me some time to realize that they were actually old friends, sort of. Of course, it all makes sense in the end, but at the time, it felt irritating to me.
- I was wondering why the hitman would attack Charlie in the bathroom. The hitman takes quite a big risk there for no particular reason. Actually, at that point I was pretty sure it would turn out that Charlie is psychotic and the hitman is a product of his imagination.
- Some loose ends. What about Britney? What about the bum?

Overall, a pretty good script with lots of potential, it currently still has its flaws, tho. Well, I hope that feedback was of any use you. Looking forward to see this one on the screen ;)

Quoted from derBonobo Actually, at that point I was pretty sure it would turn out that Charlie is psychotic and the hitman is a product of his imagination.

This would have been killer and could explain many things fairly easily. Though of course his break-up with Lilly would have had to been pretty traumatic to result in something like this.