There is some awesome atmosphere there but I am not sure about some of the script I have seen so far, it seems very cliche. Loose the line "keep on keeping on" for sure from the aunt, it is from a TV show and sounds corny, and to keep her from diologing with herself make another lady standing there say the "that poor child" line so that the aunts "He will come live with me..." line as a response to the lady. It looks less like a leadin then.
You have to change the pool introduction to Angie as well. His sudden jump to "pretend your playing pool" to explain school stuff and her "I have never played pool, do you play alot?" just screams leadin and seems really forced to progress the story and character development. You need to be alot more subtle with such things and introduce them alot more naturally. Think of the Color of Money, Vincent really does not have a clue about Eddie or how good he is/was until they walk into a pool hall and the proprieter says the "this here is Fast Eddie Felson, who the hell are you?" line. He does not go on to say how good Eddie was, it is assumed simply by the way he acts and his remembering, it is alot more realistic then if he were to go "this guy beat Minnisota Fats!, he was the best player in the country back then", that would have been a cliche and really corny way to do it. Stay subtle.
The last few pages with Kiss and Hawk also seem kind of worriesome. First off the pool playing community dont really call people by nicknames, Earl Strickland is known as Earl, not The Pearl. Basavich more times then not will be Danny, and not Kid Delicious. Plus how in gods green earth did Doc suddenly get on the radar of this group of people that are not really representative or realistic of the pool scene to begin with? There are alot of good pool players who rise in the ranks and there is not really these characterized bad guys who suddenly must make an appearance. Look to the Color of Money and the realism of that movie in it's "bad guys". Amos, a hustler, not a hustler that pulls out a sword and becomes Ghost Dog all of the sudden, that woulda insta-trashed the whole movie. Kieth's character Grady Seasons came off as a cocky dink, you love to see him get beat. But his character was totally realistic and believable. The old guy with the hole in his throat, same thing, a real and believable character, not some hugely dramatised badguy.
Try to stay away from the pool hall junkies Chaz Palmerie stereotypical badguy, the stereotypical gangster friend, the stereotypical Ricky Schroeder champ with his graphite pool cue with lightning bolts down the whole thing and a nickname like "The Cleaner" because he has cleaned everyone out that he has played in the last 5 years. That is not super cool, that is super lame.
Keep it real, keep it subtle, use CoM as a guide to a movie that captures the realism of the pool scene, use Pool Hall Junkies as a guide on what NOT to do because that movie was totally unrealistic and cliche garbage that basically watched like one big plotline. Your movie seems in danger of that, you introduce the pool playing of Doc in a far too blunt fashion, you introduce the love interst right in the start which is quite good timing for a 25 year old guy, you introduce the charicature badguys out of the blue that take an interst in some pool playing kid who in the real world would not gain any interest right at the same time, you have the aunt losing her job right at the key moment to create the need for money and pool playing, ect... Do you see how obvious the plot points are and how forced the script feels? It does not flow, it is obvious you are creating the conflicts and the plot is almost in your face.
CoM did not need a true bad guy, honestly Julian and Grady were just characters on the side, the movie was about pool not some gangster who kidnaps Angie and makes Doc play for her freedom or his aunts house that is going to be repossesed by the bank due to her losing her job. Why create such an in your face motive for playing? The Hustler did not have it, Eddie could have walked away at any time and not played Fats before the first match or after, he was his own reason, pride forced him to play in a far more realistic fashion then PHJ kind of crap "My bro lost $10,000 to Shark and now if I dont beat Shark they are going to cut off his fingers" or "My aunt is going to lose her house if I dont play Hawk for $10,000, I am forced to play, too bad they poked me in the eye and I cannot play as good as I once did, let me use my inner peace meditation that Angie taught me and play by sense of smell". The Hustler's side story of Sarah is just that, a side story, it never has much to do with pool and is more a character study of Eddie and her. It is the way the character was created that allows Eddie to beat Fats, but never did pool and Eddies relationship with her really merge. The CoM did not do this, noone was holding a gun to anyones head ready to pull the trigger if they did not make the shot, that is so cliche it is sickening when any movie does it. CoM nevertheless had some of the best tension in the matches, far more then PHJ. When Eddie is playing Vince you really are interested in who wins and it is really not known who is going to because Eddie does not have some gangster in the crowd who says he bet $10,000 on Eddie and is going to kill him if he does not win ala Baltimore Bullet. Do you know how lame that simple addition would have made that movie? Dont add this kind of crap to your movie.
Meh, long post. Sorry if I come off as a little critical but I think you need to get rid of alot of the cliche plot structure that seems to be developing. It seems like another Harlequin Romance pool movie based on a stadardized plot that Pool Hall Junkies, Happy Gilmore, and any other thousands of sports movies uses of bad guys and impetus to win beyond the game itself. Know what was so great about Tin Cup, it broke from the mold. It almost sucked if Costner makes the shot at the end, but he does not, and then self destructs based on his personality issues. It was a great ending and made it a far better movie. Break away from the mold.
