All Reviews

Please do not take any of this personal. I read and give reviews not on bias of whether I like the story, but on how well things develop. Your script needs a LOT of work. But you've got a good idea and it could be better.


Ramblings while I read:
- The formatting is definitely off. Even though it has nothing to do with story structure, it’s still a pretty big no-no and makes for a difficult read.

- LARGE chunks of dialogue. Try and keep the dialogue to around four sentences. Break this up by including movements or mannerisms of your character. Maybe he takes a large drink or motions for another shot. Maybe describe the bar tender rolling his eyes. You need some white space.

- You need to *properly* introduce your characters. i.e. WILL MCDONOUGH (30’s), a seasoned San Francisco Police Officer, sits at the bar and sips on his favorite whiskey.

- Do not use “shots”. This is a spec script. Spec scripts do not use camera directions. Save that for a production/shooting script. I know it’s hard not to think about how you envision the movie playing out – but right now, your job is to tell the story and give enough description that will keep it moving. Unfortunately, this does not involve directing.

- Page 1 and 2: provide more action lines to describe what is going on between WILL’s annoyance of the FRAT BOY’s and the pool table area the FRAT BOY’s are at. For example.
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Will downs the last of his whiskey and motions for another. A loud group of three college FRAT BOYS (20’s) has caught his attention. Their pool playing is as loud as they are.

WILL
What’s with the yo-yo’s?

BOBBY
Oh, you know, frat boys enjoying the start of the college year...

POOL TABLE AREA

FRAT BOY ONE (20’s) makes what he thinks is a championship shot.

FRAT BOY ONE
...
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So what you need to do is describe to us what is going on in more action lines. This will help the director visualize the camera shots. And as a reader, it helps us to visualize in our heads what is going on. We can’t see inside your head – you must *put* us there, so to speak.

- Page 6 already and lots of spelling errors.

- Page 6: an officer pulling out a gun and shooting someone...this tough cop act died in the 80’s. No policeman would be safe from backlash if he was off-duty and pulled a gun and started shooting – even if he was threatened with a knife. I would use a police tazer here. It’s just as effective and you could have fun with it by triggering it every time the FRAT BOY doesn’t say “Yes, officer McDonough.” But getting hit in the shoulder with a bullet slug isn’t going to be a calm situation – or good for our hero. He'll be faced with all sorts of questions by the police force and community. It's just not "accepted" anymore. I’d lose the gun in this scene.

- Page 10/11: WILL’s conversation with his wife, NANCY has very boring dialogue. He comes home, she freaks out by the blood on his shirt, they discuss chicken in the fridge...that’s it. Other than to show NANCY is a concerned wife, what is this scene for? It doesn’t drive home any type of meaning. In other words, it’s not necessary to drive the story. For each scene, you need to think to yourself, what is it for? What is it doing? Is it helping my plot? Each scene should be like a mini-movie, it should have a beginning, a conflict, and a resolution. The dialogue should help drive the story. Use this time to tell us in more detail about their relationship. Are they bitter to each other? Is she supportive but he the bitter one? Does she think everything is fine and he has a secret problem? From this scene, we know that NANCY is hot and she likes to work-out and make chicken. You need a better exposition for her.

- Page 13: BOBBY is giving up too much information. I gathered that BOBBY and WILL were tight friends. Not to mention the fact that WILL saved his butt! So a reporter just barges in and starts asking questions and BOBBY willingly gives up most of the story, and THEN asks the reporter to leave? It’s too simple. Why not have BOBBY give MARTY a false story? BOBBY should know that reporters are trouble and no one wants to willingly give up information unless they’re getting something in return. Look at just about every Hollywood movie involving a reporter and you’ll see that their job isn’t this easy. If it is, there’s a twist and the reporter knows he’s been duped. Also, having BOBBY give a false story gives you the second plot you need for your structure and will lengthen the story some (85 pages is WAAAAY short). So BOBBY gives MARTY a false story – he’s a victim, so now when MARTY goes to talk to the FRAT BOYS, they give a different story. Now it becomes a plot of: who is the public going to believe? A group of college frat boys causing trouble? Or a decorated San Fran cop? MARTY knows WILL is on the edge, so MARTY must work that much harder to prove how dangerous WILL is. Conflict. You need more conflict.

- Page 16: MARTY is on a mission. He wants to take down WILL. But as soon as he starts talking to WILL, MARTY is overpowered and cowers down. This should be a confrontation. Instead, WILL cuts him off and leaves. MARTY hardly puts up a fight.

- Page 17: Okay, WILL is walking down the streets of China Town and he’s talking to himself? In public? Better to make this a V.O. (voice over). Otherwise, you’re going to make him look crazy, and not in a good villain psychopath kind of way; but in a drool down the mouth sitting in the mental ward kind of way.

- Page 23/24: Again, dialogue about ordering Chinese food...why? It just seems like filler lines to up the page count. Not to mention that you have almost 2 ½ pages of dialogue and no action lines. There needs to be a healthy balance. Describe to us what is going on.

- Pages 30/31: So this is an elegant dinner party and JULES gets upset over a traffic ticket? Also, is WILL just a beat cop? I figured him more for detective work or something other than just writing tickets and shooting frat boys.

- Page 34: I don’t think a policeman can bring suspects in using a civilian car. You may want to do more research on this.

- So a pothead busted WITH possession NEXT TO A SCHOOL and he gets bailed out that easily by a reporter? Again, WAAAAY to easy. Possession of an illegal substance in front of an elementary school makes me want to hate this guy. But you manage to try and make him likable by talking with the reporter. And how did MARTY know BLAKE was in jail? BLAKE used his call to order food (which is quite ridiculous – that stuff only happened in the 80’s cop movies). Why not have it that BLAKE makes a phone call, but we don’t know who to. Then later, we see MARTY talking to BLAKE during a jail visit. Maybe BLAKE is a known informant to MARTY. But having MARTY bailed so easily is not very believable.

Also, you’re trying to push this sub-plot of MARTY’s relationship with KRISTA, but it’s just not working. There’s not enough exposition or back-story.

- Too many scenes of people talking to themselves and too many references to eating donuts. It was funny the first few times, but by page 68, it’s old. Use the running jokes sparingly.

- Ending...??? MARTY is grateful he was saved, RUBY is dead, and WILL is biting and clawing at money from his safe...the end???? It doesn’t make any sense.

PREMISE: From the logline: “Will, a San Francisco police officer, is obsessed with making the world a better place for his daughter by any way he can justify. Marty writes for a newspaper and wants to bring Will down to further his career and life goals. Their ambitions collide with tragic results.” From this, I gathered that WILL is a vigilante cop and MARTY is a reporter hell-bent on trying to bring justice to WILL. I was suspecting a showdown of sorts between the two. Instead, your story never tells us why WILL became a vigilante in the first place or why MARTY is so focused on WILL. So, your premise and story do not match. Instead, WILL and MARTY end up working together of sorts. Why would WILL want to give a story to the reporter who is trying to nail him? Why does MARTY have a change of heart and choose not to pursue WILL? Why couldn’t MARTY struggle with busting WILL’s involvement of gun smuggling at the same time begin grateful that maybe WILL saved MARTY’s life? There’s no real irony or twist in the story. The story should give us what your premise promises...and it doesn’t.

Also, your logline doesn’t produce any irony. It could, but it doesn’t. It needs a twist. As you have it, you have a vigilante cop and a reporter...ok??? What next? If WILL secretly deals in illegal arms, maybe he could use that as a means to make the busts that make him such a decorated detective. And maybe MARTY is secretly one of the dealers, who is also a prize winning reporter. The irony is that both of them are leading double lives and in the end, there’s a showdown when WILL, the cop, and MARTY, the reporter, meet as the dealer and buyer respectively. Now, both of them must choose what to do. If WILL busts MARTY, MARTY has the story of WILL being the supplier. If MARTY reports a story on WILL to expose him, WILL can take him down. See? Irony. You need more of that in your premise.

STORY STRUCTURE: This needs a LOT of work. First, where is the hook? We’ve got an opening scene inside a bar where some college kids get pistol whipped by a vigilante cop a-la 80’s cop movie style. But that’s it. If this gun smuggling is going to be a big part of the story, you need to incorporate that. While you have some opening action, it’s not effective for the rest of the story.

Next, your exposition is not effective. WHO is WILL? Why is he so bitter? Why is MARTY so hell-bent on taking down MARTY? These two are your protagonist and antagonist. FAN-LO ends up being just a filler character. And we don’t meet him until near the end. Same with MR. JIMMY. No exposition for him either.

Where is your debate? We know that WILL is bitter against crime, but what debates this? This is where backstory comes in to play. Did he lose a partner? Did he grow up in a rough neighborhood? Was his family killed by gang-bangers? Same with MARTY. He’s trying to bring down WILL, but where’s his motivation to do so? We know WILL smuggles guns to earn cash for his daughters future (good conflict here), but you never really play on that as much. It’s diluted by the other plot holes in your story.

You also need clear plot points. Two of them. Will does not transition into the B-Story. Where’s the catalyst that drives him. He tracks down bad guys...he shoots them. That’s it. You need a better villain. It’s assumed WILL is the villain here because we never meet FAN-LO until the end. But if you had a different villain who drives WILL to do something, that will be a better catalyst. Maybe he gets pressure to make this latest deal. Maybe the police force is starting to suspect him and it interferes with him being able to make the sale. This is why I think having MARTY a secret buyer would be good conflict.

I think your ALL IS LOST moment could be when RUBY is killed, but that’s at the end. For that, you’re missing this important part of your story.

ACT III is too short also. There’s a quick shoot-out and RUBY dies. That’s it. There’s no resolution. In fact, there’s a hole because MARTY never was able to bring down WILL.

CHARACTER: This also needs a lot of work. None of your characters have arcs. Sure, WILL loses what he loves most, RUBY, but it wasn’t a result of his doing. She was kidnapped. WILL is a *vigilante* cop. That means, you should have someone he busted up to interfere, not a previous mob boss. WILL never has any self-discovery or a turning point. The only conflict he faces is when RUBY is taken. He never has a bottom-of-the-barrel moment or an elated sense that everything is going great – only to have it come crashing down. WILL is a strange character. He talks to himself, out loud, a lot...and he eats a bunch of donuts. And he always seems to get away with extreme violence. As I stated, he doesn’t have a very good exposition. If WILL is your hero, make us like him. We never get that. Sure, he took out some bad guys and he loves his daughter, but beyond that, he’s very vanilla.

MARTY seems more interesting and you could have done way more with him. But he too is vanilla. He has a sub-plot (which doesn’t really help the story along) of him budding a relationship with KRISTA. But that never develops. It’s filler material and it makes for a boring read. In the end, MARTY never has a self-defining moment.

The rest of the characters never have an arc either. Characters should be distinctive, define conflict to each other, have a sense that things are going their way, only to have it shot down by the conflict, have a moment of motivation, and then have resolution. NONE of your characters have this. This aids in the breakdown of the effectiveness of your story.

DIALOGUE: VERY BLAND. They say stuff. That’s it. Some of it is very long and very boring. You have a large chunk talking about what they will order for Chinese. Your dialogue needs to move the story. You also need to say your dialogue out loud. Hear what you are writing and see if it makes sense to you. Listen to the tone you want to portray. Get some friends and read it. Here’s an example of bad dialogue and execution:

Ending scene on page 85:
EDITOR
Good work, Marty. But if you ever pull a stunt like that, I’ll shoot you myself.

MARTY
Nice. Let’s talk about my new responsibilities and raise.

EDITOR
Tomorrow, alright? Go home. We’ll run this front page and all over the site. You’re going to be very busy. But no more hero stuff, promise?

MARTY
He really was the hero, right?

First of all, what “stunt” did MARTY pull? Going into the drug bust with WILL? Then you should state that. Why does MARTY reply with “Nice.”? Also, what “new responsibilities”? He produced a story. He’s a reporter. He’s supposed to report stories. Then the EDITOR says, “no more hero stuff, promise”, it’s just too bland. Make it more clever. And then MARTY loses any credibility he had by asking, “He really was the hero, right?” He went through all of that, put out a good story, and then questions himself. Why?

I offer to you the following instead:

The editor finishes that last of the article and tosses it onto the desk. He studies Marty a moment.

MARTY
Well?

EDITOR
It’s some of your best, I’ll give you that.

The editor leans forward like a principal ready to scold his student.

EDITOR
But if you EVER pull a rogue super-hero stunt like that again, I will personally see to it that you’re running paper routes instead of reporting. If you wanna go play super sleuth, go start your own business.

Marty gives a half smile and takes the draft article.

MARTY
Wasn’t it you who said, “if you’re not in the heart of the story, you’re not reporting the story, you’re reporting gossip”?

EDITOR
Don’t twist my words around.

MARTY
Why don’t we discuss that sometime when we discuss my raise?

EDITOR
Get outta here and go find me another story. The only raise you’re getting is one in your life insurance policy.
----

So what we’ve done here is given the EDITOR a harder personality. Like all EDITORS should have. He’s ticked that MARTY jeopardized his life and the good namesake of the Globe, but he’s happy he got a good story. He gives MARTY a good stern warning and then lets him go because he knows MARTY is the best at what he does. MARTY tries to slide in getting a raise and the EDITOR makes reference that he should be raising his life insurance instead. It’s more fun.

EMOTION: The only emotion I got was when WILL was with his daughter. Other than that, the characters are pretty flat. MARTY has a few moments where he’s got some passion for KRISTA, but we never see that develop and resolve. This needs a lot of work also. It needs to drive the story along.

OVERALL: This needs a LOT of work. Go back and develop the logline and idea better. Give us irony. Give us conflict. Give us a reason to WANT to see what happens to WILL and MARTY. Then read some articles on story structure. GOOGLE is your friend. Look up articles on how to develop your act structure. Then do an outline. And THEN start writing. Most of all, make us WANT to keep reading. Give us a hook. The hook is what makes us say, “wow, I want to read more and see what happens!” It grabs our attention. But before that, you have to have a clever idea. And you portray that by a good logline. If your logline isn’t interesting, we won’t want to read it in the first place. Next, speak your dialogue when you write it. Hear how it sounds. If it sounds off, rewrite it. Watch some movies and pay attention. Check out some screenplays that were written. www.imsdb.com is a good place to start. That is the Internet Movie Screenplay Database. It has a long list of screenplays you can read to get a good idea.

One last thing: the title...NICE WAVE. ?? It sounds like a surfer movie. I would work on this as well.

Lastly, DON’T STOP WRITING! As soon as you think you’ve got it, read over and do it again. You can never have too many revisions. Happy writing!

Formatting issues, but your work gets the story across; although you seem to be over spacing to get page count up -- If so, think of adding more conflict, worry about Ruby to generate more scenes. Maybe have Will see a man in Ruby’s bedroom to set up worry for his child, it turning out to be just shadows of course, his imagination. Gives more belief that maybe he is crazy as he talks to himself.

Most crime, crooked cop and family situations seem same old stuff here, something for Will to do, for you to get to your dramatic ending of crime doesn’t pay. Sorry, but I hate your downer ending.

As I read the same old storyline situations, I pictured it all going bad, only in my ending, I have Internal Affairs and the Feds in hot water for letting Will work, using him, knowing he was having a nervous breakdown while undercover. Have your ending, but let Marty retrieve his cell phone from his pocket asking if they (9-1-1) are still on line. He hears sirens; squads pulling up outside as Will cries for his daughter, tells 9-1-1 to never mind, thank you. You can still have Will tossing money like in your ending, us thinking the worse, but that is where you bring in the Feds, Police brass and doctors to subdue him. He can wake in the hospital by his daughter’s bedside, Marty and the wives there waiting to fill him in. You have your sad, and now a happy ending.

Anyway, with a few more hallucinations from Will, strategically placed, you will keep everyone entertained and add more pages.

Nice Wave is a police thriller with lots of action. Brendan takes you into the world of a lone wolf cop named Will. Will's greatest treasure in life is his family and the crowning jewel of his family is his daughter Ruby. Will is determined to build a better world for Ruby even if it means taking the law into his own hands and playing by his own rules.

After an altercation with some frats boys which leaves them in the hospital, Marty an up and coming reporter begins to check into Will because Marty believes Will is a dirty cop. This story ends with an unexpected climax that really hits home when Will recruits Marty to help him get his daughter back.


Premise
The premise is strong and gives you a sense of what stepping over the line in law enforcement would be like. The opening scene paints a very real picture of who Will really is and how far he will go to get justice.


Structure
The structure is sound but might need a little tweaking. The story seems to flow from one scene to another that builds more toward a climatic end. It could use a little more support in the traditional three act convention.

Character
The characters are real and I had no problem figuring out their motives. The give and take between Will and his wife Nancy gave me a real sense of who Will is and what his priorities are. Ruby.

Stakes
The stakes for Will are life and death. But the biggest stake for him is making a better world for his daughter to grow up in.

Dialogue
The dialogue could use just a little more tweaking as well. Some of it was on the nose but not that much. There could be more conflict in some of the more personal conversations.

Cinematic Value
I think the cinematic Value of Nice Wave would be a gritty cop story similar to that of Dirty Harry. Like Dirty Harry Nice Wave is set in San Francisco and I think a good car chase scene would add a lot to the cinematic Value of this story. (but that's just me).