Stand Your Ground By Vigilante Essay

An old-school detective ready for retirement teams up with a younger, criminal intern to stop a disabled ex-Marine’s vigilante crusade.

STORY COMMENTS

BLACK CROSS is a classic revenge thriller. A detective goes after a war veteran turned vigilante to avenge the person who shot him. The vigilante believes he’s “standing his ground” and that what he does is “just war.” Thus, he pursues his own private war. A detective, also a war veteran, is determined to catch him. Thus, the cat and mouse game becomes personal.

The goal is clear and the stakes are high. The tone is consistently dramatic, fitting with a crime thriller, although it could be grittier. While the story is appreciated, it’s suggested that further development be done.

First,

There needs to be more gritty action. The story tends to rely heavily on dialogue and passive action scenes. To compete with other scripts, original action and harrowing situations need to be offered.

In addition, the script overstates the agenda or message about “stand your ground.” It’s mentioned too many times versus being subtle and the theme of “stand your ground” doesn’t feel well set up. The reason the antagonist, Dante, goes after his shooter is purely out of revenge and it doesn’t feel related to the concept of stand your ground.

So, the goal changes as the story progresses. It begins as a revenge film, but then morphs into a crusade about stand your ground, except that Dante sets these situations up. He wants to be attacked, so he can kill. Truly, it feels unbelievable that he can attract all these muggers and then kill nine people.

At the midpoint, Dante kills Francisco, but he goes on to another target, a political figure. This makes the structure feel disjointed and fragmented. It’s not well setup for the “stand your ground” storyline or to go after a political figure. Moreover, the target isn’t a developed character and the audience has no emotionally investment in this storyline or potential