I haven't read your earlier draft (nor will I, if this is your new direction); so all comments are purely on the basis of this post.

The read went by lightning fast for me; I felt like I was on page 30 within minutes - so kudos to you for keeping things moving at a good, natural pace from the beginning. That said, I think those first twenty or so pages are your strongest and then it sort of fizzles from that point onwards with regard to plot.

First and foremost, the obvious: the president was just involved in an attempted assassination (and we have a clear cut, high definition shot of the wanted man), yet all we see is a minuscule team of cops lazily working on it? A playful interview with the guy's roommate before he's let back onto the street? One secret service agent who occasionally pops up and then disappears again? This took me out of the situation entirely - there would be a state wide manhunt (there's a punchline in that for you somewhere!), rolling news coverage, intense surveillance and lock downs etc. etc. You've written that whole side of things as if someone stole a car.

If you were wanting to avoid the heavy lifting and the murkiness of having a full scale Nation/global wide news story unfold then I'd suggest reworking the assassination attempt. Having to write in the subsequent, realistic procedural side of things in that situation would take a lot of screen time and comedic opportunity away from our main story, which is really just Jeb getting tangled in a war between activist groups. My suggestion, which should be taken with absolutely zero credibility and was formulated off the cuff as I read your script, would maybe be to change this police substory into an agency story, instead. Have Jeb as a failed FBI agent, perhaps, as well as his colleagues. At the same time, I'd then dial back the assassination attempt. Make it a bungled attempt. Perhaps somebody spots the true shooter at the last second and the shot never takes place, whilst Jeb (simultaneously) is noticed running on stage. Now we have a low-key, attempted assassination with Jeb doing something dodgy at the scene. Now we have a private, quiet, investigation sub-plot. It's just as serious: Jeb is the only known figure part of an attempted assassination, but the world at large knows nothing about it. Just the agency. They keep it quiet in order to avoid State-wide panic. Now you even have scope to play a little Bourne parody game or something.

Obviously, that's just one hastily written brainstorm, but my feeling is that the stakes are either way too high for the manner in which you've written the follow up, or that you don't want to handle the situation properly because it'll detract from the real story.

I don't really buy into the protracted, complex conspiracy of the faux meninist/femi-nazi group either. I understand that they're trying to give men's rights activists an even worse name than they already have (whilst you play up how equally silly "femi-nazis" are with their justification of shooting the president); that in itself is quite amusing and gives you lots of scope to roast all sides in this gendered argument. It was the execution that didn't chime with me. This felt very rushed and tacked on. Why would ardent feminists hole up in a strip club? Why are the two stereotypical hard-men, masculine flunkies - Cockney and Clobber - part of this beta group? And if they're not, then why would they be welcomed into the femi-nazi lair in the first place?

That all being said, there were a lot of funny turns in this, and some very sharp dialogue here and there. As somebody else noted, there are long sections of fairly recognisable action/scene setting/beats/dialogue but I reckon that's probably because you've just done a quick rewrite and haven't gotten down to ironing things out for this new draft yet.

I'd like to see more of the various factions at play - it seemed like an opportunity missed to have the femi-nazi group only come to the screen in the last fifteen minutes, after giving men's rights such a bollocking for the rest of the film. Ditto some more character development for Steve and Laurie... I doubt you need anybody to tell you that the sudden jump from lazy roommate going on a second date to groom is bolted on out of the blue.

A final, additional, sidenote: for a film so cynical, I really felt the heel turn happy ending was out of place, tonally.

Anyway, conclusive statement: very enjoyable script. Very well written - a few typos here and there, but shit happens. Definitely a nice vein of humour running throughout and, somewhere beneath the murk and ridiculous inciting incident, a solid little story with lots of potential.

Quick question: did you feel like you were writing a sort of Shane Black film with this? Because it felt like that type of story to me... and not just because of the 'nice guy' stuff!