After discovering the last of his estranged Father’s inheritance is locked in a neighbors safe deposit box, Chris, a shy and awkward out of work accountant convinces his felon Brother to break into the bank where it’s locked. When his brother is shot during the Heist, he is faced with the choice to either play hostage, or to finish the job himself.

Clarification: Not that I'm saying you have to cram the "B" story into the logline. Just saying.

The logline for "Working Girl" is: When a secretary?s idea is stolen by her boss, she seizes an opportunity to steal it back by pretending she has her boss?s job. In 24 words and no mention of the "B" story.

As I see it, "mistakenly stored", "mislaid" doesn't cut it as a justifiable trigger for a criminal act. And a risky one at that.

He's got to have been robbed of his inheritance one way or another and all other remedies have failed (including the courts). This makes him him mad enough to take extreme measures to get what is his just due. The criminal action has to be justified in the mind of the audience.

Consider Tess in "Working Girl". She plays by the rules, works and studies hard -- and is frustrated because she's getting nowhere in her career. This frustration is enough to trigger her to break the rules -- and to have the audience on her side when she does so, right?

No!

Only after her boss betrays her trust and steals her idea does she get mad enough to break the rules. Now she's got just cause -- she's been exploited and robbed. And because Tess has been established as a sympathetic character, the audience will support her decision at the end of Act One and root for her to win.

Oh yeah, and win over the Harrison Ford character. Which raises another issue: what's the "B" story?

After coaxing his brother into robbing the town bank for their mislaid family inheritance, Chris, a disenchanted High School teacher must finish the job when his bother is shot dead during the heist.

'A law abiding High School Teacher enlists the help of his ex-con Brother to break into a small town bank to retrieve a family inheritance that has been mistakenly stored in a deceased neighbors safe deposit box'

?

Problematical is an understatement. I've only recently discovered the point to a good logline, after finding myself trapped 200 pages into a first draft, with probably another 40 to go to actually finish it.

The cut is 50/ 50 between brother's.

Yes -- the logline is way too long, and you've touched on a really good point in regards to the whole point (and this logline doesn't hit nail on the head of what I'm wanting to achieve), which is, how and why does a man of high morale stature resort to robbing a bank? In the current draft he begins as a bored office worker in a dead-end relationship, loses both, and then finds out his estranged father has died and left him (and his brother) the old family farm, on which is a dead vineyard. They later realize there is an old family heirloom locked up in the town bank, but in a dead neighbors safe box... It's a lot, I know, and no small wonder I'm lost in the murky waters of page 200.

Obviously I'm looking to simplify it a lot, pretty much starting from scratch.

But thanks for taking the time to feedback -- much appreciated.

Problematical.

It's too long. Enough said on that point.

Another problem is that the protagonist is not cast in a sympathetic light. That he's estranged from his father doesn't tell us who is to blame. It doesn't specifically inform us that the accountant has been unfairly cut out of the inheritance.

IOW: his crime can be justified if he's trying to get what should by rights be his. An audience will root for a criminal act for good cause -- but will they root for a criminal act for no other reason than greed?

And what's in it for the brother to take such risk and effort? Brotherly love? Or does he have his own motives? What's his cut of his father's inheritance?