After her rich husband and her lover are found murdered on her living room floor, a beautiful woman must prove her innocence to avoid being murdered by the police while in custody.
kbfilmworksSamurai
After her rich husband and her lover are found murdered on her living room floor, a beautiful woman must prove her innocence to avoid being murdered by the police while in custody.
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Woah, wait! Why would she be murdered by law enforcement? Or would it be fellow inmates? I think a word or two about the possible motives for them ?and a bit of clarity should be included. But I like the idea! I am interested in this story. Also, any adjectives about the lover?
This sounds like a generic proof of innocence story – what’s the hook? What’s going to be her action in the film? How will she prove anything if she’s in custody?
As pointed above, the logic flaw of her life being threatened while in police custody is confuing – why are the police officers threatening her life?
Nir Shelter:
Why do the police want to kill her? They are convinced she is guilty of murder and are Dirty Harry-style rogue cops ?with their own personal brand of justice.
How will she prove anything if she’s in custody? She narrates via flashback the events prior to the murders in order to establish her innocence. ?She’s basically telling a story to save her life – not dissimilar to Scheherazade.
So the rogue cops have constituted themselves as a modern day “star chamber”. ?If they are her real antagonists, ?I think they need to be referenced explicitly in the logline. ?A reader shouldn’t be left to wonder, to guess on that point; it’s a key element (to wit, selling point) of the plot.
A logline should leave a logline reader wanting to know more in terms of what happens. But I don’t think a logline should leave a reader wanting to know more in order to make sense of the premise, to find it credible.
fwiw
“After her rich husband and her lover are found murdered on her living room floor, a beautiful woman must prove her innocence while in police custody to avoid being murdered by a pair of vigilante cops”.
Vigilante cops are very hard to buy as a viewer. Sure there is probably lots of corruption in law enforcement and likely many bad apples, but for that to be a central part of the story you would need to dedicate a whole plot just to establish the true nature of these “bad cops”. In Dirty Harry the film’s central plot revolves around “Bad Cops”, what they do and how they get away with it, whereas here it revolves around an innocent woman.
More to the point, having her talk about her story instead of seeing her in it is very un-cinematic and likely going to work against you. Is this planned on being a Usual Suspect style retelling of events? If so, that gimmick has been done and I’m not sure what about her story would hook a reader.
Nir Shelter
“Vigilante cops are very hard to buy as a viewer”, etc.
When you make a sweeping statement like this you had better be quoting a visionary film-maker like Martin Scorsese or someone similar. If this is simply your own personal opinion transcribed into screenwriting dogma then it smacks of a level of arrogance that actually scares me. ?Don’t you know that dogma is an anathema to creativity?
Time and chance are wild cards in the marketing of a movie.
“Dirty Harry” and “Death Wish” were successful because of the zeitgeist of their time; cops who played loose and dirty with the rules and laws, vigilante-style justice played to people’s frustrations and anxiety that there was a break down in law and order (in the USA anyway), that ?normative police and justice procedures were ineffective. ?Too many of the bad guys seemed to be beating the rules of the system.
Today (in the USA anyway) I think it would be a lot harder for a movie with a “Dirty Harry” type cop character to get made.
Whether this particular “star chamber” ?premise can tap into a current zeitgeist of a mass anxiety, phobia or discontent, I don’t know. ?Maybe if the woman were an emigrant, an Islamic woman, it might play in Great Britain to current anxieties associated with Brexit. ?But I don’t know if kbfilmworks ?wants to tip toe through that mine field.
I throw that out there for what it isn’t worth because of another question Nir Shelter raised in an earlier post: ?what motivated the formation of a “star chamber” group of vigilante cops in the 1st place? ?What’s the origin story? And here is where I personally have problems with the credibility of the assumption that seems to underlie the premise.
My own conclusion based on first hand observation while working in law enforcement was that vigilante style “justice” in police work (aka: street justice) was usually motivated by 3 situations: ?1] Because of the victim’s race; 2] Because the victim was a serial offender, a thief, a pimp, a drug dealer with a long rap sheet who seemed to beat the system. ?He always made bail, always got off with a reduced charged and token time served. 3] Because of the victim’s race and rap sheet (And god help him!)
I don’t see any of the 3 situations reflected in this premise. ?There is no indication that the woman belongs to a minority, either racial and/or religious. ?There is no indication that she’s a serial offender. ?So I don’t see these why vigilante cops would have the motivation to take the risk of executing “star chamber” justice on her. Risk because they are operating outside the law; there’s always the possibility of them being caught, being fired, being jailed themselves. Why are they taking the time and risk to “try” and execute her when there are so many other suspects more “worthy” of their brand of justice?
fwiw
dpg:
I like speculating about stuff as much as anyone but a lot of the stuff that’s being said here does not help to improve the logline in my view.
Nir Shelter was out of order. We’re here to improve loglines. If anyone thinks the subject matter is boring or the structure is moribund, etc. then there are plenty of other loglines that might be more deserving of comment.
“After her husband and Mafia Lover are found murdered on her living room floor, a woman, while in police custody must survive assassin inmates to prove her innocence in court.”
“…Nir Shelter was out of order. We?re here to improve loglines. If anyone thinks the subject matter is boring or the structure is moribund, etc. then there are plenty of other loglines that might be more deserving of comment.”
“…When you make a sweeping statement like this you had better be quoting a visionary film-maker like Martin Scorsese or someone similar. If this is simply your own personal opinion transcribed into screenwriting dogma then it smacks of a level of arrogance that actually scares me. ?Don?t you know that dogma is an anathema to creativity?”
Kbfilmworks,
Knowing how to take notes and implement them into your work is a vital skill that all writers need to learn. The nature of your comments above indicate a lack of experience, and that’s why we’re here – to help each other learn.
You asked for our opinions and that is what you got. In future, please be thankful to those who take the time to read your loglines.
Seeing as you so eagerly dismissed what I wrote, and clearly lack appreciation for it, I shall refrain from ever commenting on your posts again.
Good luck in your screenwriting career – with this kind of attitude you’ll need lots of it…
Nir.
Nir Shelter:
You guru-wannabes with zero screen credits just exhaust me. You’re so eager to spout your untested theories and ideas in an arena where you’re not required to back your words with action and somebody else’s money.?
“…wannabes with zero screen credits …”
Oh, sweet irony…
I see 2 issues with the logline.
1. Mentioning on the living room floor in the logline. Not so important as to waste valuable space on.
2. The whole “in custody” part. If she was instead on the run and needing to prove her innocence or else “a crazy cop or two” may catch her and seek revenge, then we will still need to explain a damn good reason for that. IE, The Fugitive. She can break out of custody, sure, kinda like in the movie Salt, but I just don’t see where the story can exist in custody for very long.
The blanket “by the police” sounds odd.
The mention of the rich husband builds intrigue and the murders. As mentioned above, “beautiful” is too generic. Think of another element in the story that describes her.