When a war veteran suffering PTSD goes on a rampage in the woods, his brother joins up with his friends to hunt him down – and must get to him first before the others kill him.

I really like ?Brothers? and ?Jacknife? for their portrayal of PTSD and that horrible grey area. Thanks for the recommendation.

I certainly don?t want to portray every war vet as a ?damaged flower?. I’ve spoken to one who absolutely hated the idea that all war vets are “damaged flowers”. And I’ve spoken to another who quite simply wanted to hold a gun and kill someone. (You do get bad apples where ever you go.)

There?s also a tinge of the film ?Casualties of War? here too ? alpha male with a gun, starts power-tripping, etc.

It?s less to do with?Vietnam and more to do with man?s inhumanity to man. It could even be an exploration into what it means to hold a gun – the power, the responsibility, etc.

Man?s relationship to violence. Masculinity. How we repeat the same mistakes.

There?s a lot of themes and ideas here ? but I want to do the Mamet thing of not focusing (so much) on theme. Or atleast I?d prefer to have ONE overriding theme as opposed to shoehorning a bunch of things where they don?t belong. Just let that stuff organically happen.

To add to earlier, I think ?Taxi Driver? never really mentions Vietnam either. Or at least I don?t think so.

Admittedly, this is quite a universal idea.?Could be any war really.

I had another idea that the war vet?s girlfriend could be a pacifist, anti-war hippie or at someone who has a different ideology (is that the right word?) Perhaps he comes back and she?s changed. She?s anti-war. Hmm ? very close to ?Born on the Fourth of July? and ?Forrest Gump? here.

Anyways ? I just imagined it would be late 70s. Vietnam war. To some extent ? it?s in the vein of the those films from the 70s. (Deliverance, Straw Dogs, etc.) A nice little homage to that kind of film-making (which I know ? is obsolete now).

Another thing is that America is in an interesting place 70s-80s. Turbulent. How much that has to do with the story ? I?m not sure yet.

But yeah ? to answer the original question? that?s why I never considered cell phones ha.

Thanks for the feedback!

Why will his ?friends? murder him?? Why won?t his friends to the more rational and common sense act of notifying the brother (by cellphone) that they?ve located him so he can join them and defuse the situation?

This is set post-Vietnam. We’ll say early 80s. So – no cellphones.

It’s the brother’s friends not the war vets friends. However – they’re all war vets. I wasn’t sure how to mention that.?

These “friends” are all gung-ho, trigger happy, power-tripping and clearly just as damaged as the war-vet-suffering-ptsd. It’s a grey area. They’re not out to “murder” him. They’re out to hunt him down.?

However – it becomes increasingly clear the others will murder him and perform a “necessary evil”. They’ll do whatever they need to do to protect their small town.

In my opinion – I’m conjuring up all the wrong images with this logline. I think there’s something here – just not with this logline. It’s quite lazy I think. It’s not doing enough.