Argo is a terrific political thriller that will probably get some Oscar nominations. I hope that includes one for writer Chris Terrio whose ability to tell an epic true story using the thriller genre allows him to transcend both true story and thriller.  The political thriller is a po

Changeling is a harrowing story of one woman’s nightmare when she tries to find her missing son. For screenwriters it shows the benefits, but also the difficulty, of combining the thriller with the social drama.  Drama is one of the great storytelling forms, but it has become ra

The trailer for Eagle Eye did its job precisely. It got people curious enough to pay up at the theater in order to find out what the heck was going to happen in this high-intensity thriller-detective story.  One of the biggest problems we see at the Writers Studio is a lack of attenti

With Michael Clayton, writer Tony Gilroy proves once again that he is a master of the thriller form. As the author of the Bourne films, Gilroy took the action thriller to a new level, a feat made even more impressive by the fact that he was writing a trilogy. Now he has seamlessly con

The Constant Gardener shows us what happens when a film’s moral argument outweighs its story. The film has a serious thesis it wants to express concerning the plight of Africans and the responsibility of pharmaceutical companies that supply them with drugs. There’s nothing

John Grisham is a master of plot, specializing in the courtroom thriller. And in this complicated and underestimated writing skill, he has a lot to teach us.  Runaway Jury sets up as a battle royal between Dustin Hoffman’s Wendall Rohr and Gene Hackman’s Rankin Fitch, with

Insomnia shows one of the dangers of writing the thriller form. This is a very popular genre, but it is extremely narrow. Most writers of thrillers have great difficulty creating plot because there is usually just one suspect. The audience learns fairly soon who probably committed the

Night Shyamalan has been a wildly successful writer in Hollywood, and it’s almost all due to his ability with plot. Shyamalan is a master of the reveal, and in the blockbuster world of mainstream movies, that is the best talent to have.  Signs has nowhere near the quality of The

Thrillers have always been one of the more contrived forms, but there are limits. Within the world the story creates, the logic must make basic sense.  This film has such a poor set up that I almost walked out. The hero meets a stranger in a bathroom on a superhighway. The stranger cl

Most writers set up a series of reveals that build steadily. M. Night Shyamalan sets up his structure to play one monster reveal. This reveal isn’t just the biggest reveal in the story so far. It is information that is so powerful it changes everything that has come before. It i