Maverick Shish Kabob by Christopher Reid - Short - Maverick Shish Kabob is a send up of the opening scene of Reservoir Dogs. However, this time it's office workers, instead of gangsters, shooting the breeze. 10 pages  - doc, format 8)

Your dialogue was spot on and in an Aussie office I could see this conversation happening without any question.  I think, however, that this may have difficulty playing in different cultural settings.

Another issue I had with this was the number of main characters.  You could probably easily get away with that many characters on screen, and you might get away with it - just - in a feature length screenplay but in a short screenplay it is overwhelming.  I had trouble following who was who.  Without in depth analysis I don't think I could tell you if your characters were good or not, whether they kept their voice or not.  It's just too many characters and I think you need to get rid of a few of them.

The last issue I had was the whole businessman thing.  I couldn't tell that they were businessmen from the visuals or the dialogue in the script.  For all I knew they could have been gangsters set up in an office conference room.   They didn't discuss business.  I could not tell who they were and this backstory is essential to understanding the humour in your script.

Overall, good job, not really a story but a pleasant and humourous read. However, it needs less main characters and a bit more backstory.

First off, you need to get out more. Your knowledge of Tarantino is a little bit much but hey it also makes for a good read.

The dialogue in this short is what shines. Probably the best dialogue, if not the best dialogue I have read in any short on this site to date. Of course you have a few spelling errors and missed words but the dialogue is just so strong.

The problem is everything else. No character building, no plot, not much in the way of story.

What you could do with this short is flesh it out but judging by the logline, you wrote it without any of that for a reason. Tarantino had like 60 minutes after the same conversation to build his characters, you didn't.

For what it is, this is a good piece of writing. It shows your getting better (Unless someone wrote this for you) and it shows your knowledge of film.

Good job and good luck in the future.

I think I need to get out a little bit more myself, because I could tell you the lines that were switched around in this compared to Reservoir Dogs..."You don't have any idea what you're talking about, for example, was originally Mr. White (Harvey)'s line, but here you gave it to Michael (Mr. Blonde).  Most of the characters matched up from RD, but I noticed a few changes.

A few subtle changes in subject matter for their conversations, but this is definitely Tarantino's dialogue.  Anyway, it is what it is.  Your logline wasn't misleading, and it was still fun to read.

Haha I had a hard time with this because I hate that damn debate about whether or not it's his soul in the briefcase, but anyway, yeah, as Mike said, it is what it is, a fun read.

To me, the dialogue was too close to the source material to be a great parody, though.  I think taking more liberties and departing from Tarantino a bit would make this more enjoyable.

I had problems following all the characters.
Although I enjoyed the overall humour I found it hard to familiarize myself with all the characters.
They seem to lack personality.
I would suggest maybe a bit of a longer story to get the feel of the characters and their personalities.
I am not a big fan of Tarantino so I cannot compare your dialogue to his style.

The formatting is a little out of whack and there was very little action.

Thanks for reading this everybody.

This idea came to me when I thought about the possibility of turning Mr Pink’s ‘I don’t tip’ rave into a rave about football tipping. From there I just downloaded the Reservoir Dogs screenplay and used it as a template, that’s why so much of the dialogue from Tarantino’s script has been kept. I was trying to show that you could use pretty much the same words to talk about a completely different topics. So, yeah, I tried to stick as close to it as I could, whilst injecting my own ideas into it. The Marcellus Wallace briefcase thing was a rumour I heard about several years ago, so I looked it up on the net and put it into the script. As for the Sopranos bit, that actually came from my own life experience; I went through a phase when I couldn’t workout why Uncle Junior was getting called Uncle Jew, and then felt like a dumb a$$ when the penny finally dropped. Lol.  

Quoted from mcornetto Another issue I had with this was the number of main characters.  You could probably easily get away with that many characters on screen, and you might get away with it - just - in a feature length screenplay but in a short screenplay it is overwhelming.  I had trouble following who was who.  Without in depth analysis I don't think I could tell you if your characters were good or not, whether they kept their voice or not.  It's just too many characters and I think you need to get rid of a few of them. The last issue I had was the whole businessman thing.  I couldn't tell that they were businessmen from the visuals or the dialogue in the script.  For all I knew they could have been gangsters set up in an office conference room.   They didn't discuss business.  I could not tell who they were and this back-story is essential to understanding the humour in your script.

The reason I had so many characters is because that’s how many there are in the opening scene of Reservoir Dogs. As for back-story etc, I guess my target audience is Tarantino fans who know this scene intimately and are therefore able to follow it without the aide of a back-story. However, I agree with what you said about making it clearer that they’re businessmen; I’ll try to work in some reference to their occupation in the next draft.    

Quoted from Old Time Wesley For what it is, this is a good piece of writing. It shows your getting better (Unless someone wrote this for you) and it shows your knowledge of film.

Alas, a lot of it was Tarantino’s dialogue; I just added subtle changes to it, as Mike said. But I did mix in quite a bit of my own dialogue and ideas as well.

Quoted from Heretic To me, the dialogue was too close to the source material to be a great parody, though.  I think taking more liberties and departing from Tarantino a bit would make this more enjoyable.

I agree, Heretic. I’ve been thinking about it and I really do need to take a few more liberties with the next draft. For starters, I’ll have to inject some extreme violence, after all, what kind of Tarantino parody is it without that?  

Quoted from elis The formatting is a little out of whack and there was very little action.

As I’ve said, I’ll put more action/violence into the next one. The next draft should have better formatting because I've just downloaded Celtx.

Hey Chris, I read you stuff and I think that I've not to much to say because the people before me already said, but I liked one of some good lines you wrote, dude:

LAWRY
Wong?

QUIN
Fuck you, wrong, I’m right! What the fuck do you know about it anyway? You’re still watching Steven fucking Seagal movies.

LAWRY
Not wrong, dumb ass, Wong! You know the Chinese fucking restaurant.

This was very funny.

All in all I see your work working better on Radio theater. Maybe it should have a great chance on WILDsound Monthly Screenplay Festival and Reading Series.

good work

Thanks for the read, Helio.

Unfortunately I can't take the credit for that gag, it was in Reservoir Dogs, I just changed the wording a bit to fit it into my script.

I've a few new ideas for this one, which I'll implement at a later date, but for now I'll put it down and get to work on another short.

Cheers

I found this to be quite entertaining to me as a person, but as a writer it doesn't cut it for me. There isn't a real story to this, just mindless chatter between a few characters about random things. Your idea is good though, and could probably develop into something much deeper and have more of a story.

This seems more like an exercise rather than a script.

Still, it was entertaining.

I'm new here, so please excuse my choppy review. Just trying to make friends around here!

-Ortega

Thanks Ortega. As I said it's just a send up of the opening scene from Reservoir Dogs.  I'm counting on people being familiar with that particular movie.
Thanks for the read and welcome to Simply Scripts.  

I'm a fan of Tarantino, so I definetly found some amusement with this. I love how unfocused/ focused the groups conversation was. I felt as if I was watching a Tarantino film. The entire conversation seemed aimless, yet there was an underlying purpose. I think you really got what you were trying to get, a good Tarantino parody. Not a great script, but good none the less.

8 out of 10

Zack