True story of a brilliant professional gambler and the owner of an elegant sporting parlor defending his life against a evil U.S.Marshal, who in a jealous rage is seeking out a personal vendetta in the American south during the late 1880's.

Jimnewman75 is spot-on with his analysis. I also agree that his logline is going toward the right direction, but it is missing something imperative, which was only hinted at in the original logline: the hook.

Use his logline as your new start point, as your second attempt wasn’t effective either. You really should not use valuable logline real estate to mention character names unless they are pertinent to the story as a whole.

That being said, it is also more effective for loglines to start out with “When…”, or “After…”, or “As…”.

So, your new logline might look like:

“After a Wild West gambler and a conniving sports parlor owner (expose fixed poker games), they discover that the corruption includes the Marshall and (quite possibly the gambler’s father- the judge)!”

I included some elements (possible hooks) that should separate your story from others of the some genre, and even the same topic. For instance, this story is separated from “Maverick” by including the father’s possible involvement. More importantly, however, it adds another “hook” and ratchets the conflict another notch. In other words, with that logline, that is a story I’d want to read, and a movie I’d want to watch.

Hope this helps some…

Geno Scala (sharkeatingman)- judge.

Yes, that version is much more improved. I think words like “gambler”, outhouse, and “U.S. Marshall” hints enough at the historic time frame where you might not need the year in the logline.

My overriding concern is this: replace “nailed to an outhouse door” with her face being slashed, and “gamblers” with hired guns, and you’ve got the logline for “Unforgiven”.

Perhaps that movie was inspired by the same historic incident. Just a thought…