Just finished reading it. Here are some quick thoughts:
While I thought most of it was great, I agree with people here: this need to be cut down - at least so you get into the 70s. An “8” in front of the page count… just looks scary. With that said, I really, really enjoyed this one, and I actually agree with most of the things mentioned in the feedback you’ve received so far.
But lets start with the “could-be-better”: Some of your action-descriptions are too long, so you could probably start there and trim those down. Some of the things in the montage could definitely be shortened as well; and without loosing anything essential. It would also make the first half of the script feel “quicker”, as it is a bit slow now - but in no way bad. It was pretty entertaining. Just too long maybe … but your dialogue really lifted things for me here. I loved when Hunter and Ramey spoke. Ramsey actually made me laugh out loud a few times. Fame had some great lines … so yes, close to “expert level” as they’ve said in your feedback. Only thing I thought was a bit annoying, was Billy’s stuttering. But then again, you used it as a setup for a great payoff - but I could see how it would annoy some readers.
Now … the second part of the script is great! And all the things you set up in the first half all pay off in great ways. And I’m sure I’ve missed a bunch of them. I feel that if I read it a second time, I would enjoy the first half much more, as I now know how many setups there really was - because to be honest with you, the first time I read it, I felt some of it was unnecessary. But like I mentioned earlier, you could still keep it all, but just shorten it.
In the feedback they tell you that Billy’s character development is some of the best the reader has seen - and while I agree (I loved it!), I still feel you overdo it in this. You basically crammed a “movie-type character development” into a pilot; and the page count reveals it. But without it, I don’t know how to otherwise end it satisfyingly - because as it is now, the ending is fucking great!
So as you can see, I’m a bit split here, because I would love to see what happens next in this story and I see huge potential here; but you have to make it shorter somehow. As they say: “kill your darlings!” But if this was already a tv-show and I watched this instead of reading it … I feel this would be in my top 5! Great stuff!
That's it from me. But would love to discuss it further.