LOYAL ENEMIES: A slick grifter uses his sexuality to convince a wealthy, lonely socialite to back him in a high stakes poker game. He soon finds the deck stacked against him.
TOMC6661Penpusher
LOYAL ENEMIES: A slick grifter uses his sexuality to convince a wealthy, lonely socialite to back him in a high stakes poker game. He soon finds the deck stacked against him.
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Why does he need to play the poker game? Providing some context by way of an event that begins your story may also help to endear the character to us; at the moment, I don’t think I like this slick grifter and I don’t think I want to watch a movie about him conning this lonely socialite (and potentially others). Maybe if he had a relatable reason for doing it …
No need to write ‘he soon finds the deck stacked against him’. I get the word play, but it doesn’t tell us anything. (It’d be like writing ‘this will prove harder than he thought’ … which is kind of a no-brainer for anyone familiar with how a story works). Instead, perhaps you could identify the specific antagonist that will oppose him from seducing the socialite?
Is the ACTION of the movie (the main thrust of the second act) the seduction or the poker game? It’s actually unclear what form the narrative and the conflict is going to take.
Is the bulk of this story about him convincing the socialite or about him playing poker?
Gambler movies have traditionally been about the life of the gambler outside of the game. In most good examples, you’ll find that the writer used the problems in the gambler’s life to enhance the stakes of the game.? What problems or conflict does this gambler have in his life? How will you make him winning or losing a big deal?
The logline is mostly?set-up not story.
Who is opposing the lead character, what specifically is standing in his way?
What are the stakes? What personal thing will the lead character lose if he doesn’t succeed?
What situation is motivating the lead character? Why does the lead character ‘need’ to win this tournament?
This is all missing from your logline.
>>>?He soon finds the deck stacked against him.
As if we should care? The logline gives us no reason to root for him or even be curious to see if he can win.
An ageing gigolo con man who plays a naive socialite to finance his last chance at the big shot has been done to death. Spoiler Alert: It never ends well for him.
One of my favourite movie about a chancer who uses his roguish charm to climb the social ladder, before falling in love with his target and ending up rejected is?Barry Lyndon. That movie was superb for his time. The soundtrack is really the thing that transform that movie into a great melancholic tragedy.
Anyway, personally I would flip the script. Make the naive socialite the main character. She is new and introduced to a world of shark. Will she sink or swim? Her “loss of innocence” journey seems to have more mileage. A good movie on that very theme is?House of Games,?a well known David Mamet movie.
It flips the script in the sense that the initially naive psychologist finally reveals herself to be a thrill seeking sociopath.