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guswakeyLogliner
When an exiled gangster turned priest discovers that his mother is dying, he must make peace with his ex partner in crime in order to return home.
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Good logline that could be improved if you tell us what stands between the two men.
E.g.
When an exiled gangster turned priest discovers his mother is dying, he must make peace with the ex-partner he betrayed to the police before he can return home.
There are a couple of things that bother me more than what stands between the two men.
1
First, the ACTION the protagonist must take: making peace. It is too general.
How can he make peace with the ex partner in crime? Must he make amends for something that he did? Must he run an errand for the crime lord? Then, we ask again: How would that happen? Should he go and apologise? Or give the other man a share of money that he took for himself? Or what?
The answer to the question how will he make peace must be an action that sustains about an hour of film time?the Second Act.
And we need to see it in the logline.
2
The “priest” element does not pay of. It may pay off in the script, but I suggest you make the payoff evident (or implied) in the logline.
Why a priest and not a green grocer? It must be more than just characterisation. It should offer some ironic relationship to what happens to him in the story. Perhaps the ex partner in crime comes for a confession? Or as a priest he doesn’t want to kill anymore? Why a priest? Make the “priest” element work. Otherwise name him “a retired ganster.”
Hmm.? If the priest’s objective goal is to visit his mother, what is his subjective need for doing so? (Subjective needs are not usually explicitly stated in a logline, but it strengthens the logline when the subjective need is implicit.)