The Jackal Writing a screenplay for a thriller is hard. Harder than pouring concrete under the Texas sun. Harder than building a bridge over troubled waters. And incidentally, a whole heck of a lot harder than writing a movie review.
Thrillers are all variations on a theme.
You have a smart, resourceful, and powerful Bad Guy, who has a goal he has to meet. You have a noble and brave Good Guy, who has to protect the innocent, kill the Bad Guy, and not get killed himself in the process. The trick of thriller writing is doing all of this in an interesting and novel manner. Point is, it's not enough to follow the formula. You've got to throw in something extra, something good and new and better than the last version.