A headstrong and impulsive youth steals £230 million of mob funds and stays one step ahead of the top mob enforcer until he decides to donate it to a charitable cause.
kbfilmworksSamurai
A headstrong and impulsive youth steals £230 million of mob funds and stays one step ahead of the top mob enforcer until he decides to donate it to a charitable cause.
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“headstrong and impulsive youth” = protagonist
“steals £230 million of mob funds” = inciting incident
“donates it to a charitable cause” = inciting incident
“stays one step ahead of the top mob enforcer” = main character goal
Great logline. Has a heist film meets thriller feel to it.
‘Impulsive character steals large sum of money from bad guys’ seems to indicate that the character arc might be from Impulsive -> through to -> Considered, as a main character trait transformation. In a strange way, donating a large sum of stolen money to a charitable cause, also seems (to me anyhow) a bit impulsive too. A Charity is best to accept ‘clean money’, and while donating has thoughtful and considered qualities, our said character hasn’t really thought things through.
How then might our unpredictable character find himself in a stop and think situation? And I guess the answer is when the bad guys catch him. Makes me think of ‘A Clockwork Orange (1971)’, where an overly confident character eventually finds himself in a torturous, and institutional situation. Wonder if this logline might benefit from more detail on the nature of the main character’s problem and its potential for transformation.
Thanks. Appreciate your thoughts on this. The decision to donate the money happens at the top of the final act. This obviously is irreversible and will lead to very heavy consequences. So, he is sacrificing himself at the altar of a good cause, which is noble. And, the enforcer also displays noble qualities, so he is not a stereotypical bad guy.
Also, the question of clean Vs dirty money is discussed. The enforcer himself believes that ‘no money is dirty, only people’. Also, stealing what is already stolen creates a situation of moral relativity.
I think I should change ‘steals’ to ‘stumbles across’ because it’s not a heist but a crime of opportunity. The character arc would be from opportunistic to self-sacrificing since it’s clear the mob will treat him extremely harshly when they finally do lay hands on him and find out their money is gone.
His motivation is what changes and not his character. I like to think character is hardwired anyway. I mean, alcoholics never lose the urge to drink, they learn to sublimate or positively channel the urge.
Also, the shift in motivation happens in stages, giving all the money to charity is not predictable, but it does make sense, especially because he is impulsive. His motivation to give all the money away is this: innocent people he cares about have died and he feels the need to somehow redeem himself, he also knows that the mob will never stop hunting him and he will suffer terribly when they finally catch him. So, on impulse, he decides to make the best of an extremely bad situation.