A quick movie pitch...

Rylan Zolinski

Rylan Zolinski

Well-known member
A vagabond teams up with an unlikely partner to take down a mob syndicate that was responsible for his fathers death.

Sound interesting at all? I thought of a rough story last night and in my head, it sounds fantastic.
 
Ok, this is the mismatched buddy movie / crime movie crossover - that's fine in itself, but you need to stand out from all the others.

We need to know who the unlikely partner is - in just a few words, their description needs to be interesting plotwise and sound like an intriguing partner for a vagabond.

And how could a vagabond take down a mob syndicate? The obvious boring answer - he's a washed up ex-assassin/spy/marine/etc - seem a little cliched. The interesting angle for me is that vagabonds are frequently treated as invisible anonymous people, so I can actually see a vagabond using his street life skills to infiltrate the crime world, especially if he's not a messed up drunk cliche but actually a very smart guy who has for some good reason rejected the material success he could have easily had in traditional society.
 
clang said:
Ok, this is the mismatched buddy movie / crime movie crossover - that's fine in itself, but you need to stand out from all the others.

We need to know who the unlikely partner is - in just a few words, their description needs to be interesting plotwise and sound like an intriguing partner for a vagabond.

The interesting angle for me is that vagabonds are frequently treated as invisible anonymous people, so I can actually see a vagabond using his street life skills to infiltrate the crime world, especially if he's not a messed up drunk cliche but actually a very smart guy who has for some good reason rejected the material success he could have easily had in traditional society.
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The partner is a part of the twist in the script.

What you explained as "interesting" is what I already thought of.
 
If I was a movie exec (which I'm not) and this was queried to me, I'd pass.

There isn't enough to this to make it an interesting logline that spells out all the details of your plot (in the way a great log should in a sentence or two).

Also, it reminds me of some 80's or 90's style movie... The whole mobster thing (done to death) and the whole vagabond (again I feel) and the fathers death (who's father didnt die under suspicious circumstances (?).

EJ
 
EJ Pennypacker said:
Also, it reminds me of some 80's or 90's style movie... The whole mobster thing (done to death) and the whole vagabond (again I feel) and the fathers death (who's father didnt die under suspicious circumstances (?).

EJ
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I could not find a better word for "mob." Although "mob" usually refers to Italian gangsters and whatnot, it was not really what I was going for.

To make it more interesting than what my pitch explained:

The main character is a bastard child. His half-brother works with the syndicate. They don't know of eachothers existence. The main character visits the grave of his father (on his fathers birthday) and sees his half-brother there.

This is the "unlikely" sidekick part.

The setting is so far undetermined. I wanted a fictitious "feel" to it, but set in modern times.
 
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Well, if that's not interesting, what about this:

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/147828#

My friend and I created this a few years ago. We made a teaser that summed up the movie in which we wanted to make (animated). We never did, and to this day, I wanted to at least make it into a script. I always did love the idea.

By the way, that's my friends narration; just avoid it. Just listen to the story.
 
The half-brother bit needs to be part of the pitch. "A vagabond teams up with his newly discovered half-brother, a wealthy successful criminal, to take down the crime syndicate responsible for their father's death" perhaps, although that doesn't mention the fact that the half brother is already part of that same syndicate (at least that's what i assume you meant).

My immediate problem is why is the vagabond necessary? A perfectly good film could be made about a wealthy successful criminal who discovers that his own crime syndicate killed his father, and in revenge (and/or out of guilt) decides to destroy the syndicate from within. Yes a vagabond half-brother could be a useful minor character, but the crim himself seems a better central character.
 
clang said:
The half-brother bit needs to be part of the pitch. "A vagabond teams up with his newly discovered half-brother, a wealthy successful criminal, to take down the crime syndicate responsible for their father's death" perhaps, although that doesn't mention the fact that the half brother is already part of that same syndicate (at least that's what i assume you meant).

My immediate problem is why is the vagabond necessary? A perfectly good film could be made about a wealthy successful criminal who discovers that his own crime syndicate killed his father, and in revenge (and/or out of guilt) decides to destroy the syndicate from within. Yes a vagabond half-brother could be a useful minor character, but the crim himself seems a better central character.
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Yeah, I am going to work on it in a bit. Does it seem at least a little bit interesting?
 
I think it sounds pretty interesting. Though i do agree with some of the other posts, you have to make it stand out if you want it to go anywhere.
 
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Yeah, you'd really need to make it stand out. You have to watch a few classic action movies (no Jason Statham or anything) and look not just at the action and basic plot, but at the characters, the themes, and how it really stands out. Then you have to pay close attention to the reviews of the movie from the time it was made, and look closely to see why the movie is a classic. Scorsese got lucky because he grew up in Little Italy, which was far more dangerous back then. He understood the cultures and times he wrote and made movies about. If you don't know that kind of life, you have to use your own life to invent it. Think about it. If you have to write a character describing fear, don't write what you heard in another film. Think about what fear feels like for YOU, even if the character is of a different gender, culture, age, whatever, because we all have those fundamental feelings in us. If you look closely at a film like Goodfellas, there's depth behind the plot that sets it apart. Your film would need a few themes and subplots to do that. Themes would include the protagonist's ongoing struggle between the mob and his family, the debate over violence vs. peace (could end either way), or even something such as the protagonist's childhood, who his father actually was, some sort of double-sided aspect to the father (he's good, but he did a few bad things that surprise us), how the protagonist developed, and so on. This adds more to your film that expands its universe, drags in the viewer, and, if it gets well-received, its fanbase will grow as well. If you've ever wondered how someone can devote their entire life to a single film, book, or play, since it's not a series, and chances are, they won't get any more out of it than the two hours that's already there, it's because the film had depth, themes, characters, subplots, and all the things that make a movie more than just a movie. Good luck.
 
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