Michael P. Smith

Overall I thought this was a pretty solid script that I can see being greenlighted for production. The story and characters capture the culture of dying industrial town with no hopes of renewing itself perfectly and how the people residing here cope with that outlook day to day.

The dialogue in the script is very strong and you definitely get inside the heads of the characters and understand them. The one problem I did have with the dialogue is in the second act with Eron and Kerri as 14 and 13 year old speaking like sages. For their age they are speaking far too intelligently and too mature. I did not hear kids speaking but 40-somethings.

The scenes in the car with three character talking spoke of Tarantino I thought. This was very well written. Some of the scene transitions were a little vague as I had trouble making sense in some of them (the Denny's parking lot scene for example) and need more of a smooth, clear transition so the story has flow.

The tempo in the first act is excellent! It had me going right from the first page onward. What bothered me a little was that tempo hitting the breaks going into the second act. It was as if the story just said "Whoa!" and stopped nearly on the dime. This is understood though when you consider the structure of the script so it is understandable.

All in all very solid script that needs a polishing here and there (found typos and grammar issues) and maybe some reworking on the second act dialogue to fit the characters mental age. Thumbs up!

I thought the premise and dialogue were very strong, maybe too strong (especially dialogue). The story I feel takes too long to get going, if it does at all. The comic book store scene I felt was the best as you got the gist of what was going on and how it effected the community, the problem is it took too long to get there (this is about half way through the script).

The dialogue is strong, but it seems everyone speaks the same way, and having 17-18 year old boys speak that profoundly and in depth seems a little unrealistic. The dialogue between Eugene and his mom at the Post was not that of a mother and son speaking I thought. Too robotic and sterile.

The payoff at the end works for the concept of the story, but falls a little flat. When you read into the comic book store scene, you feel something more diabolical was going to take place and it doesn't. What is considered a dialogue script needs more of the action to carry the story. Only at the scene at the Post near the end do we find the action carrying the story. Before then, its all dialogue. This script could easily be a stageplay as well.

All in all the story has a great premise, just needs to be retooled some by arriving at the "hook" of the story sooner and not have the first 50 pages drag the story. Dialogue also needs to be looked at as mostly everyone sounds the same.