In a post-apocalyptic future, when a reckless government agent learns that his long lost brother is a test subject in a brutal military experiment, he helps a terrorist cell fight through a dangerous wasteland to free a host of captured children.

“In a post-apocalyptic future, when a reckless government agent learns that his long lost brother is a test subject in a brutal military experiment, he helps a terrorist cell fight through a dangerous wasteland to free a host of captured children.” (42 words)

This sounds rather interesting!

Just a couple of logic sort of questions that popped for me when I read it. Is the “long lost brother” a “captured child?” The two seem unlikely. If he’s been lost that long, he wouldn’t still be a child, would he? In that same vein, a “government agent” would be of a certain minimum age, so, for his brother to be a “child,” there’s some huge time gap in there. I suspect the brother is now an adult who was part of this experiment as a child? If that’s the case, it just needs a bit more clarity. The “next host of captured children” or something similar would do it.

My other logic question is are there “government” agents and a standing “military” in a “post-apocalyptic” world? There may be, of course, it just made me mentally stop and ask, when I should have been engrossed in the rest of the sentence.

I think you can shorten this a bit without losing much of the drive of the story.

When a reckless government agent discovers his brother was subjected to brutal military experiments as a child, he switches sides to help a terrorist cell rescue the next host of captured children. (32 words)

The post-apocalyptic and wasteland references certainly do give atmosphere, but, they make for a long logline. They’re sort of the same thing too, so, if you want to keep that sense of where/when, maybe just one or the other?

If you want to chop it even more, you could probably even try:

On discovering his brother was subjected to brutal military experiments, a government agent risks everything to rescue the next host of captured children. (23 words)

I do like the twist of him changing up sides though, so, might be worth finding a short version that keeps that element. And, yup, “everything” is sort of bland, but, I think you do need stakes of some kind, so maybe something like “his career – and life!” or similar?

Intriguing idea!

Ah, more info. 🙂

I still think you can skip the whole dystopian intro. At this point, it really is a matter of striping out the unnecessary or redundant… Little things like “sworn enemy” is really just any enemy, no swearing involved. 🙂 “locate and infiltrate” is another one. You can’t infiltrate what you haven’t already found, so, “infiltrate” is fine.

We do have to figure out who old this brother is though. “… his brother and other children” again makes it sound like the brother is a child, which doesn’t seem possible in the scenario described.

What’s been mentioned about the inciting incident is important too. If his brother suddenly stumbled home, there would be no need to find him, so, how does he find out he’s alive? That’s the inciting incident.

“When a government agent which proves his brother has been trapped in a brutal military experiment since his childhood disappearance, he switches sides to help a terror cell rescue him and the next host of captured children.”

or, shorter:

“When a government agent discovers his brother has been subjected to brutal military experiments since childhood, he switches sides to help a terrorist cell rescue him and the next host of captured children.”

I’m not sure you need the specific what of how he discovers it – if you’re pitching live, that can come out in natural discussion, but, somehow, get across that the brother isn’t a child, and skin out the useless words, and you should be there.

I think this one sounds like a promising script, best of luck at the ;fest!