Feedback on a script

[brianluce]

It's interesting someone brought up Godfather. One of the cornerstones of the story was Michael Corleone's order to kill his brother Fredo. Consider how Coppola and Puzzo handled that devastating moment against how you handle something similar. It might be constructive.

Again, I say what's interesting here and what could be a cool feature with legitimate commercial appeal is the idea of a guy who shuns his mafia roots to open a bistro. If I was doing it, I'd make it a Mexican restaurant or something--just to juice up the conflict. Good luck.

 

[awgfilm]

Without being too harsh, I think this mob story you told and the situations you set up are a little ho-hum (re: overdone). To make it work you really have to get away from the traditional mob perception. There wasn't anything unique about the story. I didn't even care about the main character. You have to build in a reason to care - call it backstory - call it revenge - call it a desire to be loved by his father - whatever it is, show it! That is the story and that needs to be the focus of the payoff in the end - even if the story ends tragically.

Again, I hate to come off as harsh - I'm not trying to slam you - just trying to give you some ideas to think about. Same as I would want someone to do for me when they review one of my scripts.

Things seemed to occur in kind of a sped-up disjointed manner. Part of that was because the dialog was very weak. Dialog can be tough to write but remember to not tell something when you can show it instead. Just a gesture can mean more than a line of expository dialog.

Make this less about "mob" and "ganster" and more about the relationship between dad and son and I think it will go further.

Best of luck.