A smooth talking, but psychologically damaged, criminal with face-blindness rips off a dangerous drug-lord with help from his tough-guy brother. When they are betrayed by their psychopathic accomplice, he must overcome his psychological challenges and track the psychopath through the underground world of experimental hallucinogenic psycho-therapy in order to retrieve the drugs and prevent his brother being murdered.

My takeaway is that if you are going to have a protagonist with face blindness, leverage it to the max; the plot should pivot on that disability. But? I'm not sure how it does in your latest iteration.

>>>and confront his traumatic past

So having face-blindness isn't of itself a big enough personal problem to wrestle with?? And? conversely, if he "confronts his traumatic past" -- whatever that entails -- it won't cure his face-blindness.? He will still have to cope with the disability every day of his life.? IOW: I think the face-blindness is his central personal problem,? past trauma is a sidebar issue.

Whatever, for the purpose of a logline, the "traumatic past" is a subjective issue, hence extraneous, not necessary to mention in the logline.? Loglines are about protagonists striving toward an objective goals in the future, not dealing with subjective issues in the past.

fwiw

My takeaway is that if you are going to have a protagonist with face blindness, leverage it to the max; the plot should pivot on that disability. But? I'm not sure how it does in your latest iteration.

>>>and confront his traumatic past

So having face-blindness isn't of itself a big enough personal problem to wrestle with?? And? conversely, if he "confronts his traumatic past" -- whatever that entails -- it won't cure his face-blindness.? He will still have to cope with the disability every day of his life.? IOW: I think the face-blindness is his central personal problem,? past trauma is a sidebar issue.

Whatever, for the purpose of a logline, the "traumatic past" is a subjective issue, hence extraneous, not necessary to mention in the logline.? Loglines are about protagonists striving toward an objective goals in the future, not dealing with subjective issues in the past.

fwiw

Lots to think about here, thanks everyone for your comments.

A friend suggested we are mixing together two seperate stories here - one is mystery story where the detective has face-blindness, and the other is a drama about a face-blind crim healing from early life trauma.

So...

1) When his brother is held ransom over a stolen drug shipment, a recluse with face-blindness must track down the drugs and return them before his brother is killed.
2) A callous face-blind criminal is socially isolated and depends on his brother for everything, but when his brother is hospitalised during a bungled heist he is forced to forge new relationships and confront his traumatic past