Upon learning that suicide will forbid him entry to Heaven, a religious yet guilt-racked hitman secretly lets the public democratically determine his next target in order to righteously earn the Lord's favour and then be killed in the process.

"religious yet guilt racked hitman" seems incomprehensible to me. I'd have to see a very very long back story on this one in order to comprehend the meaning of it! Sorry it doesn't ring my bells to examine the story further. Doesn't grab me.

SDMann:
Re: The Travis Bickle character

The screenwriter Paul Schrader did more than create an alienated taxi driver with an urge to kill; he also gave him a redeemable quality: Travis cares enough to try to rescue the young prostitute from her pimp. That "B" story salvages an otherwise seemingly unsalvageable character.

Have you got a redeeming "B" story for your protagonist?

fwiw.

Hey guys, thanks a lot for the feedback. Yeah I realised the 'secretly' element is confusing as written, it refers to the protagonist disguising his identity and crowd-sourcing the votes submitted by the viewers of his Wikileak'd videos online. His proclamation of doing this deed is made with the belief that his identity will not be revealed until his death. It was inspired by stories in the US of the Death By Cop phenomenon, where some people have gone on shooting sprees in order to be killed by police because, within their interpretation of scripture, murder is a forgivable sin and taking one's own life is not. In regards playing God for a fool, I felt the same way but am not sure whether it's enough for the protagonist to strongly believe in his own actions even if the audience will have their own views on the protagonist's value system and not agree with them? I tried to balance out the inherent 'unlikeability' of a character choosing this method of suicide by having him try to do, in his mind, a good rather than a bad deed in order to fulfill his own demise. His disguised online rants are filled with comments about his distaste for the state of society, speaking about the unconscionable actions of Wall Street bankers and paedophiles getting placed back into society with their identities hidden, etc. In this sense his vigilante actions are part Travis Bickle and the many views he gets for his rants touch a nerve akin to Network. His catalyst to act is the authorities closing in on him for his past misdeeds and he fears a life trapped in prison suffering the depression that currently afflicts him. I thought it would be an interesting switch to have death, specifically the right kind of death, be the goal and the stakes being the risk of capture and imprisonment. I thought that it then might be interesting if he employs a hitman partner to help coordinate the killing without revealing that he is the 'Crowd-Sourced Killer', as the media dub him. His flawed choice of involving others in his plan then puts them in harms way and he has to do the honourable thing of saving them from the authorities and the response of the targeted parties as his plan spirals out of control. Will have another go at the logline now, thanks again.

Hey guys, thanks a lot for the feedback. Yeah I realised the 'secretly' element is confusing as written, it refers to the protagonist disguising his identity and crowd-sourcing the votes submitted by viewers of his Wikileak'd videos online. His proclamation of doing this deed is made with the belief that his identity will not be revealed until his death. It was inspired by stories in the US of the Death By Cop phenomenon, where some people have gone on shooting sprees in order to be killed by police because, within their interpretation of scripture, murder is a forgivable sin and taking one's own life is not. In regards playing God for a fool, I felt the same way but am not sure whether it's enough for the protagonist to strongly believe in his own actions even if the audience will have their own views on the protagonist's value system and not agree with them? I tried to balance out the inherent 'unlikeability' of a character choosing this method of suicide by having him try to do, in his mind, a good rather than a bad deed in order to fulfill his own demise. His disguised online rants are filled with comments about his distaste for the state of society, speaking about the unconscionable actions of Wall Street bankers and paedophiles getting placed back into society with their identities hidden, etc. In this sense his vigilante actions are part Travis Bickle and the many hits he gets for his rants touch a nerve akin to Network. His catalyst to act is the authorities closing in on him for his past misdeeds and he fears a life trapped in prison suffering the depression that currently afflicts him. I thought it would be an interesting switch to have death, specifically the right kind of death, be the goal and the stakes being the risk of capture and imprisonment. I thought that it then might be interesting if he employs a hitman partner to help coordinate the killing without revealing that he is the 'Crowd-Sourced Killer', as the media dub him. His flawed choice of involving others in his plan then puts them in harms way and he has to do the honourable thing of saving them from the authorities and the response of the targeted parties as his plan spirals out of control. Will have another go at the logline now, thanks again..

Maybe you can play people for fools, but is it conceivable that you can play god for one? The premise makes sense if the guy is not just suicidal, but deluded. But then, why would an audience want to invest the cost of a movie ticket as well as sympathy for a character like that?

Hi,

Interesting idea.

One query I have is in the use of the word 'secretly'. How can you secretly do something democratically? In order to be democratic, the people need to be aware what they are driving (e.g. in order to vote democratically you would expect to know who the leaders are and their platform and then have the freedom to choose who you want with the majority ruling).

Is it that someone commits a crime which is publicly condemned - hence 'the public have spoken'?
If this is the case, perhaps reflect it in your logline as it's a little bit confusing.

Also it looks like he wants to be killed while killing so that he doesn't have to commit suicide? If death is his goal you may have trouble creating a strong hero. Otherwise he'll just kill the bad guy and then, hopefully, die. Which wouldn't be overly heroic, more defeatist. Suicide in many ways is selfish as well. Heroes should be selfless - dying for yourself isn't as heroic as dying for others.

I'm guessing though that your hero gains a new life at the end of the film or that he ultimately dies for others - making him a hero and fulfilling his desire.

You could go along the line of:

"Suffering a crisis of faith, a suicidal hitman who wants eternal life repents by endeavoring to kill an evil mass murderer who has the public gripped by fear"

Just a thought. Good luck :)

is it comedy?