TITLE: RECOVERY ROOM DATE: 01/10/2009
LENGTH: 115 pages WRITER: A. BENJIMAN
SUB TO: Screenplay Readers GENRE: Drama
SUB BY: A. BENJIMAN CIRCA: Contemporary
FORMAT: Screenplay ANALYST: FK3
LOGLINE
A group of troubled youths are brought to an adult prison to see where their lives might lead. When things go horribly wrong, will the kids escape alive?
RECOMMEND _ CONSIDER X PASS _
SYNOPSIS
We open with s news report of a deadly riot that’s erupted in Fulton State Penitentiary for Juveniles. We then cut to earlier as a busload of new inmates arrives. We meet RAYHON (17), PETER (16), EDWARD/”Bone” (17), and CLYDE (16). JACK CONNLY (40’s), television reporter, is on hand to record the arrival, enjoying the spectacle. “Bone” is extremely violent and scares the guards. RASHEED (17) is getting ready to be released after serving his time. He was well-known in the facility, with many people expecting his quick return. Jack is told to try to spice up the story because the viewing public is bored with prison stories.
Rasheed has moved back home, with his mother trying to keep him under control. He wears a house arrest ankle bracelet, but decides to go out in the city regardless. He meets up with his old buddy TERRANCE (30) and asks what’s been happening in the neighborhood. Terrance tries convincing Rasheed to go straight, but Rasheed just laughs him off. Back in Fulton Penitentiary we meet Warden APOLLO SHEPARD, who revels in his position of authority. Jack approaches Shepard about doing an interview piece on the inmates, but Shepard is concerned about the safety of the inmates and the image of the prison. Elsewhere we meet SEAN (13) and PETER (16), youths destined to end up in Fulton.
We see how Rayhon was arrested during a getaway. Rayhon is sent to a Juvenile Detention Facility where he promptly gets into a fight. The Dean introduces Rayhon and others to Warden Shepard. He wants to take certain juveniles back to his prison and show them what it’s like in the big house. They all refuse.
Rasheed is arrested for violating his parole by seeing his girlfriend KISHA. We see HIATCHI () getting arrested for illegally hacking into government websites. In prison we meet PREACH, GABE, and violent SID who is in solitary confinement. More new inmates are brought into the facility: COLUGIO (16), CLYDE (16), and ZAMIR (16).
In the prison Jack confers with the prisoners about the visiting juveniles. Now we catch up with the juveniles being brought in to the adult prison. They’re all aboard a bus and we see their various personalities and attitudes meeting for the first time: Sean, Rayhon, Dameon, Hiatchi, Rasheed, Peter, Zamir, Clyde, Romano, and Edward. They’re brought into the prison, but each are unrepentant in their ways. They’re introduced to their prison “foster-fathers”: Gabe, Preach, Sid, Clyde, Charles, Eddy, Hon and John.
The two sets of men meet. The older prisoners immediately belittle and insult the newcomers. The adult prisoners waste no time in putting the youngsters in their place. The young kids meet their adult counterparts and many of the kids find themselves humbled. Jack has television cameras set up, transmitting the action to homes across the nation. The parents of the kids watch on helplessly.
The inmates being to get worked up over the confrontation. The warden is concerned, but Jack thinks it’s making good television. Suddenly the inmates overpower the only guard in the room, and it turns into a hostage situation. The prisoners barricade themselves in the room and begin fashioning crude weapons. Preach lets the kids know he’s on their side, but to play along for now. Jack ends the transmission, which panics the parents.
The inmates grab the personal records of the kids and start reading them for the cameras, not realizing the signal has been stopped. The prisoners exact their own forms of punishments for the kid’s crimes. The prisoners decide to demand a helicopter to take them to freedom, using the kids as protection. They accuse Warden Shepard of running a filthy jail, overrun with disease and abuse. Peter has a seizure, so the prisoners allow Preach to take him out. In the courtyard a guard tries shooting Preach, but hits Peter instead. Preach makes it back inside and the prisoners start arguing on how to proceed. Suddenly the kids attack the prisoners and a huge fight erupts.
The warden fires tear gas into the room and orders the guards to break the door in. They storm in and face the prisoners. Eddy goes berserk and charges the guards and is shot down. Another huge fight erupts, and both prisoners and guards are taken down. Sid grabs a gun and makes a break for it. The guards mow him down. Some of the prisoners surrender, but the warden has them shot anyway. The kids try to tell their side of the story but the warden won’t listen.
The kids are released, and we see that their experience has changed their lives. Each of the kids pursue their dreams, vowing to never again turn to a life of crime.
COMMENTS
There were a lot of things I liked about this story. The writer obviously has a passion for the subject matter because I could feel the intensity of the situation leaping off the page. It’s an interesting idea to show a sort of “boot camp” for the juveniles and show them the paths their lives might lead. The adult prisoners, being criminals, quickly saw an opportunity to take advantage of the situation, and things quickly spun out of control. As much as I appreciate the message the writer is trying to convey, the script needs to be thoroughly proofread to catch the multiple spelling and grammatical mistakes. There were also some scenes that simply confused me and I couldn’t tell where they were supposed to take place.
I liked how we saw a variety of kids and the various ways they got into trouble – some worse than others – and how they ended up in the same place. Each of the kids had a distinct personality and it was easy to tell them all apart. I think the writer should work a little harder on focusing on one of them so we have a main character to follow. Although Rasheed has a little more to do, he doesn’t stand out enough from the others to really grab an audience’s attention. I’m sure the writer wanted to give each of the characters something to do, but emotionally we should really follow the story of one character more than the others.
The script opened very dramatically, showing the aftermath of the violence in the prison. An audience would be grabbed immediately and be curious how everything happened. From that point, however, I was sometimes confused as to the way the scenes were presented. Sometimes I wasn’t sure if a scene was a flashback or not. I could feel that the writer had a clear idea in mind but many times what happened in the script was hard to follow. I think the writer needs to make another pass just to clear everything up. One example was that I wasn’t immediately sure that the prison at the beginning was a different place from the juvenile center we next go to. In hindsight I understand, but the way both locations have film crews made it too similar.
The end of the script ended on a positive note, and I liked the message that people can turn their lives around. I felt there were some story elements that went unresolved. The kids seemed to disappear for a good portion of the climax – I think some dramatic moments could be inserted there with the reactions of the kids. I thought more could be done with Jack and his involvement.
There were some logistical problems that I feel should be addressed. Although I liked the idea of having the kids get confronted by adult prisoners, I don’t believe a television studio would handle it the way presented in the script. The script made it seem that the actions were being transmitted in real time. In real life, such a program would have been taped, edited and released later. Who did Jack work for? What repercussions happened to Jack and the studio?
There script was confusing many times in regards to the characters. Frequently the writer would introduce a character, but wouldn’t describe them until pages later. Jack was given two last names – Connly and Brunson – unless those are two different reporters with the same first name. Officer Jeffries was described as two different people; as a freckle-faced woman and as a huge balding man. Sid’s last name changed from Calhoun to Mccowen.
An overall problem with the script was the numerous spelling errors the writer made. This might just be an early draft, but a script needs to look as professional as possible to compete with other scripts. Many words in the script were correctly spelled, but incorrectly used. Some examples are the wrong there/their/they’re, your/you’re, heir/ere, peaks/peeks, Ala/ Allah, here/hear, quiet/quite, breaks/brakes, seize/cease and know/no. I think the writer was trying to use quotation marks for emphasis, but he should remove those and allow the actor to decide for himself how to deliver the dialogue. The same goes for the direction of camera angles. The writer shouldn’t include camera setups or music cues at this stage – that’s something that’ll be decided on later.
In the end, I thought there was the potential for a powerful and moving story presented. The writer has a talent for creating characters that have lived hard lives, and there’s a rough reality to many scenes. Many scenes were very powerful on their own, but a little work needs to be done to tie everything together. To make it work, the writer will have to re-think the aspect of the television tie-in. I almost wonder if it wouldn’t work just as well if it were a psychologist’s experiment instead of a television reporter wanting a story. The events could still play out the same way. In any case, I think the writer is off to a good start and should work on polishing this script so it really flies off the page.
CONSIDER WITH REVISIONS