MONUMENTAL FAVOUR
With time running out, a frantic businessman relies on a cab driver to reach the airport before his flight takes off.

A trip to the airport is always good grist for the story mill. Everything must be organized to military precision, from waking up to your alarm on time to organizing forgotten – or God forbid, lost passports – to making sure your baggage won’t tip the scales, to ticket confirmation and check-in. The crucial and all-important thing above all else however, is – getting to the airport on time. One false move, one hiccup or delay in proceedings could leave you stranded on the tarmac with nowhere to go and a hole burning in your pocket.

Colin Sharp’s, Monumental Favour opens on veteran taxi driver, Samir, waiting patiently for his delayed fare, Jim Denton, a Boston businessman desperate to make his interstate flight on time.

We get the feeling things usually run smoothly for Jim, but this morning is a whole different story. What is it with printers jamming just when you need them to spit out that all important document? – In this case Jim’s itinerary and ticket details.

After bundling his bags into the boot Jim relays his sorry start to the day to Samir and they finally set off – the problem is that printer malfunction has added a crucial fifteen minutes to the journey and Jim’s justifiably freaking out.

JIM
I’ve got a very important meeting.
A very important opportunity…

Sounds like it could be the opportunity of a lifetime…

Samir, ever the consummate driver offers Jim just the right amount of soothing consolation and vows that he will do everything in his power to get Jim to the airport on time.

The taxi weaves through steady traffic, that is until they hit the inevitable roadblock of early-morning commuters and one very pesky revolving red light.

In an effort to calm his passenger Samir regales Jim with a story about how he and his wife visited a tarot card reader over the weekend –

Jim’s expression tightens, signaling he’s not in the mood for the story – his focus fixed on the traffic ahead.

Samir admits he finds it all a bit fake too, but he continues with the tale regardless.

SAMIR
… Interestingly, this Tarot reader declared I would
do somebody a monumental favour in the coming week.

Jim suddenly sits up and takes notice.

 JIM
Get me to the airport in fifteen minutes and my God,
you’ll be doing me a monumental favour.

Famous last words unfortunately because things are about to go from bad to worse. As they barrel through the next amber light the car’s mechanical warning indicator comes on – monumental failure seems to be the more operative phrase at this point. The car’s gearbox has given up the ghost leaving Samir and Jim stranded. With a backup ride twenty minutes away, it doesn’t look like Jim will be going anywhere other than back home again.

Seems like even with the best laid plans, fate has intervened.

And that’s that.

End of story.

Except this isn’t the end of the story.

And we’re about to find out this is no ordinary day.

Colin Sharp has created a very clever narrative with Monumental Favour. At first it might appear that there’s not a lot happening in this slice of life story, dare I say some readers might find it a little pedestrian, but buckle your seatbelts and settle in for the ride, cause you’re about to discover this story has a twist in its tale guaranteed to touch even the most hardened of hearts. It hit me hard. As I’m sure it will you.

Do you want to kick-start your filmmaking career? Monumental Favour could be the perfect vehicle to get you off the starting blocks.

Read: Monumental Favour.

About the Writer: Colin Sharp  is an aspiring screenwriter whose lifelong love of film led him on to the road to writing his own stories. Whilst a fan of all genres of film, Colin primarily enjoys writing comedic tales but is also a sucker for romance and anything that will scare the bejesus out of him.

About the Reviewer: L. Chambers has been writing all her life – especially in her head, and on scraps of paper. It’s only in the last few years she began to get serious about screen-writing. Prior to this she worked in the Features Department for ABC TV as a Program Assistant, and trained as a FAD. She currently works as a freelance web-content editor and lives with her husband (also a screenwriter) in Sydney, Australia.

FINDING THE BROTHER (5-page short mystery-thriller screenplay) by Bill Sarre
https://www.simplyscripts.com/scripts/FindingtheBrother.pdf

A private investigator is hired by an old friend to find his long-lost twin brother… who may or may not exist.

Okay, Week Three of the Simply Scripts annual Writer’s Tournament theme was NATURE VS NURTURE, a hot-button topic often discussed in some very controversial debates.

The top-scoring entry for week three (based on writer’s votes) was Bill Sarre’s thought-provoking mystery short, Finding the Brother. The three items he was given to include in his script were; a CIGAR, a PUBLIC RELATIONS SPECIALIST and a CASINO.

We open on the Vegas strip, where we meet our story’s protagonist, Jack Faith, a 60-year-old private investigator whose job is to “improve the odds, whatever the hand given”, as he describes in voice-over while at a casino’s roulette table – I kept hearing Humphrey Bogart’s voice as I read his dialogue.

One week earlier, we’re taken to a bar owned by Midnight Carter, an old friend of Jack’s. Brothers from another mother almost. On this night, Midnight gives Jack an envelope full of cash and asks him to find his long-lost twin brother – the two were supposedly separated at birth. But Jack’s a little reluctant to take on his buddy’s case. After all, Midnight isn’t even a hundred percent sure he has a twin brother in the first place – he was told he had one by a tarot card reader/psychic. Jack is skeptical, but Midnight has a feeling. So, to appease his old pal, Jack takes on the case.

Unable to find anything concrete online, Jack decides to put in some leg work and visit the county hall registry – but he comes up empty, only seeing that there was one birth at the time Midnight was born. But the sleuth that he is, he asks Midnight why he was named Midnight in the first place. This seems to open things up a bit and, sure enough, Jack finds his long-lost twin (the time of birth seems to have been the key to finding him).

The man’s name is Felix Star, a famous (or infamous) public relations agent to some of the biggest stars in Hollywood. And he’s coming out with a new tell-all book, dishing out all the dirt and juicy gossip about his clients over the years.

As Jack digs deeper, he discovers that Felix’s upbringing couldn’t be any more different than his old pal, Midnight’s.

While Midnight grew up to be an honest, hardworking, good person despite his harsh upbringing, Felix, raised in luxury and privilege, grew up to be a pretty awful person who gets his rocks off by preying on the vulnerable.

Jack’s investigation leads him to the Vegas strip, where Midnight’s unsavory twin brother has a book signing. It’s here that Jack will inform Felix of Midnight and the two long-lost twins will be reunited. But Jack’s left with a bit of a moral dilemma, here. Yes, Midnight will know for sure that he, indeed, has a twin brother that was separated from him at birth. But, given how much of a slimy, despicable individual Felix is… is Midnight better off not knowing?

I won’t give away EVERYTHING, but the story’s conclusion was surprisingly heartwarming and left me with all the feels once I was finished reading. Despite how well-told the actual story was, what I was most impressed with was how much I cared about these characters and liked both Midnight and Jack. What started out as a gumshoe-type detective tale turned out to be a terrific and heartfelt meditation on friendship. I highly recommend this to any filmmaker looking to make an emotional impression on their audience while keeping them on the edge of their seats with taut storytelling.

BUDGET: Medium. Outside of the casino, the locations are actually pretty simple. But, despite only a few speaking roles, there are some crowd shots in here that will require some extras. I’m sure with some clever film making and access to certain resources, this can be made on a sensible budget.

ABOUT THE WRITER: Living on the Island of Jersey, part of the UK, Bill Sarre has been writing scripts for nine years after a lifetime of imagining them in his head. Having started to put them on paper, Bill has focused on short scripts winning the likes of the London Film Awards in the process. Bill has also been a multiple finalist in major competitions such the Page Awards and Blue Cat, with further success at Nashville and Fresh Voices. He writes across all genres with a preference for developing characters the reader not only can understand, but also care for. Bill can be reached at: bill.sarre@gmail.

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About the Reviewer: Michael J. Kospiah is the award-winning screenwriter of critically acclaimed indie-thriller, The Suicide Theory (79% Rotten Tomatoes – available on Amazon Prime, Itunes, Google Play, etc) and 2020’s upcoming Aussie thriller, Rage. His horror feature, They Never Left is currently in development.

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ICE (5-page short mystery screenplay) Written by PAUL KNAUER

Another entry from WEEK FOUR of Simply Scripts’ annual Writers Tournament. One of the top entries, which was assigned a genre and three criteria items under the theme, YOUR HERO IS THE VILLAIN, was Paul Knauer’s clever, who-dun-nit, crime-thriller, the aptly titled, ICE. Paul’s genre was MYSTERY and his three criteria items were; a HAND WARMER, a BAILIFF and a FACTORY. Big props to Paul, by the way – he’s been going beast mode during this tournament, also achieving a top voter’s score in Week Two with his script, LINES (which I also reviewed not too long ago).

Now, as I was reading through the first few pages, I was wondering to myself, “Why the hell is the title of this script called Ice?” I thought that maybe it was a play on words, like maybe somebody got “iced”, or killed. I mean, someone DID get killed in the story, but that’s not why is was given that title. When the mystery of this tale is solved later in the script, I understood – the title also just so happens to be a hint to the mystery presented to us. Which is pretty damn cool.

The story opens as hard-edged, tough-as-nails Detective Brown arrives at a crime scene, along with his assistant, Meg. Still stewing from the previous week’s trial when a man he put behind bars was found innocent and set free, Detective Brown isn’t in the best of moods.

The crime scene, at an abandoned warehouse/factor, is a grisly one – a man named Skip Turner was found brutally gunned down. The police at the scene seem to have ruled it a suicide, but Detective Brown, who recognizes the man, suspects foul play.

Luckily, the murder weapon was recovered at the scene – a gun with the serial number filed off. But Detective Brown is able to trace the gun back to a man named Bruce. It’s apparent that Detective Brown recognizes Bruce when he and Meg pay him a visit – he was the bailiff at Skip Turner’s trial last week.

Though Bruce reported the gun missing the week before, Detective Brown has a feeling about him – during the trial, there was a scuffle in court where Skip elbowed the bailiff in the face, leaving a nice shiner around his eye.

On his way out, Detective Brown grows even more suspicious of Bruce when he spots a few key items at the bailiff’s home – a needle and syringe sitting in a trash can and a couple of hand warmers peeking from beneath magazines on a side table. But HOW exactly are these key items in this case, you ask?

I won’t reveal TOO much here, as part of the fun is discovering how this crime was committed. But let’s just say that the syringe, needle and hand warmers cleverly come into play… along with an ice cube. I know you’re grinding your gears right now, trying to figure it out, but you’ll need to read for yourself to truly enjoy how this mystery unfolds.

After seeing KNIVES OUT recently and pretty much binge-watching every true crime show on every streaming service available over the past five months or so, I really, really needed something else to satisfy my appetite for a good crime-thriller/mystery. And especially after watching UNSOLVED MYSTERIES on Netflix, a show in which the mysteries remain, as the title indicates, unsolved, I needed something with a little resolve. Luckily, I stumbled upon ICE.

The script, obviously, was impressive on its own. But what really impressed me was that such an intricately and cleverly plotted script was written on such short notice, with assigned criteria items to include into the story – all while making those items (specifically the hand warmers) so vital to the story’s stunning reveal. Not only that, but it was all crammed into five pages of script without feeling forced or hurried, packing a punch that some half-hour and hour-long crime shows can’t match.

Incredibly clever, it would be a “crime” for this one not to be produced and seen on screen.

BUDGET: I’d say low to medium – there aren’t too many characters or locations, though the set designer would have to create the illusion of a court room (which could further be cheated with clever film making) and wardrobe would need to be involved for the cop uniforms. Either way, the script is worth whatever budget it will hopefully be given.

ABOUT THE WRITER: Paul is an optioned and produced screenwriter working out of the Kansas City area. His main focus is thrillers and slightly absurdist comedy with heart, most of them about life in the Midwest U.S. His first script, a sitcom pilot titled OH, BROTHER!, placed second in the 2012 Fresh Voices Screenplay Competition and was subsequently optioned. Paul’s diverse portfolio includes several feature thrillers, a couple of comedy features and multiple sitcom pilots, as well as dozens of shorts across genres. He believes that becoming a better writer requires the ability to push personal boundaries. Paul can be reached at: pkcardinal (a) gmail.

Read ICE (5-page short mystery screenplay)

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*This screenplay may not be used or reproduced for any purpose including educational purposes without the expressed written permission of the author.

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About the Reviewer: Michael J. Kospiah is the award-winning screenwriter of critically acclaimed indie-thriller, The Suicide Theory (79% Rotten Tomatoes – available on Amazon Prime, Itunes, Google Play, etc) and 2020’s upcoming Aussie thriller, Rage. His horror feature, They Never Left is currently in development.