When a policeman's family is kidnapped by a sadistic crimelord he must kill a rival crime boss to save his family.

Good. BUT…we don’t know the policeman’s flaw, the ‘ghost from his past’, or his ‘wound’ – the thing he must overcome within himself to achieve his outward goal.

Success in achieving the outward goal – in a good story – always come from the hero realizing his inner ‘need’.

Yes, loglines are all about the outward goal, which you have – BRILLIANT! You have just one word to tell us his flaw – the adjective to describe your hero – currently a gaping hole begging to be filled with a flaw !

So, why has the sadistic crime lord (I think you can lose the adjective ‘sadistic’ we know he’s sadistic if this is his ultimatum) but what we don’t know is why he has chosen this policeman – there HAS to be a reason.

Is the cop an ex-user or a gambler in his debt ? Maybe he needs to get in recovery? Maybe his REALIZATION that he needs to be in recovery will help him some way to achieve his goal…

Maybe his GA sponsor is ex-mob with connections ?

This is the difficulty of weaving a believable but thrilling story together.

Watch The Town for a complex web of plots and subplots to see how cops and gangs and debts and families are all weaved together to form a thrilling but complex crime story.

So, all that said, I think this is a GREAT idea for a story – but who is the cop? We need to know his flaw, why him ?

Also, the flaw must somehow evoke our empathy.

Maybe personalize exactly who is kidnapped too?

“When a drugs bust goes down a corrupt cop in the pocket of the crimelord must pay $1,000,000 in compensation, but when he doesn’t and his 6 year old daughter is kidnapped for ransom, he faces a dilemma, find $1,000,000 in 24 hours, or kill a rival crime boss to save her.”

Here you have stakes, and a dilemma: much easier to kill than find 1 million bucks, but what about his conscience – can he live with himself ? And what about his daughter. What would you do?

I think you’re onto something here. Kind of story I’d like to write.

Is the screenplay written yet? If not, think about including a few more details in the logline to give it more meat and more heart.

I would suggest the flaw is something within the hero, planted from some wound in his past, some inner issue which he has to rectify within himself before he can achieve his goal.

Think of Michael in The Godfather. Because his is a demise from a good character to a morally corrupt character we could say his flaw or weakness is he is legitimate, mainstream, separated from the family.

He must overcome these weaknesses to change and take action (revenge) to become a tyrannical ruler of the family.

In Tootsie his flaw is his he is arrogant, sexist, and a womanizer.

By becoming a woman and seeing things from a new perspective he is able to change and develop a real relationship with a woman.

So, the flaw must be how the hero starts the story, not something he must do in the future.

Read Truby’s sections on ‘Premise’ and ‘Character’ in his Anatomy of Story for more on this.