Detective Jacob Anders used to be a soldier when teleportation was invented, and he was one of the first people to be sent into The Gap. But now, twenty years later, he's having bad dreams again... and the men he served with are turning up dead!

SYNOPSIS:

Elysium meets Seven

"The Bridge" is set in the near future, in an alternate timeline where teleportation was

invented in the early 2000’s. For thirty years Charles London (70’s, Charles Dance-type) has had a monopoly over long distance Earth travel due to the invention of a

machine that he alone controls, which is able to teleport matter from one place to

another instantaneously. They call it The Bridge. With the help of The Bridge, he is

building a colony on Mars where the rich and famous are promised luxurious homes,

acres of land, and an escape from an Earth on the brink of extinction. His company,

ChlonoCorp, is the sole importer of resources from other planets and moons. But he

is power hungry, and he has done things to test the limits of what The Bridge can

offer mankind. Dangerous things at the expense of the many.

One soldier, Detective Jacob Anders (40’s, Idris Elba-type) of the New York Police

Department, was one of the men who was sent into the space between the two

portals, a place they named The Gap. Most of them returned, and those that did

return now suffer from side effects caused by the microchip that was placed in their

heads so that time in between the two portals slows down, like being in the pull of a

Black Hole. Sleep doesn’t come easily anymore (not without medication), they have

difficulty concentrating, and they are prone to bouts of aggression. One soldier didn't

make it back from The Gap at all.

Twenty years later, after leaving the army to live a “normal” life and joining the police

force, the men that Jacob served with begin turning up dead. And all evidence points

to one man... Charles London.

But is he responsible? And what reason would he have to eliminate Jacob’s team?

Now Jacob and his partner, Detective Randall Smythe (30’s, Scoot McNairy-type),

must find the person responsible, before all the men Jacob served with are dead,

including himself. But there’s something unworldly violent about these murders! They

are horrendous, brutal, bloody, and there is no trace of the perpetrator.

Along the way they team up with Jacob's ex-wife, Jen Keenan (30’s, Margot Robbie-type),

who still works as a Science and Medical Officer for ChlonoCorp in the hopes

that the Mars mission will be a benefit to all of mankind. Her presence is met with

scepticism, not only because of how their relationship ended but because she

continues to work for London. And there is a mysterious man that Jen is in contact

with who is nudging them in the right direction.

We also meet Eckhart (40’s, Sharlto Copley-type), one of the few remaining men

Jacob served with; a South-African “gun-for-hire" who has an unrestrained mouth on

him. As the last 2 remaining men from The Gap, they are put in peril by London’s

need to silence all those that pose a threat to the plans that London has in place for

his own gain.

The film begins as a neo-noir detective story in a dystopian alternate reality. The

Earth is falling into disrepair, murder rates are on the rise, people are protesting and

rioting, and Jacob is trying to keep his head above water. When we learn about his

time in the army, we uncover the horrors he experienced in The Gap... It’s like the

world we know, but desolate, charred, the air thick and stagnant, and everything is

filled with deep shadows, like when Keanu Reeves enters Hell in Constantine. And

there are ghost-like creatures that inhabit the world between the teleportation portals,

similar to the shadow demons in Patrick Swayze’s Ghost. They are insatiable plasma

remnants that eat away at what has come before (like the Langoliers in the Stephen

King story). Jacob leads his team into this world, wholly unprepared, and after a long

battle they return to the real world, defeated, with afflictions that make them seek a

solitary life. The one man who didn’t make it back is inhabited by the ghost-like

creatures in The Gap, his body and mind possessed, and he is changed, becoming

one of them.

The tone is cold and dirty when we are in Jacob’s world, witnessing at ground level

the struggles of everyday people trying to survive on a planet on its way to

destruction, similar to the world of Dr Solomon Eddie in Minority Report. When we

meet London we witness the wealthier side of society, and what money can offer,

like Director Lamar Burgess in Minority Report. The divide is striking. Inside the

world of The Gap it becomes dark and desolate, showing the horrors of war with

deep shadows and demons hiding around every corner.

After Jacob’s experience in The Gap he alienated himself from those around him,

driving everyone away because of his inability to control his emotions. But when he

finds one of the men he served with dead, things in his world change, and the fear of

a grisly death gives him purpose to bring the perpetrator to justice. He begins to

understand the necessity of relationships with those around him, rekindling with Jen,

but also collaborating with Randall and Eckhart. The realisation that he needs

people, that he can’t do it on his own.

It is a commentary on the Armed Forces, how one brings the demons of War back to

their previous lives, and the PTSD soldiers suffer when they return. It is also a

commentary on money and power, and how they are used as a smokescreen for

their own gain.

THE BRIDGE