a feature screenplay
written by Larry Leahy & Cynthia Troyer
LOGLINE
Vegas is an easy city to enter, but a hard one to leave. Especially if you’re on the top of the Mafia’s hit list like Raymond Phillips. Raymond longs to reunite with Jennifer, an ex who shattered his heart. Not to reclaim love, but to seek revenge. Raymond embarks on a global odyssey to reconcile his past, reclaim a treasure, and bring down a dirty politician.
SYNOPSIS
Raymond Phillips has been condemned to a mental institution for the rest of his life. He’s already done 12 years for a series of heinous crimes only he knows he didn’t commit.
Well one other person knows, the person who betrayed him. The world believes her to be dead, but Jennifer Stuart is very much alive, and Raymond knows exactly where she’s hiding.
When he’s suddenly deemed sane, and released back onto the streets again, he heads for Jennifer. Ray doesn’t get far before his benefactor comes calling.
Frank Swann is a very dangerous and connected man. He’s also the Governor of Nevada. In the high stakes world of Vegas he calls the shots. He’s been carefully groomed to be a power player.
Raymond soon discovers Swann pulled the strings to have him released. He did it all to gain possession of a surveillance tape from 12 years ago.
Swann knows this tape could destroy him and reveal his dark soul man hiding behind the charismatic face of a powerful politician.
Abducted and tortured, Raymond gives in to Swann’s henchmen and reveals that the tape is buried at a remote Indian ruin near the Grand Canyon.
A black helicopter swoops across the desolate southwest landscape en route to the burial site. Raymond makes a hair-raising getaway into the raging Colorado River, leaving one of Swann’s men dead and the rest empty-handed.
Now on his own, Raymond changes his identity then makes his way to the real burial site. He digs up a case containing ten million dollars and the surveillance tape.
At an election day photo op, Swann is upset to learn of Raymond’s escape. He gets updates as his men remain hot on his trail, but always one step behind. Raymond deposits the money and move it offshore. He checks into a motel and makes copies of the video.
In black and white, hidden video footage captures Swann cold-heartedly murdering his wife to gain control of her $600 million dollar inheritance.
Raymond begins to reconstruct the painful events that happened twelve years earlier: from falling in love with his brother’s fiancé, Jennifer; to a botched blackmail scheme; to the final shootout in the desert. And Jennifer’s betrayal.
Finally, with nothing standing in his way, Raymond heads for Mexico and Jennifer, revenge burning in his heart.
Jennifer has spent the last 12 years looking over her shoulder and hiding at a ruined resort in the tropical mountains outside of Oaxaca, Mexico. Raymond arrives in the middle of a hurricane. He ambushes Jennifer. But this is a battle she’s prepared for. A shootout in an old bullfighting arena takes Raymond to the edge.
Just as he’s about to settle the score he’s dreamed of, his life turns upside down. 12 years ago, Jennifer learned an awful truth. That Swann planned to kill his own daughter to ensure his inheritance. Everything Jennifer did was to save the child. The woman he thought had betrayed him, always was, and still is, deeply in love with him.
Their hatred dissolves back into love. But there’s more than a hurricane upon them, Swann’s men have found them.
Raymond and Jennifer must use their wits and a little luck in order to survive. Then they unleash the perfect weapon: the video. In an act of Machiavellian justice, the faceless men who put Swann into power, eliminate him.
Raymond and Jennifer complete their final disappearing act, and with the beautiful little girl no one will ever know is Frank Swann’s daughter, they begin to quietly live out the rest of their lives, under the cover of paradise.
ARTISTIC STATEMENT
We wanted to tell a character-driven story utilizing film noir structure. It is a story that keeps the audience on their toes to discover just who wears the white hat, and who wears the black hat. We also wanted to take the femme fetale and fill her with redemption.
WRITING PARTNER
Larry is a writer/producer/director.
A graduate of Antioch University in Screenwriting & Film Production and New York University’s Graduate Film Program, Larry Leahy began his film apprenticeship while working in post-production on numerous film projects in San Francisco, including Apocalypse Now.
As a writer and producer, Mr. Leahy would become a staff writer for the #1 rated animated television series, The Transformers at NBC as well as write and produce the feature film The Lawless Land, starring Amanda Peterson, distributed by MGM/UA.
Mr. Leahy wrote, directed and co-produced Confessions of a Hitman, starring James Remar and Michael Wright, distributed by Hemdale Pictures.
As production supervisor for Golden Eagle Entertainment, Mr. Leahy was responsible for the development & preparation of the company’s U.S. and Canadian productions, including preliminary budgets, schedules, & cash flow charts. Completed projects include My Five Wives, starring Rodney Dangerfield, and South of Heaven, starring Vince Vaughn, Bridget Fonda & Billy Bob Thornton.
Mr. Leahy has two feature films currently in production which he wrote and produced, Road to Red, a coming of age thriller, and Shadowland 3D (based on the bestselling novel by Peter Straub).
In addition, Mr. Leahy has been Script Coordinator (“Writer-For-Hire”) on numerous big budget Hollywood films such as Deep Impact, The Ring, Road to Perdition, Spanglish, and Monster House just to name a few.
Copyright (C) Cynthia Troyer & Larry Leahy
