A desperate father, forced to hijack a plane by terrorists who have his kids, must outwit the resourceful air marshall on his trail after his flight is cancelled and all the passengers are sojourned to a cheap airport hotel.

Hi, I'd put a little less detail in the 'forced to hijack a plane' section because it feels a little irrelevant and top-heavy by the end.

Monster In The House? I'd say it reads as Dude With A Problem... M.I.T.H. pretty much applies to horror, as far as I know...

On the logline -- I'm on the same page as Karel (and others) in that, the set-up seems to suggest an action thriller set on a plane (a tried and true combo...see Non-Stop, Passenger 57, Red Eye, Snakes on a plane ((well, that one's M.I.T.H.)), Air Force One, Con Air etc etc as just a few examples...), but then suggests a movie where we find ourselves stuck in a hotel...kinda a let down, and leads to confusion over the genre.

Best of luck -- I reckon you've got something cool brewing there, you just need to nail the genre. Below is just my spin etc...:

An ex-marine dead-beat dad must take a plane full of government officials hostage, and deliver them to a group of terrorists on a remote island before they kill his only daughter.

Hey Jessica0703 - funny you should mention that. It wasn't until I was writing this logline that I realised I had a "monster in the house" on my hands. Good call.

Logline has a problem with clarity - got it.

Some of you got the sense that the film (or at least the second act) takes place in the hotel, which is right on the money. The inciting incident is actually the cancelling of the plane.

The kidnapping is backstory, revealed as the story progresses. The audience is dropped into the plot as the protagonist and an offsider prepare for the hijacking.

As Karel asks, and a few of you have commented, who is our real antagonist? The air marshall or the terrorists? In this sense, the air marshall is a complication (thanks dpg for verbalising this) - the ultimate goal for this character will be to defeat the terrorists and save his kids.

No doubt I have, as suggested, TMI in my logline. I'm finding it tricky to get right, simply because the protagonist's goal switches at the midpoint from wanting to carry out the attack to keep his kids safe - then after he is caught strikes a deal with the air marshall; if he assists the authorities in thwarting the attack, they'll ensure the safety of his kids. So ... I guess "to save his kids" is his ultimate/over-arching goal?

Will work on a second draft. Thanks gang.

I had to read it a few times to work out what you mean so it might need a bit of tweeking to make it clearer, but aside from that this genuinely sounds like a film I would be interested in!

I'm not sure if you mean to set the whole film in the airport hotel but if you did I think that would be an interesting angle for the story, and in confining it to one place you could take advantage of the "Monster in the house" genre (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TenMoviePlots <<<for a basic explanation).

Using the above genre outline might also be helpful in refining your idea and working out some of the issues and questions people have listed above. Keep at it and good luck! :)

This logline is confusing because it suffers from trying to tell too much of the story at once. The TMI rule applies here. If there's TMI then we need to chop some elements out. I think we don't need to know about the cancelled flight or the other passengers or the cheap hotel. The important elements are : 1] the unwilling hijacker dad, 2] the hostage kids, 3] the terrorists, 4] the resourceful air marshall.
I see this as in a similar vein as The Fugitive , and Nick of Time.
Rewrite it with just those elements in there.

Wouldn't the protagonist's real objective goal be to rescue his kids? The resourceful air marshal on his trail would be a complication.

Smells like a great movie, but the logline isn't all that clear.

Does the movie take place mostly in the air or on the ground?

I take it that the inciting incident is the kidnapping. At the end of Act One, the father learns (and accepts) that he must hijack the plane. This is what we want to see happen, but then the logline says the flight is cancelled.

It is not clear to me when they arrive in the hotel. Is this where most of the film takes place?

Also, who is the real antagonist here, the air marshall or the terrorists?

If the movie is a contained thriller (Die Hard in a hotel?), I would expect to learn more from the logline in terms of what will make the time in the hotel exciting.

In terms of the character, 'desperate' doesn't seem to be a character trait/weakness but rather a natural result of the inciting incident. Does the father change/learn anything in the course of the story?