Cattle (the boring version) – Reboot
Lucius PaisleyLogliner
A low-ranking police officer must infiltrate a hostage situation to save his dying wife and their unborn son.
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Because there are cows in it. Literally and metaphorically.
Why “Cattle” for a working title?
“why not leave it up to the professionals?”
It’s supposed to take place in a small town, there aren’t too many “professionals”, however, as insurance for everybody’s safety, he agreed not to involve anybody else.
I think ‘infiltrate’ has a more surreptitious meaning behind it, breaking in while trying not to be discovered – kind of thing. ‘Raid’ to me indicates a violent act.
I guess ‘Die Hard’ would be close, but I’m looking at more of an ‘Ash’ from Evil Dead I/II, where he begins quite timid and grows into the loud-mouth antihero of ‘Army of Darkness’, but perhaps not quite as “larger than life”.
As far as McClane’s reason for being in the Nakatomi building, it was just as simple as that’s where his wife was. Not a very strong motivation at all, at least not until the shooting starts.
I guess also, paternal instinct may not be seen as a strong motivation for my character, at least not for anybody who doesn’t have children.
Firstly, I am trying to get the bare guts of the story straight before I add the extra elements for the story I want.
However, I want the police officer to be very dependent on his superiors, so his confidence builds at each new act when he can’t rely on them.
His wife is dying due to pregnancy issues. I tried using ‘fatal complications’, but people seem to get confused and think she was dead already.
The exact reason why is tied in to the final reveal and in the logline, I only want the audience to know what the police officer knows as far as his needs are concerned.
The question I have is why not leave it to the professionals? Why go it alone when you an entire police force backing you up? Plus infiltrate seems the wrong word. An undercover cop infiltrates, this seems more like a raid.
I am thinking Die Hard, which I love. But Bruno had a reason to be there. Define your reasons.
At 19 words, this is a super tight logline, and the story is crystal clear.
On the other hand, it feels fairly low-concept. So I’m wondering if there is a character journey for the police officer. Why is ‘low-ranking’ important in this story? This would be high stakes for any officer, I’d say.
The ticking clock is great. But why is she dying? Is she injured? I want to have hopes that both mother and child can be saved.