FrankenScript :: Lee Gabel's Screenwriting Journal/Blog

There’s a point in this film where you just don’t know where it’s going to go. It’s exciting. Moral conflict. Then something happens and chunk, chunk, chunk, pieces of story fall into place and film becomes predictable. Although, one could argue that “something” was done to increase tension and suspense, and it does for a [...]

After seeing Jimmy Neutron the previous day, there’s no comparison. However, the story here is good and it’s what saves this film. The visuals pull this film down. It looks cheap and to be fair, this film was made with ten million dollars less than Jimmy Neutron. Visuals suffer with smaller and smaller budgets. If [...]

Other than this story centering on Hasidic Jews, there’s not much else that makes this film different than any other drug smuggling story. And the Jewish focus lacks the ability to make this film different enough. It interesting that this was based on a true story, but the viewer isn’t going to care if the [...]

The fact that this really happened is more interesting than the actual film. How can people take advantage of others without expecting any consequences? The characters are all played with confidence, especially Spacey, but I just could not feel any sympathy for these thieves. There’s a powerful scene at Abramoff’s Senate hearing, but it’s a [...]

Be warned. This movie is  not for the faint of heart. It is extremely violent and gory, and although the violence portrayed is equally against both men and women, the story thread feels focused more on violence against women. This will be the deal breaker for some. I think the story still would have stood [...]

Here’s a story about good cops and bad cops. It feels like many films that have come before. The same but different, but in this case, not different enough. We know almost from the outset who is good and who is bad. This is a smart move in that it builds suspense as things slowly [...]