Kitchen (Screenplay)

Bio: Alex Blair works at a plant nursery and studies at UT Austin. He also writes spec screenplays. Contact.

Logline: Sam and Dean are badass mercenaries. But when their friend goes missing by a suspected Canadian, they go after all of Canada. (COMEDY)

Note: This is Act I only. If you like it, urge him to keep going!

PDF.

Comments --

Alex,

I’m going to ignore formatting and grammar and talk about big picture stuff—

The script has promise. It’s zany, it’s quirky, and Dave and Sam are good characters. I’m going to start with big picture stuff. Your plot seems to be a rescue mission that doesn’t come in until page 29 with the line: “let’s go get our friend?” The first part of your screenplay is setup and it manages to introduce exposition about Sam and Dave and it tells me about their interests, their chemistry, and their quips. They are funny characters. I like their relationship and I buy them. I’m not sure which one I like better, and in turn, I feel like both the characters could be interchangeable. I don’t feel like the characters are different enough for me to distinguish between who is saying what. This is a problem, but I think you can manage to get away with it, because ultimately, they are best buds, and let’s be realistic: best friends talk alike.

I’d rate your character development at a B+. This is a strong element at work in the screenplay. On screen, they will be likeable goofballs, and I enjoy their humor. I can tell you managed to work some of yourself in there, and for this, I love it.

Your strongest suit, which unfortunately will not make it on screen, is your description. You’ve got a lot of good lines comparing things, introducing people, and economy. “Like a balloon/porcupine farm.” Etc.

Moving on—

The first twenty pages of your screenplay need serious work. Not in terms of lines or characters or humor, but in terms of story. The first ten pages are the most crucial thing in selling a spec, and to be honest, I wouldn’t have kept reading past page ten. It’d go to the bottom of the stack.

Let’s examine why: plot. Your plot and story need work. You spend roughly ten pages with Sam and Dave and then move Lafayette (here on L). L seems unrelated to the plot in large ways, and ultimately, Sam and Dave seem inconsequential. I have no idea what the story is until page 29. Some boys go to Canada, there’s this Canadian badass L that really likes Canada, but it doesn’t fit. Granted, I’m only reading the first Act, I know you will eventually tie these two elements together in some sort of ridiculous climax that involves firing a tank and a brewery.

L’s introduction goes on too long. He’s walking and talking around town for 2-3 pages and I’m bored. Show me one scene, and move on to the kidnapping of Marty. The Gypsies are interesting characters and have funny lines: “your hair is so soft/like a bunny.” They seem unrelated.

The main problem I had with your script is nothing felt connected, everything felt disjoined and the scenes didn’t seem to flow into each other. Your scenes in terms of Dave/Sam’s arc and L’s arc FLOW, but together they seem like fire and ice.

Let’s talk about motivation. The motivation of your main plot (Sam/Dave rescue Marty) is weak. They don’t really want to do in the first place. No main character, no matter how jokingly should say: "I guess we can rescue Marty." Granted, I've made a similar mistake in my earlier screenplays but it can be fixed in rewrites.

I’d cut down the penis/sex joke subtext. You have it featured so much in the script that you really lose the humor. Sam/Dave make so many jokes about tanks and dicks and sex that I’m tired by page ten. Then when really funny lines come along I’m not convinced.

Let’s talk dialogue. Your dialogue is witty, but it rambles a lot. I’d work on cutting down useless words. I’m skeptical on a paragraph of dialogue that goes for longer than 1 sentence. Sometimes you can get away with 2. Three is max. You better have a damn good reason for 4-5. Like I’m revealing everything about my movie in these next lines.

Specifics—

Page 6- “Eye to eye, toe to ear.” Awkward. Can see what your going for, didn’t work.

Page 7- “nefarious.” Nobody would say this. Remove.

Page 13- “root beer.” This scene was hilarious. Nice work.

Page 15- “throw Marty in traffic.” This was your best line. So simple, yet so effective. No sexual references yet it still soared.

Page 18- "sixteen teeth" = lol

You do a good job of naming the horses, the tanks, it creates characters where they shouldn’t be.

“Well, Oh, Oh yeah, Now” --

I noted this many times during dialogue. Please watch unnecessary “well, oh, oh yeah,” in dialogue. I feel like screenwriters do this because they don’t know what they want to say when writing, and they end up with unnecessary words. The actors will add stuff like this. I’d work on trimming down lines.

Page 25/26- Sexual humor that works.

Page 28- Solid Gypsy dialogue with muffin on page.

Motivation: they don’t like Marty. This needs to change.

Sidenote: clever introduction about The Strangers.

This is all I can think of right now. If you have specific comments, or want me to expand, like me know. I’d be happy to expand on any of my ideas. I’d love to help rewrite dialogue or rethink plot points.

Readers: feel free to criticize my comments or the script. Round table is the best type of table.