All Reviews

I wanted to see what the winning script was for the month, and I must say I am impressed by your story!

Gideon's Law is a pulse pounding, thrill ride, written by a very good writer. It actually had me riveted. I wanted to see what I was up against before I submitted my screenplays, and this one is a lot better than the ones I have seen previously. You definitely know what you are doing in the writing department. The scenes were concise, the story flowed very well, and it was an easy read. I only saw a couple of typos in the whole thing.

All that being said, there were a couple of things I wanted to say about some of the story line.

I saw this film in Bruce Willis' HOSTAGE. Although in that film, it was almost secondary to the story of the heist and had a disk instead of a thumb drive, I remember those few scenes when his family was kidnapped and this went almost exactly the same way. Except you took it to another level by having the whole story revolve around getting the drive, unlike HOSTAGE whose main story was being in that fortress of a house.

A slight issue in the flow, no one mentions "Where is Officer Alicia?" when Shane is first at the police station. As a matter of fact, no one mentions her at all...? Something to think about.

I would take out ALL of the CUT TO:'s.

"Pink mist blossoms in the air" I love that! I always write ARTERIAL SPRAY! I need to work on my colorful metaphors.

Also, 'We see...' is a no no. Go through the SP and take them all out. When Shane reaches down and palms the cell phone, it should just say, 'Shane reaches down and palms the cell phone', not 'we see Shane...' oh you get the picture!

I hate that changing it to rtf format makes it 126 pages. I think you should put up a PDF from Final Draft for your correct 114 pages.

Oh, and your logline, I think you should condense it. Like - A young cop on a routine ride-along stumbles onto a cat and mouse terror ride when the passenger turns out to be a ruthless killer who will stop at nothing to achieve his goal. Or something like that.

Other than that, congrats on the win Chris Bullet! You deserved it! Awesome screenplay.

Overall: 8

Character: 8.5

Plot: 7.5

Quality of Writing: 9.5

Originality: 7

Cinematic Quality: 8

I think this script is gripping and beautifully written. I do not share some of the other reviewers’ objections to the writing style. The authorial asides, to me, are often the most effective method of directing an actor while informing the reader in a vivid and engaging way. And let’s face it, at this stage of the game we’re writing as much for readers as we are for an actual movie audience. One step at a time.

My only substantive criticism of this script is that I was a little disappointed with the third act. I felt you pulled a little bit of a bait-and-switch with your central dramatic question, namely, will Shane save Alicia?

As Alicia works to escape her captors and then thwart their plans, the story turns into a bit more of a heist story– I know it’s not really a heist, but it’s constructed something like one. It turns out to be a tale of revenge. Not that these two lines can’t co-exist in your script; it’s great that you’ve got both going on, and obviously your antagonists have to have some ongoing goal once they’ve acquired the thumb drive.

So while I appreciate you avoiding making Alicia just another damsel in distress, I found the terrific tension of the story’s first half abating somewhat just where it should be ramping up. Not sure what to suggest, here. But somehow, I was looking for a climax in which your protagonist’s choice is more related to his internal character dilemma, which is that he is perceived by his peers (and perhaps himself?) as a coward and a bad cop.

You succeed wonderfully in making Gideon appear worse and worse to his fellow cops as the story progresses (great!) but I felt that somehow the climax should come down to that moment when he could either die and be perceived for posterity as a disgraced outlaw, or save the girl and save the day. I guess that I’m looking for a climax that is a little more sharply defined, and more hooked in to your character’s internal problem.

As written, while Gideon’s survival is always in jeopardy (again, great!) I feel that his innocence in all the mayhem would be obvious to anyone willing to turn over a few rocks a little too early on in the story. At the risk of steering your story towards a cliche, what if the final climax really was a robbery instead of a revenge? Wouldn’t it be easier to make it appear that Shane is a crooked cop, part of a scheme for personal gain hoping to thumb his nose at the law and his fellow, asshole officers at the same time?

That said, I wasn’t bored for a second with this script. It just motors along from beginning to end and always held my interest. It’s filled with tension, great trailer moments, and lots of visual action.

Final, small point: the title isn’t doing anything for me. Sounds more like the title for a TV courtroom drama than an action thriller. And I’m not sure it even makes sense. What, exactly, is Gideon’s law?

A cop, whose confidence and reputation takes a knocking, becomes a pawn in one man’s attempt to wreak havoc and revenge on a colonel and his department, forcing him to overcome his fears: “Gideon’s Law” is a pulse pounding, gripping read which, if translated to the screen well, could be a successful film in the action/ thriller genre.

The ‘three tiered structure’ is used effectively to build and progress the storyline. We are immediately thrown to a man named Palmer, who is racing to a destination with a USB stick, starting the film with a mysterious object which keeps the audience intrigued. We are then introduced to Shane, his life at home and his gorgeous girlfriend/ partner Alicia. At the police department, he is mocked by his colleagues and introduced to a writer named Richard, who will tag along with them for research. They give a tour of the station and the evidence room. While out on the streets, the car is bombarded by men in a white van, who kidnap Alicia. In the turn of events, Richard has Shane in his control – it was a plan all along.

After Richard forces Shane to answer a call from the dispatcher - in which Richard kills the biker causing trouble – to not allure suspicion, they head to the police station to make statements, the cops at the department none the wiser. Using Alicia to bribe Shane into doing his bidding, Richard tells him to get into the evidence room and take the memory stick. However, on it being moved, they infiltrate Central Precinct and gain it back after a slight complication. Shane purposefully crashes his cop car, copying the files to his laptop while Richards is unconscious. However, he accidentally deletes the important file. Alicia has her finger broken for Shane’s “games”. They go to the hospital where Palmer is. However, Mahone and Cortez are guarding the room. Richard injures them, gets to Palmer, who questions him before shooting him dead. However, a statement from Mahone and CCTV evidence leads the police to believe that Shane is guilty, and look for him.

Heading on the motorway, Shane tries to call 911 secretly, which fails. The cops soon discover them and a chase ensues. They crash into oncoming traffic. Shane – feinting unconsciousness – types a message on the mobile phone and leaves it in his seat as Richard forces him from the car. They find their way to hardware store, where the handcuffs binding them are finally severed. Shane manages to escape from Richard, taking a phone from a pedestrian. He calls Garret to ensure Alicia’s safety, and then does some quick research to discover what links Palmer, Richard and Colonel Clayton: soldiers in Iraq. Richard meets Garret, who looks at the memory stick: full of military date, but no access code. Alicia manages to escape, just as Shane reaches the refinery. Shane chases Richards Humvee, after a convoy of military hummers – one of which is blown up by Richard’s men. Richard’s gang and the police come to loggerheads, of which Richard dies and Alicia is saved. Days later, and Shane’s actions have won him honour amongst his colleagues.
Altogether, the storyline was laid out well: setting the scene and character’s situation, furthering character’s development and intentions, and reaching a brilliant and exciting conclusion.

Shane, as the protagonist of the story, is in my opinion one of the most well rounded from the scripts I have read at Amazon Studios. We first meet him as an ill-confident cop, treated as a joke by his work-mates, who throughout 116 pages truly becomes a hero that takes control of a situation and stops Richard from continuing with his plan to kill Clayton. This makes him totally relatable to a wide audience, and the perfect hero for an action film.

Alicia is great as a ‘modern day princess’ – described as beautiful and feisty, she fits perfectly in her role as the typical ‘girl-that-needs-saving’, who kicks some ass along the way.

Richard, for me, was the most intriguing character. At first his identity is an enigma, for we know that he isn’t truly a writer from the hints subtly woven into the plot, particularly his interest in the evidence room and Shane’s father. As he reveals his true self and his core motivations, we realise that he is quite a twisted and psychotic character, such as with moments where he stabs Shane with the broken screwdriver.

I found no faults with the dialogue at all – which is rare for me when I read a script. Every character had their own voice, suiting their personalities perfectly. The police all spoke using dialogue found in their field of work (abbreviations, numbers) which added to the believability and realism of the script.

In fact, I feel that your writing style really has to be appraised. You are descriptive yet precise, which allows for the pace of the action to be quick and racy, allowing the audience to continue to be entertained. Whether by knowledge or research, you made the world in which you created be realistic by fleshing out the police department; its units, ranking, codes etc. You are also specific with car models and weapons, which is really informative – and quite handy for a production team too! The way in which you cut between scenes at the right time heightens the emotion and suspense, particularly towards the dramatic conclusion. You have done two things with this script: made it entertaining and compelling for both readers and directors alike – which I don’t see as much as I should in screenplays.

There are little to no improvements necessary with “Gideon’s Law”. I felt that Clayton should have appeared in one or two more short scenes in the first half of the script – perhaps hinting to his past – considering he is an integral part of the plot. There was definitely more potential for emotion between Alicia and Shane: perhaps she has a ‘closer shave’ with death towards the end, and maybe an emotional scene at the very end where they show relief that it is all over: exaggerating that their relationship took a beating. Although I know how annoying it is, I definitely recommend revising the name of the script: I understand that Shane’s last name is Gideon, but “Gideon’s Law” doesn’t really make context. There are also a few grammatical errors that I came across, more suited to a private message which I will do soon.

Altogether, I can see why the script has attracted so much attention and many best script prizes here at Amazon Studios: it is a fantastically written thriller with engaging characters, an intense plot and riveting action scenes which kept me gripped for the hour and a half it took to read. I really hope that I get to see this as a big budget film one day soon!

The story is exciting and well-written. I could not stop reading. Unfortunately, I had great difficulty making sense of the plot, and without a careful re-reading, I'll never understand it. I understood some military guys are trying to kill some other military guys for reasons I don't understand, and that the police got a thumb drive that the killers wanted, and two cops were thus enmeshed in the intrigue. I don't think the story will work at the box office unless visually it is MUCH easier to follow the plot and understand exactly what motivates the would-be killers.

I personally couldn't finish the first ten pages. It failed to draw me in, it failed to stumulate my imagination. I loved the logline for the movie, the script just didn't compare.

This is a good overall script. good story; flows fairly seamlessly from beginning to end.

The characters are a little bit flat, but that's ok for this genre. Shane is a good protag, and Richard is a great villain. Alicia seems to have an amazing pain threshold and superhuman powers of recovery, but I can let that slide.

The scene descriptions are much to flowery. This is a screenplay, not a novel.

The blood of a Spartan? His Gaze bores into her soul? Exposed wood like prehistoric bones?
Exactly how do you plan to convey this to an audience?

There is also too much editorializing in the descriptions: Shane is really pissing him off? Let the action speak for itself.

There were other plots points that seemed a little far fetched:
The use of tape to turn the 21 to a 27 was just silly. They needed to abandon that car much earlier.
Finding a running delivery car was too convenient. They needed to steal a car or hijack someone.

Introducing Clayton on page 79 was a little late in the story. I needed to know what I was chasing a little bit earlier.

Also, I found the idea that Shane would be able to leave the scene with the injured Alicia and go back to the precinct without taking her to the hospital simply too far fetched. Also, it must be fairly evident to the entire city that there is a war going on downtown. Does this information somehow skip Mahone?

It's a good script and it seems like just the thing that Hollywood execs like to see up on the screen. Good luck with it.

Trust me when I say it...I WILL be picking this up when Warner Bro. releases it! I've already set my $20 aside...

Interesting story, although I got not hooked.