When he sees the teacher who sexually assaulted him as a child, a young executive’s memories of years of abuse flood back and he embarks on a mission to protect other boys, only to discover what he really seeks is to avenge his abused friend?s suicide.
AHStittPenpusher
When he sees the teacher who sexually assaulted him as a child, a young executive’s memories of years of abuse flood back and he embarks on a mission to protect other boys, only to discover what he really seeks is to avenge his abused friend?s suicide.
Share
This sounds like the movie SLEEPERS with Brad Pitt.
What’s the ?manner of revenge? ?Does the man seek to expose the teacher, bring him to legal justice? ?Or does the man seek “street justice” — he wants to kill him? Or…?
Agreed with Foxtrot25 this is practically the same story only with one main character instead of 4.
Not sure there is much that can be done to avoid this being plagiarism.
I agree with what the others are saying.
From a practical logline standpoint. Your character has way too many goals in the logline. They can be in the story but the logline should be focused.
Thanks guys – reread SLEEPERS (transcript) just to make sure.?? Almost no intersection other than childhood sexual abuse and the urge to get even.? But the message is clear – logline? needs to not be mistaken for Sleepers.? Too many goals – first one then another – but I’ll take that on board and go for the immediate goal
When he discovers the teacher who sexually assaulted him as a child acquitted of another paedophile charge, a young executive?s memories of years of abuse flood back and he embarks on a seemingly impossible mission to protect other boys from him.
How does “protect other boys” translate into a specific course of action? ?Does he want to expose and incarcerate the teacher? ?Take the law into his own hands? ?What’s his ?game plan?
And what makes his mission “seemingly impossible”?
Thanks for persisting with this dpg.
“protect other boys” becomes a crusade to try and get authority figures (police, the current school etc.) to stop the teacher having contact with boys ie a flawed active-passive approach.
His game plan up until his first change of goal is:
1. Try and re-bury his past – but he can’t.
2. Prove the teacher is no longer active stalking boys – but he is.
3. Vaguely hope “being there” (ie fully passive) will cause the teacher to behave differently – doomed to fail.
4. Get the police to intervene – they can’t without a crime (his key flaw is he won’t own up to his own abuse. One of the detectives gut-knows he’s a victim but can’t get him to fess-up.).
5. Get the school the teacher is at to keep him from boys – but they appear to believe in the teacher, largely based on references from other schools starting with the school where our executive and his friend were abused ( our executive does not get to see that he has actually alerted the school to look more closely).
6. Get his childhood school to admit giving a glowing reference was wrong – but they are super-defensive and attack our executive back ( he was expelled as a child on the false accusation, by the teacher to protect himself, of homosexual acts with his childhood friend).
7. Try again to get the school the teacher is at to keep him from boys by revealing more of himself and more detailed information – but the school plays its cards close to its chest and redirects him to the police.
8. Go again to the police intending to start opening to the detectives so as to give a crime they can use – but the lead detective has decided he has a better chance of getting the teacher by using our executive as a weapon, not a witness, and he deflects the report.
… and that is about the midpoint; where our executive realises he has to become more active (one on one)? because he is literally on his own.
The “seemingly impossible” was my attempt to summarise that every action he takes fails, often because he cannot pass his responsibility to others (or even enlist them while he remains closed).
Keen to hear your take on summarising all this down to a few words.?? Looks like my “protect other boys” is not strong enough.? It’s wordy but “embarks on a doomed to fail mission to get relevant authorities to stop the teacher”? And my count for that is 43 words.
Cheers, Lx
AHStitt:
It seems to me your logline aims too low in terms of the objective goal.
I don?t see how his end of Act 1 objective goal can be anything less than to want to bring the pedophile to justice ? to expose the pedophile with enough evidence to win his conviction, get him locked up for his crimes.
Why would he want, why would he settle for anything less? ?It’s a positive, a noble, a socially desirable goal, one the entire audience can root for. And it gives the audience an audio/visual moment that signals he has succeeded, when the jury returns a guilty verdict, ?the judge pronounces sentence.
This is a story where the protagonist must aim high from the git-go. ?The abominable nature of the crimes, the stakes of the innocent, vulnerable victims demand ?no less, imho.
The plot — and logline — should be about the biggest dream, the most important and meaningful goal, the must-have object, the must-do achievement in the life of the protagonist at the time in his life?in which the story is set.
fwiw