A top cop receives a rookie partner to help him to down a drug cartel after losing his old partner to the same cartel.
LeviathanSamurai
A top cop receives a rookie partner to help him to down a drug cartel after losing his old partner to the same cartel.
Share
Please clarify:? ?who has been reckless, the “new? partner” or the “top cop”?? Ditto for who has to be kept from “turning in his badge”.
Also, if the top cop has been assigned a new partner as punishment for being “reckless”, well, you can take certain liberties with comedy, but that may be a liberty too far. Nor is it necessary.? Just have the protagonist assigned a rookie partner to the DEU (drug enforcement unit)? whom he has to train.
Further, getting a new partner seems to be a complication rather than an inciting incident.? There is no apparent cause and effect relationship between getting a new partner and taking on a drug cartel.
So what is the inciting incident?? Why is the cop taking on a drug cartel?
Also, in the crime genre, the protagonist is defined? in relation to his nemesis.? But we have no idea what makes the nemesis so special, a worthy adversary.? For that matter, we have no idea what makes the protagonist so special? either; “top” is vague, general,
Your stakes and goals don?t line up.
A goal has to have a stake opposing it. If there is one Apple left and we both want it there is conflict. I want an Apple, you want a Banana there is no conflict. You have given us a list of goals, we can assume each of them have the appropriate challenges.
You may be better off picking one and giving us the conflict around that.
Agree with all above comments. Clarity is key in a logline!
The top cop isn’t the reckless cop. Usually these guys are partners because it generates conflict. Lethal Weapon is a great example of this.
As CraigDGriffiths pointed out, you have a list of goals… which is the goal? To me it should be stopping the cartel. Through the lessons learnt and relationship developed while trying to bring the cartel to justice they learn to be less reckless or more relaxed… whatever the opposite of the opening is.
How is this going to be different to most other buddy cop films? I’m not seeing a hook right now.
As a comedy I think it’s important to understand where the humour is coming from in a logline like this. You could just as easily put this in drama, action, or thriller and it wouldn’t matter as it currently stands. If you want it to be a comedy, make us understand why the audience is going to be laughing. In Rush Hour for example, the humour comes from the “eastern straight laced cop” meets “western plays by his own rules cop”. With the right adjectives, it would be immediately obvious that the humour largely comes from the culture clash. In version 2, give us a clue where the comedy is coming from. Or change it to an action film (if you’re going for action/comedy).
Hope this helps.
The three questions I’d have echo the other statements, who is reckless and why is the other cop turning in their badge. If the main cop is reckless, how can he or she keep their? partner alive?