In Name of the Law

[Frank Witkam]

In Name of the Law

Logline: An outlaw disturbs the sheriff's plans to bring peace to his town


First entry to a ScriptFest. Look forward to reading everyone's work. Hope I can make the deadline with something worthwhile, still in my first draft at the moment.

[seansshack]

Good luck with it and welcome!

[Ezekiel667]

Welcome! Hope to read it when the deadline comes, keep working at it!

[conlanforever]

Welcome to scriptfest. Every script written is worth while, at the very least. You learn from your mistakes and you're a better writer for it.
Looking forward to it.

[jamiejay]

you still in? hope so. looking forward to the read.

jamie :)

[lawriejaffa]

Righto well heres an interesting script with bits I really liked and some bits that left me wondering a teeny weeny bit!

One of the great themes of this story is summed up with a great quote, that 'the greatest evil is done with the best of intention' (at least the quote is roughly like that and someone else im sure will attribute it to its rightly source!)

So anyway, its study of a characters transition from being 'saved' by another - only to rebel and ultimately depart is almost like a metaphorical story of child into adulthood. We get an inkling of that with our full cast of characters, the kid, the man and the old man - each ranked accordingly by their badge.

You chose the point of confrontation to be settled and fought in a brothel - over well prostitutes really and suspected bandits of course. Not to get too Freudian here, but this engagement for the character of Jesse - with sex, and the mysteries of what his father does (defacto father hehe) again add to making this a western coming of age story!

I quite like that perspective, and also to imagine that Jessy himself (our narrator more or less) may have a skewed perspective of what really happened. As what does happen (with the bandit and who or what he is / and the reward ie. Henry etc) I have to admit got a little cloudy in my mind.

Who was what - and what was going on (with precise certainty) is not something i always had - but i still enjoyed the script, and felt within it - a compelling story and entertaining story. As some have already remarked, everyone has raised a notch for this fest ;)

[jamiejay]

i liked this script. it definitely had elements of a real western and, as already mentioned, the character development of jesse as he becomes independent works well.

i was a bit unsure about character motivation at times, which made it seem as if there was more to the story. is this part of a longer script?

i had a sneaking suspicion that henry was really johnny ringo... but i am probably way off base...

nice work :)

[Bridget D.]

Just wanted to let you know I liked your script...I also got the impression that Henry was actually Ringo, but wasn't sure. I just think it was a little unclear.

I liked the title you chose - a bit ironic. :)

[Frank Witkam]

Some very interesting comments there, guys. I have to admit I drowned a little in all the characters and plot I created. I probably had enough for a full length feature.

Interesting how you interpretate it as a story about coming of age, Lawrie. I like to write/read material that asks questions, instead of settled endings. Maybe that's the European part of my writing. The point of the skewed perspective was something I had in mind from the beginning.

I'm a little unsatisfied with the character's motivations myself. I did have the characters further worked out, but no more space in the script to put it in. Maybe I should have removed one or two characters, but I didn't know which one, since they were all important for the plot, and points I wanted to make.

Anyway, thanks for the comments, guys.

[conlanforever]

I thought your descriptions were well written and nice action.

The dialogue between Jesse and the sheriff at the end seemed a little long and I thought it could be tightened up a bit without losing the meaning. I do however like what they're saying and it shows some of their motivation for their actions and Jesse's ultimate action (leaving)

The evolution of Jesse was done really well. I thought you really cleared up what the Sheriff's motivation's were at the end, he is a very black and white, wrong is wrong kind of a guy and wasn't going to veer from that path. Two strong characters here.

Entertaining story, nice work!

[DarkElastic]

Hi Frank, I just read your script, thanks for entering.

I enjoyed it mostly, I enjoyed it up until the end where it fell flat for me. Nothing is really explained and I came away feeling flat. I'm not sure if you were going for it, but I felt that the violence was all for nothing, all to satisfy the Sheriff's own self and keep him top of the tree in his people's eyes, but the whole outlaw sub plot is not complete.
As mentioned, Jesse's journey is well done, and his development is followed through to the end, and I feel the Sheriff is well developed, but the others are part characters and you could do with giving them more without over doing it, if that makes any sense?

Overall though, it was a good script that needs more work to make it great. Well done

[seansshack]

Drop the use of bold on slug lines and would also not bother with cut and cut to transitions.

Parentheticals like (hesitates) should appear above dialogue, not beside it.

A fair chunk of the dialogue could be shorted and tightened up to improve the flow. Page 9 is a fine example.

Character intros should see the names in caps: example:

Jesse Adams, first deputy....

Should stand out as:

JESSE ADAMS, first deputy.....

Split up the action into individual shots/paragraphs:

example:

About a hundred feet away, a stranger rides toward the town
of Remington. Jesse hides behind the nearest house and
watches the stranger get closer. When he’s only a few feet
away, Jesse steps from the shades and aims his .45 colt at
the stranger.


would read better + flow as:

About a hundred feet away, a stranger rides toward the town
of Remington.

Jesse hides behind the nearest house and watches the stranger get closer.

When he’s only a few feet away, Jesse steps from the shades and aims his .45 colt at the stranger.

Basically if the shot changes. So should the paragraph.

Try and drop the passive writing and lose the 'ings"

example

A woman is banging on the door of the office and shouting.

change to:

A WOMAN, 33, shouts as she bangs on the door of the office.

Story wise it work well. Dragged me in and kept me reading to the end. Which is where the main problem in story crept in. I was expecting a different ending for some reason. Just seemed to end but I got the impression there was meant to be more (perhaps you intend to develop it more). Maybe a twist would spice it up and make more of an impression.

Good work.

[Frank Witkam]

Actually, I first wrote a long monologue for Jesse at the end of the script. In this monologue he would further question the sheriff's leadership and the ways in which he abuses his power. But after I finished writing, I felt that sheriff was too strong a character to let the younger Jesse lecture him.

As for the subplot, I felt the sheriff and Jesse were the real protagonist and antagonist, I felt their conflict was more important to me than the Henry subplot. The real points of what the script is about are mostly in their dialogues. (Which is also why the endpage is so long)

Thanks for some of the tips about the formatting, Sean. I just followed the examples of some screenplays I read before writing this one. There's also differences between European(or Dutch for that matter) and American scripts, and the way they're formatted. It's nice to know these things now, but this was the first script I wrote in English so I didn't have a clue.

[seansshack]

No problem and only tips, not criticism.

Took me a while before someone helped and pointed them out to me.

So just passing on the good will and help.

[NJPage]

Hi there! I enjoyed your descriptive language but found the dialogue a bit stilted in places. and the story seemed to lack drive and direction. No, I phrased that wrong, the script had me reading along ok (ish) until the last page, then the ending kind of teetered out and the reader was left 'hanging' . The story maybe would have benefited from a different ending... yup... a different 'twist' type conclusion.

[TimCollins]

Hey just read it and I enjoyed it for the most part.

First I had noticed a couple of technical nitpicks while reading but most of them were already covered by Sean (the parentheses and introduction of characters being capitalized).

But I also noticed a line that was a bit redundant...

Mary’s is the most popular and only brothel in Remington.If it was the only one in town then that would automatically make it the most popular one. Sorry to be trivial, but these types of things are what help us improve in the future!

I liked your dialogue and action descriptions, those were solid. Except, maybe some of the dialogue at the end between the Sheriff and Jesse could be trimmed slightly.

I think this has been mentioned, but the ending to me sort of felt like the whole Johnny Ringo thing was of no consequence. When he was mentioned early on I thought for sure he would be a major character in it but he wasn't at all. Also, I thought Dutch Henry was going to be a little more involved.

I do, however, like how Jesse disagrees with the Sheriff's tactics at the end and wants no part of it. But perhaps it would flow better if earlier on, instead of making such a big point of Johnny Ringo, you show how Jesse is conflicted with the state of affairs of the law in the town. So then when we get to the end he hits his boiling point and gets fed up with it all.

Overall I liked it though, it was entertaining and well written!

[xxrotinivol2]

There are some great elements in this script that worked for me. Mary is strong, and I love her first appearance in the script. Her dialogue is phenomenal. I could really hear her speak, which is a very difficult thing to do as a writer. The script begins kinda Western-Noirish, which is cool: who is the mysterious man in the back lurking? I wish more Westerns had more Noir elements to them, maybe we can ask Rian Johnson to direct.

We never really know though who he is, and that mystery and intrigue ends up not being the point of the script, which let me down. It went to a battle of Right v. Wrong, which seemed inconsistent with the rest of the script, and I got pulled away at around page 6 when they start trying to find Johnny Ringo, close down the brothel, etc. Is the sheriff in the right for starting the violence, is Mary in the right for having a brothel, is Dutch Henry in the right for being shady? Jesse concludes no one is, and I liked that point.

The end dialogue seemed weird to me. I pictured all these dead bodies around, and there's this very intense exchange of dialogue just immediately after. It felt awkward to me.

Overall, I liked the experience of reading it, and I think there are enough strong elements in the script to make something really pop.

[Blaine]

This came off as a morality tale that really didn't have anything to rail against. I had a hard time seeing what the sheriff was doing that Jesse was so upset about.

The dialogue got way too wordy many times. A quick table read will tell you pretty quickly whether or not your dialogue is working. This didn't really feel natural to me.

I thought you really missed the boat with Dutch Henry. With a character with a name like that, I was reminded of English Bob in Unforgiven and would have loved for him to be better utilized that just telling the story of Johnny Ringo. Even using the name Johnny Ringo brings shades of the Michael Biehn character in Tombstone and I don't thing anyone in the town could have stood up to that guy.

I guess what I'm getting at is that this seem like a lot of missed opportunities and the story itself was just not that compelling. Perhaps, if you'd shown us a sheriff who bent the law a lot more, I'd have been able to get on board with Jesse's position.

I won't go into the techie part as I see seansshack already touched on that.

Thanks for sharing your story with us.

[Frank Witkam]

Nj, Thanks for the read. The ending was difficult and I had a lot of ideas. One was a simple shootout between the sheriff and Dutch, but I felt the character of Jesse was more important, so I simply decided to kill everyone else off. I'm not a big fan of twists, because they often seem forced.

Tim, it was kind of meant as an ironic dry comment/joke. I just wrote it down in strange English, and read over it during the rewrite phase at the end.

XX, I like the idea of it being noir. The first scene, the sort of femme fatale and maybe also the incomprehensible plot. The bodies all around are what makes Jesse get so mad at the sheriff. The whole Johnny Ringo part which seems of no importance is actually what makes Jesse be suspicious of the sheriff. Is Johnny Ringo actually around or did he make it up? On the other hand, how objective is Jesse's view?

Blaine, if it's a morality tale, what is the moral of the story? Who's the good guys and who's the bad guys? If the sheriff is the bad guy, he gets his way and there isn't much of a moral, is there? Johnny Ringo as a real person wasn't important for the story, his appearance may or may not have been created by the sheriff for his need to keep his town safe. Since Jesse never saw what happened at the newspaper office, his view is cloudy as well, how objective is his view of the sheriff?

I guess the idea of nobody being tough in the story sort of makes it an anti-western. But that's one of the parts I liked so much about the Unforgiven, how it's not heroic to kill someone anymore. It was one of my main inspirations.

[MrKilloran]

Sean took care of all the technical stuff... so the characters are kind of flat and I can't really take anything away from your story. The dialogue could be trimmed up and sharpened a bit. Make the Sheriff dirtier, writing a story in a paper to shut down a brothel is the tip of the iceberg and give Jesse something to be conflicted over. The Sheriff can win but there needs to be some conflict.

Overall it was good, kept me reading.

[Mark C]

I was hooked in at the beginning of this and really enjoyed the characters you set up. Nice story! It's probably just a preference for me but I think there's some good set ups in there to develop the conflict even more. For example when Dutch Henry arrived in town, it seemed like Jesse was being really aggressive with him. Henry appeared to be a kindly stranger just passing through and he said that he was on his way to check in the gun. I get that Jesse just didn't trust him but maybe there is room to make Henry a bit more aggressive and resistant there. I think with a few minor tweaks like that your onto something special with this one!