When his daughter commits suicide after witnessing her ex-con boyfriend shot to death, a father-before-a-cop helps Internal Affairs investigators in a sting operation to nail the dirty cops responsible.
EethanSamurai
When his daughter commits suicide after witnessing her ex-con boyfriend shot to death, a father-before-a-cop helps Internal Affairs investigators in a sting operation to nail the dirty cops responsible.
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“I dunno. ?I ?feel the daughter?s suicide may be over the top and not necessary.” I think it works.
Though in order for it to work you may need to add a harassment angle. Something like, she and her boyfriend(I suggest not making him an ex-con at all, but simply POC?male who did nothing wrong) are harassed by the police, and she gets depressed, and then when she watches her boyfriend shot for no good reason, she is driven to suicide.
So, not only is his daughter dead, but she was suffering the whole time. The only thing the father can think of is to put these people to justice. I suppose that’s a bit interesting in itself, rather than take revenge he wants justice. That separates it from most stories similar to this.
Also, then you could have something that daughter believed in is what drives him to justice, not revenge.
That’s my take, anyway.
Agreed with the above comments.
I think that the main character needs a greater obstacle, if he is working with a police department he has a lot of resources at his disposal. How hard will it be? Sure there are some corrupt individuals but he’s got a bunch of armed men and women working with him, except for the occasional difficult interview there’s not much in ways of conflict and hardship.
What if the father is a former cop because he got shot on duty and is now wheelchair bound? This way he has a major physical obstacle to get over in his way to justice. I would even take it one step further and suggest that the police are so corrupt that no department is willing to investigate the case, and he is left on his own to uncover the corruption and find the culprit. If you take on board DPG and Richiev’s advise to keep the daughter alive then she could be his right hand, and aid him when he needs an able bodied person.
Since this hasn’t been written yet, you should take out the suicide angle.
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“When his son is killed by the police, a former cop works with internal affairs to bring the dirty officers to justice.”
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Also, I am not sure he needs to be a former police officer. What if he is a current officer and his son ‘who is black’ is beaten to death by dirty officers. Now he is secretly working with internal affairs but if his fellow officers find out, he will become a pariah. Suddenly the stakes are much higher. These are his brothers but they will turn on him if he is caught.
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“When his son is beaten to death by the police, an African American cop works with internal affairs to bring the dirty officers to justice, but must maintain his secrecy from his fellow brother’s in blue or become a pariah.”
Just curious, but is this logline for a script already written, or are you fleshing out an idea by writing the logline first?
I dunno. ?I ?feel the daughter’s suicide may be over the top and not necessary. ?She might be more effective as a character who stays alive, as a grieving presence in his life, continually urging him to right the wrong. ?Also at the time of the murder, she could be expecting– he’s going to become a grandfather for the 1st time, thanks to the ex-con. ?(And during the course of the story, he could develop a deep emotional bond to the child.)
And if you’re going to be make him an ex-cop, then I suggest the prime perp be his ex-partner who is still a cop. ?Heighten the dramatic tension and conflict by pitting the protagonist’s loyalty to justice and to his family against loyalty to his “cop family”. ?(In police work,strong and deep bonds of friendship and loyalty often develop among cops that rival those they have with their families.)
fwiw
The term ‘father-before-a-cop’ should be changed to, ‘a former police officer’ to avoid confusion.