Reviews of Blackbird Pie 2

• 
  blackbird pie review
  A review of Blackbird Pie
  by jaybronx5 on 05/26/2010
  Story: This gritty crime story has a ton of potential. I highly enjoyed the family aspect of the story as it brought a sense of emotion. Characters: The characters weren’t engaging from the start. But, during the course of the story, I began to sympathize with Jim's plight to save his family. Although with Danny's reckless behavior from the start, you kind of figured everything... Story: This gritty crime story has a ton of potential. I highly enjoyed the family aspect of the story as it brought a sense of emotion.
  
  Characters: The characters weren’t engaging from the start. But, during the course of the story, I began to sympathize with Jim's plight to save his family. Although with Danny's reckless behavior from the start, you kind of figured everything was going to catch up with him rather sooner than later.
  
  Structure: first ten pages are meant to hook the reader, but nothing meaningful happens (action wise) until twenty odd pages in. I know you're trying to establish the character/story/overall tone of the story, but I still think it's too late to get the ball rolling. You have grab the reader early. Although, the second and third acts moved together nicely, the long stretches of descriptive lines really killed whatever momentum you were trying to establish.
  
  dialogue: It was okay for its intention (to move the story) but I felt at times there were too much talking and not enough action, especially early on.
  
  overall: You obviously have a talent. As I said I really liked your story, but the script is overwhelmed by the lengthy action lines. I couldn’t really get into a consistent flow, reading wise, with the story because of it. It felt like I was reading a novel, than a screenplay. A major rewrite could do wonders for this script.
  
  Reader’s notes:
  The long passages within the action lines drags down the overall flow of the story. It doesn’t matter what your story’s about, or how good it is, a reader will undoubtedly toss this to the “pass” pile as soon as they see those lengthy action lines. Try to edit these down to more readable lines. About one to two lines, never more than four. The more white spaces the better.
  
  Pg. 3 you don’t need a separate slug line if it’s within the same building, just type the locale and the action lines beneath it. Ex.
  
  BAR
  
  A BLOND BARTENDER approaches Danny... etc.
  
  A lot times you tell rather than show. Screenplays are visual. Type what can be filmed. It goes back to the long passages again. You have so much cramped within those long paragraphs, 95% of which are completely unfilmable.
  
  Pg. 13 (Jim and Sophie embrace enthusiastically) could be written as a action. read
• 
  MY KEEPER'S BROTHER
  A review of Blackbird Pie
  by gclifton on 05/21/2010
  MY KEEPER'S BROTHER You have an innovative, fresh idea here, which in the crime story area, is very difficult to find. Hank falls on his butt and Benny the evil dope dealer strong-arms and blackmails younger brother Jim into service as a mule on pain of death to his loved ones. Although in my years of dealing with this in real life I've seen coercion in a hundred ways, this... MY KEEPER'S BROTHER
  
  You have an innovative, fresh idea here, which in the crime story area, is very difficult to find. Hank falls on his butt and Benny the evil dope dealer strong-arms and blackmails younger brother Jim into service as a mule on pain of death to his loved ones. Although in my years of dealing with this in real life I've seen coercion in a hundred ways, this has a good twist to the scenario. You've got a good idea here.
  
  BUUUT, as they say, here are some areas I feel you might want to shade a little.
  
  The dopers are all too nice and too hygienically correct. No doubt, any grass smoker who reads this will disagree, but this crowd you describe rarely buy their wardrobes from Lord and Taylor. Alan should have gone into the priesthood. And surely he was smart enough not to deal large quantities from his luxury home. Maybe have Jim go to a third party location like a warehouse, or in the country where surveillance would be more difficult?
  
  When Hank gets busted, granted you want him to be nice in this story, but consider when the agents ask him questions, would he make any admission("Sorry" or "can't tell you that.")? Had that situation a thousand times. They invariably said "Lawyer" or I ain't did shit" or some spiel about the guy the cops killed supposed to deliver bibles to his house and he had no idea what was in the load. Consider adding a surveillance photo they show to Hank at the interrogation, showing him holding a box of weed?
  
  A lot of folks night not pick up on this, but Danny smells of snitch from the getgo. You give a second hint when he snags the duffel bag after Hank's arrest. I wonder if he might be less visible if you didn't sort of set him aside by typing in Hank's and Jim's last names at dialogue headings? Or maybe make him a family cousin? Covering his with the third party character(forgot name) in the stripclub was good. Third guy on a dope deal tends to signal dealer-types to beware of a snitch.
  
  Page 42, Morrison: "...he's the devil incarnate." Maybe "he's a freeking animal" or worse.
  
  Page 50: "police glibberish." Maybe "radio chatter"?
  
  You might want to look at some action scenes which are going to be difficult to film. Page 55, "She realizes he doesn't want to talk about it," or page 85, "Jim thinks back to the duffel bag," The latter could be a FLASHBACK, etc, deal.
  
  Page 77, "frumpy suit." No agents wear or unless attending a funeral even own suits. Page 101: "Nobody else at DEA gives a shit about us," would prove unbelievably untrue if these folks murdered an agent. You are on the right trail in that an old guy on his way out, stuck on marijuana cases is definitely not on an upwardly mobile career path. Consider finding another reason to kill him. Screwing or jailing Benny's sister might make it personal enough. He knows Benny. Maybe Benny could accuse Morrison of stealing his stash, etc? A man killed in an arrest, etc, is on a different plane from the individual contract killing of a federal officer or any officer for that matter. Retribution for something like that is Armageddon in doperville.
  
  And hey. None of that is criticism. I like this story. You reach well into sensitive area difficult to describe in a gritty language. Reads well and easily. gclifton111@yahoo.com
  
  
  
  
  
  read