Cruel Acts of Kindness

Posted by: Don, September 27th, 2011, 5:35pm

Cruel Acts of Kindness by Michael Joseph Kospiah - Thriller - A lonely suicide hotline operator gets a little too involved in the lives of his callers. 99 pages - pdf, format 8)

Posted by: Kevfent, October 2nd, 2011, 1:34pm; Reply: 1

(spoilers)

Hey, Michael, I just got finished reading your script, and I really enjoyed it. It held my attention the whole time, which is what a good thriller should do. I really thought you ended it well, both Paul's suicide and Ed living were good twists that I didn't see coming. The one part of the story that I really had a problem with was the scene with Mercer and Ed in the car. Why would Mercer push him like that when he had a gun to his head? It almost seemed like he wanted Ed to kill him.

As for formatting, I thought you could lose most (if not all) of the uses of CONTINUOUS and MOMENTS LATER. I think it was clear enough from the scenes themselves when things were happening.

Also, I found a few typos:

p. 29

He was the only who ever treated me
like a person.

p. 35

They go back to eating dinner. Silence. But Kerr remains
curious. Glancing up at Kerr repeatedly.

p. 42

Sam waits as the elevator makes a stop. The doors slide open.
SCOOT, early forties, boards the elevator. A fellow coworker.

Hope this was helpful, and good luck with any future drafts!

Posted by: spesh2k, October 3rd, 2011, 5:48pm; Reply: 2

Thanks for checking out, I'm glad you enjoyed it. Actually going to work on rewrites soon and the script title is being changed back to what it originally was "The Near Death Experience". The script was picked up for production about a year and a half ago, and was supposed to be shot in April 2010, but that fell apart due to a producer dropping out. Then it was supposed to be shot in April 2011 after picking up new producers, but that all fell apart.

It's in the process of being picked up by a producer in Australia (paper work and stuff), but the next revision will be drastically different as we're going back to the third draft (what you've read was an 8th draft). I wasn't happy with a lot of the changes the previous director had me make, though I'm glad you've enjoyed this version!

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