The Agenda
When Sam Blake, a successful hitman, discovers he has a fatal disease he vows to never kill an innocent person again, but the only way a hitman retires is to sign The Agenda, a list of targets, and compete against other hitmen to see who can rack up the most kills…so Sam decides to eliminate the competition.
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I have a much better understanding of the story after this logline attempt, now your next step will be to cut the word count. (while keeping the essence of the story)
Hope that helps, good luck with this!
“When a successful hitman contracts cancer he vows to quit contract killing, but when he’s given one last list of targets, he must take out his bosses top killers if he’s to keep his vow.”
Thanks Richiev, I’m going to use your revised version. Thanks again!
Richiev’s version is more concise, but I still don’t get the causal logic of the plot.
The hitman takes a vow to kill — and the way he keeps the vow is to… break it and go on another killing spree (I know, his targets are hitmen — but the vow makes no distinctions, no exceptions.)
Furthermore, if he has a fatal disease, he’s going be ‘retired’ (die) anyway so what difference does it make to him whether he plays along with the “Agenda” or not? He’s a dead man walking.
I have no problem with him breaking his vow, going out in one last blast against other hitmen, but I just want good reason. And I don’t see it in the logline.
The hook that makes this interesting is not the fact that he’s dying, but that in order to get around his “no more killing innocents” vow, and yet still partake in the “The Agenda” he decides to kill all the other hitman (because, as hitmen, they are not innocent).
I would find a better motivation than that he is already dying, because as dpg suggests, if he’s dead anyway, why do we care if he makes it out clean or not? Give your protagonist a different, but just as primal and high stakes reason, for wanting to get out. A threat to his family? His kid?
My point was why does he have to partake of “the Agenda” when he’s a dead man walking?
Whatever.
>>A threat to his family? His kid?
That might work. A la “Breaking Bad”. After diagnosed with almost certainly fatal lung cancer, a milquetoast chemistry teacher decides to cook meth to provide for his family after his death.