Articles Log

By Paul Bronson / Published on May 8th, 2008 / Entertainment

It was the sixteenth of July, one of those days in Los Angeles where the sun melted every house and human on the streets. A hot humid day where nothing was seen outside of a highly air- conditioned interior. Many found chores to do, things they had forgotten about for months, others took a long nap hoping the sun would cool down behind the horizon soon. Me, I grabbed a screenplay that was gathering dust on my shelf and I started to read. This was a script that I had to take home and review while I was working at Streetson Styles Entertainment, a motion picture development company - and I had never gotten to read it. Ah, I thought, it was probably one of those conventional Hollywood stories... that involved some man... and some woman... in some remotely dangerous situation... lies and betrayals... I had had it to tell you the truth and I couldn't stand for another cheese piece; Had I had any other choice, Machiavelli Hangman would still have been on my shelf.

The first page flowed so well that I let out a chuckle, knowing full well the author couldn't keep it up by the end of the first 10 pages. I was surprised. I thought the fast pace couldn't continue past the 30th page, but then I looked down and realized that I was already on page 75 of a 100 page script, and I had read it in less than 30minutes. At this point, I had already developed a bond with the characters and I was personally rooting for the story to come together nicely. The worst thing on this heat-drenched day would have been a bad ending to a great story.

The pages flipped, the words flew, the characters came and went so fluidly that I couldn't find any flaws in the structure. I was slowly realizing what I had missed. This was a great piece of screenwriting... the best I had read in all those years I had worked at SSE. Ironically, I had to read it when I left the establishment.

The ending came, oh how it came. It was as brilliant as Fight Club or Sixth Sense, but it didn't have an twist ending. I'll be honest, I was expecting something a la "Confidence" - which for the record, was an absolute disaster I thought.

Machiavelli Hangman (http://www.hangmanmovie.com) in a lot of ways had a structure that resembled Crash and characters so vibrant that they could have been in any Baz Luhrman film and dialogue... oh, the dialogue... so crisp it could have been written by Quentin Tarantino himself.

As I turned the last page, I wasn't quite sure of what I was feeling. All I knew was that I had been holding my breath for quite a long time because I then let out what may have been the longest sigh I have ever sighed.

If the filmmakers don't screw up this amazing script, I promise that it will be a classic.




About the author:


Paul Bronson is a film reviewer and
a professional in the film industry.
Machiavelli Hangman
http://www.hangmanmovie.com