billan (The "Island")

The read was relatively quick, good pacing, I actually read it past the first 30 pages (page 35).
I'm not a fan of flashbacks because sometimes it loses the reader but I was able to keep up with these. Imagery was fine, not too wordy, again, very easy read.

Favorite Part:

The interactions with Seth and Goose were good. Dialogue sounded good, very readable and didn't seem like it was forced.

Characters:

Zinger, meh, not real impressed by him or his character. Just seemed kind of a carbon clone of a Bully.
Seth is a good sympathetic character, I like how he names his GF Goose.
Goose, love her. Awesome gal, great lines nothing of her's seems wasted.
Young Reb has a few nice lines. good bit part, nice role.
Hiram, good nature character, funny lines and I had a soft spot for this guy.
Doc, he wasn't too bad of a character, I like the fact that he was looking out for everyone though he was a reb.

What doesn't work for me:

There are a lot of characters that seem to say a line or two and are never to be seen again. I went back to count the characters that had a line of dialogue or more and there are over 17 characters that have speaking roles in the first 30 pages. I'm not sure how there could be that many characters in such a short time but there they were. Looking back, this is way too many.

Solid script and good writing, I feel that the pacing was good, but would not have minded if our lead character was a bit more proactive.

Overall I would rate this 3 to 3.5 stars for the first 30 pages.

Here goes.

The idea of this review is to point out the strengths and weaknesses of this script in order to improve upon a further draft. This is in no way meant to be a slam on the writer or some kiss ass review, this is an honest attempt at a helpful review.

First of all, I like the script, it was an easy read, not taking long and not hanging much. The character of Brady was sympathetic in the beginning when he is walked all over in his own classroom. The scene of Brady not being able to stop a fight when a student silently pleads to him is a great emotional look into Brady's insecurities and self doubts. I liked the beginning.

The scene with the ex-GF seemed to be something that was going to come back in at some point, maybe I thought that Maggie would tie in more to the story but she was really just a stepping stone in his character development. That seemed like there should have been a little more umph to it.

The first time that Brady and Monica connect, it seems very genuine, I really liked the interaction with Brady and the cast, but it did seem like he did a lot of shaking of hands. The Bomb scene, (first one) was great, but every death scene after that started losing it's magic.

So I'm all good with the first 24 or so pages. The next 75 or so pages would prove to be a tough sell.

One big thing was that I did want to know was, why is there a "reset" at noon.
I also wanted a bit more then failure after failure by Brady and a auto "reset" at that point. Maybe if he lost five minutes every time the Bomb went off then that would mean that he would eventually "lose" and he would not be able to change things and run out of time. Then the people would stay dead and he would not be able to change things.

This to me will be your biggest challenge, make it seem like Brady is losing a chance at saving everyone at the coffee shop with each failure.

Good luck and keep working at this script, it has potential!

I also liked the way you were able to condense the script into 4-5 locations.

I look forward to reading and reviewing your next revision.

Thank you -
billan