Jon Poland

I only got through the first 11 pages. I'm sure there's a market for this, but it definitely ain't me. If you laugh at people, it should be for what they do, not who they are. Otherwise it comes across as mean-spirited. Given I didn't finish it, maybe it redeems itself later, I don't know.

I loved your concept, mainly because it reminded me of Dodgeball, which is one of my favorite comedies. But that's also in some way the problem because, while it's fine, it doesn't rise to the level of Dodgeball (and won't because it's designed to be more low-brow/raunchy).

The following are problems from least to greatest:

Szabo and Bent have nice late model vehicles. How? They don't have jobs or rich parents and they're not drug dealers. It can't be from scamming off poor guys like TP. You might have given a reason and I missed it. These guys are little more than a sideshow.

The water's been shut off, but General puts Judge in the shower to sober him up. Huh?

Judge's name came from him being judgmental straight out of the birth canal (which is awesome - keep that), but he also inherited his father's kind eyes. Either you've got judgmental eyes or kind eyes; I don't think you can have both at the same time...but there's a fix that also fixes another problem in your script. Transformation. Judge doesn't really go through much of one.

You could have him start out being the moody/judgmental teenager who feels his life is perpetually screwed by his mother despite his efforts, take on the "fake" persona of a spinner when he sees this as his ticket out (Why do you have him so resistant? He should be smart-enough to see the opportunity.), fail to rise to his potential because he's still stuck on this idea that spinning isn't really in him, discover Rusty is his father during semis which he has barely eked through (need to emphasize Darth Vader in that scene), run away because he can't accept his parentage/birthright, then (with the prospect of a championship default looming) come to terms with and finally embrace the spinner within - bringing out the true champion that he is. Sure he goes to college, but he spins on the side because it's in his blood - he has the heart of a spinner. Never forget your roots.

The more epic/Joseph Campbell you make this, the funnier it will be. This isn't just some kid from a trailer park; this is someone with the potential to be a world champion spinner - if only he can overcome all the obstacles placed before him, including his own attitude. You won't need all the gross-out humor to carry the story (except the tomato juice gag; Jerry's response is priceless).

Finally, you have a major problem with your villain - he's gay...and not only is he gay, he's the only gay person in the script. Are you actually planning to sell this script or is this just an exercise? All Hollywood producers are either gay or gay-friendly. If you don't do something about it, you're screwed.

One possible fix is for Judge to have a gay friend, who he defends over the objections/ridicule of his less-enlightened friends. This friend helps him train for the competition. When Judge runs away, the gay friend knows where he would hide. He helps him come to terms with and embrace who he really is - because he can relate - he had to do the same thing when he came to terms with being gay. Now your story has a moral...unless your other moral is "just relax about drug use", which might be a problem for Hollywood too.

I was a big Agatha Christie fan as a kid and this brings back memories. As I grew older, I realized that she cheated a lot and I grew tired of the genre. It's hard to make one of these murder mysteries hold together and you do a reasonably good job of it while making it reasonably funny. However Edith's reasoning for letting the Chauffeur go and not the maid makes no sense, but I suppose could be justified by the revelation at the end.

There's no 3-act structure to this in that the protagonists don't really have internal conflicts to contend with that they overcome and no great setbacks either. They don't really grow as far as I can tell. But it's a shallow romp, so who cares? They're certainly likeable-enough.

I would try to make this funnier. It's a riff on a genre and there has to be more opportunity for tongue and cheek. I can think of 3 times where I laughed out loud and certainly I smiled a lot, but I would say that it's more amusing than funny. I'd try to make it the other way around "The butler definitely didn't do it" is priceless.

Something that I've been told to avoid as a screenwriter is directing from the page. You do that a lot, especially at the beginning. I think you've got good ideas, but unless you're pushing to direct this film, I would tone it down. It might come across as distracting and off-putting.

A very fun read. Really cracked me up throughout. I was a little confused about the action sequences aboard the space station and the spaceship. Plus Evil Hugo's motivation/actions seemed somewhat inconsistent, but other than that I wouldn't change a thing.

Very funny and action-packed. Definitely a page-turner. Didn't want to put it down. The four protagonists really come alive (yes, even MoBu). You obviously had a lot of fun with them and I had a lot of fun caring about them. I don't understand the critique about spending to much time in front of a screen. That was the setup and mostly it's a road-trip movie. I can even buy Azita taking Rishi back given his personal growth. A few issues though:

1. The transition from Owen's apartment to the outside world doesn't work for me. He would never go to his landlord to try to borrow his car for a road trip, especially since they have a poor relationship, he owes him money and can't drive anyway. The uncle/aunt thing was a weak caricature throwaway. Your screenplay deserves better than that.

2. A Mercedes wouldn't have government plates -- unless it was the German government. Why bother to mention government plates?

3. It's a shame that the only black person in your screenplay is a stereotypical bad guy. That may make it a tough sell.

4. Your script is 111 pages. I'm new at this, but my understanding is that's pretty long for a comedy. At least your pacing seems quick.

5. I don't buy that when they get to Dreamz, they suddenly believe that D'Mario may be a decent guy after all. Not credible given what he and his cronies did leading up to the meeting.

6. Why did Kat decide to help MoBu?

7. If the cronies got their guns taken away at The Library, how are they shooting at the protagonists during the car chase? Just assume backup guns? Why were the protagonists even running away from them at this point? How didn't the protagonists get at least one of those guns to shoot back? Did I miss something?

I don't want to sound too critical. Just hope this is helpful. I actually learned a lot about how to write a good script from you.