What if Jordan Peterson was an action hero? 

A disgraced FBI fixer is forced to 'break into the bank' of an elaborate human trafficking operation, and must outsmart them – and teach everyone a lesson - before he and his rekindled love interest are killed.

SYNOPSIS:

OPENER

After witnessing a rape behind his diner, PETE HUGHES gets shot in the head.

ACT ONE

RAY CORCETTI, arrives in town (Evermore, California) to maybe take over the diner from Pete. Ray is 58, graying, wearing socks with sandals and a dumb Hawaiian shirt. But he’s built like an action figure. At the diner he reconnects with the firecracker waitress DARLENE MAHONEY, and briefly encounters the Mayor, BRETT IVERSON, just before the cops burst in to arrest him for murder. At the station, Ray meets CHIEF HARDAWAY, the lovely Asian cop MICKEY LEE, and the young, woke, black Chief Inspector, THOMAS CARVER who confronts Ray about the murder of a John Doe at the edge of town. But Carver gets schooled by the older, wiser Ray who is actually a former FBI fixer and unlikely killer. Very little makes sense, and there’s intrigue in the air. While Ray works it out from the holding cell, another tip comes in. Carver and one of the cops, WOZNIAK, arrest ALVARO HERNANDEZ, a gangster gone straight, as an accessory to the same murder. Alvaro tries to bully Ray in the holding cell, but Ray savagely beats him down. And then another major development: they discover the identity of the dead man: Pete Hughes, Ray’s brother with their stepfather’s name. Ray vows to kill everyone involved. Carver sends Alvaro to county jail. Ray is released for no apparent reason.

ACT TWO

Carver and Mickey struggle to figure the case, why Hardaway had Ray released, and just how dangerous Ray might be. Ray goes straight to the office of DOMNAL O’LEERY, the medical examiner, to see his dead brother and gather intel. Pete was killed by a pro shooter, but then brutally stabbed by a second assailant. Finding this ‘whack job with a knife’ becomes key to the case. And there’s mounting evidence that Hardaway and Iverson are involved. Ray heads to the diner. In the back alley, Darlene reveals who she thinks did it: Mexican gangsters who came into the diner whenever a new set of beggars appeared on main street. Ray thinks he might know what’s going on. He and Darlene team up to get justice for Pete just as a crew of Mexican enforcers arrive to kidnap Darlene, beat Ray to the ground, and give him an ultimatum: find her in 24 hours or else. Darlene wakes up in a money-laundering sweatshop owned and operated by Brett Iverson himself. He puts her to work weathering forged Euro bills. Ray wakes up in hospital – his first time – concerned only about Darlene and EMILE the cook, who was shot by the Mexicans. He rips out his IV, and as he, Carver and Mickey roll back to the diner, Ray grills them with questions. Ray takes over the case.

ACT THREE

Darlene finds out Iverson is running a vast counterfeiting operation, and that the sweatshop is also a prison. Under surveillance by Mexican collaborators, Darlene recruits the help of a young Mexican prisoner, PATRICIA, before being sent off to makeup and wardrobe in the ‘playroom’. Ray continues the investigation at the diner, arguing with Carver and Mickey all the way. He arms himself with a pistol from Pete’s kitchen, spots a Mexican spy down the alley, and corners him in a massage parlor run by a hulk of a man, HYRUM LOWE, whom Ray met briefly on his way into town. Mickey rushes in to stop a brawl, saying Hyrum is an informant for the cops. The spy turns out to be a deaf Mexican man who is so terrified by Ray and the cops he stabs himself dead. Carver decides to take Ray to county jail after all, but Ray diverts him to a café where he commandeers a laptop from a young gamer, and uses FBI cyber-tools to breakdown the case for Carver: looks like Iverson is running a human trafficking operation out of his warehouses by the interchange: forced labor, sex work, sweatshop and begging operations. Darlene is probably in the dungeon. Getting her out will be almost impossible even for a Seal Team. It’s not only a prison, it’s also a fortress. Needing more intel, Ray heads to Alavaro’s, and discovers his involvement: he’s the chemist behind Iverson’s counterfeiting scheme. Hardaway wanted to take over Alvaro’s operation, so he had him arrested and sent to county jail. As Ray explains to Carver on the gamer’s iPhone, Alvaro is murdered by several huge convicts and Wozniak. Knowing he could be next, Carver withdraws. Ray is on his own.

ACT FOUR

But then Mickey arrives out of nowhere, saying Carver sent her. Suspicious, Ray plays along. They go to Pete’s apartment above the diner to arm themselves and make a plan. Ray calls TED EVERHART at the FBI for back up, but gets turned down. Ray got ‘retired’ for not loving Big Brother enough, and now he’s a pariah. Minutes later, Wozniak arrives with a gun pointed at Ray’s head, and Chief Hardaway behind with a shotgun. As Mickey pours Hardaway a scotch from Pete’s cupboards, Hardaway monologues: he’s getting old, it’s pissing rain everywhere he goes, so he’s pissing back. He gave Ray one job: find Darlene so he and Iverson could see how he did it, and plug any weaknesses in their operation. But Ray got carried away, now threatens Hardaway’s position in the operation, and has to die. Mickey is apparently in on it all until she kills Hardaway with a meat cleaver. Then she drops Wozniak with a couple quick kicks, and Ray shoots him dead with Pete’s gun. In the aftermath, Mickey comes on to Ray, but Ray is only interested in her story. She says she’s Secret Service, there to take down Iverson’s operation. She had it all under control until Ray stuck his nose in. Ray buys it for the moment. She shares new info about Iverson, the fortress, and crucially that there is a network of tunnels they can use to get in. One of them, the Freedom Train, goes all the way to Mexico. They start by working their way to the entrance of one of the tunnels. Still suspicious, Ray tests Mickey’s story again. She passes. He tells her to go get Darlene while he attacks the warehouse directly to give Iverson the quality control test he wanted. Ray risks his life to save Darlene and free the slaves.

ACT FIVE

Aware of the threat, Iverson takes a moment to strangle Darlene. After he leaves though, she topples out of her makeup chair and gets the breath knocked back into her. Alone, she frees herself, looks for a weapon, and closes in on Video Village - Iverson’s surveillance center. She sees what Ray is about to do: crash her classic Cougar into the main doors of the warehouse. A full frontal, ridiculous attack that actually works. Ray fills the warehouse with tire smoke, and then fills the collaborators with lead as he works his way to the upper floors hunting for Brett Iverson. Darlene helps by filling Video Village with smoke from a fire extinguisher until Iverson starts shooting back, forcing her down to the basement. There, she finds a prison full of Mexican slaves. And to her great relief, she meets Mickey, too. But then Mickey reveals her true identity - she’s the whack job with the knife. She drags Darlene back to Video Village while Ray fights through Hyrum, and more collaborators on the way there, himself. And then he meets Ted in the stairwell. The cavalry came. Or did it? Ted leads Ray right to Video Village, and hands him over to Iverson. Ray is tossed to the floor next to Darlene who has been stabbed in the gut by Mickey, while Iverson, Mickey and Ted stand over them. Mickey reveals her true self to Ray, and that Wozniak killed his brother. He knew too much about the operation, and it just so happened he had a brother coming to town who could be useful. Iverson then reveals the extent of the slave operation. It goes through Ted at the FBI all the way to an unidentified foreign power. Then Mickey and Iverson decide to celebrate by killing Darlene in the playroom across the hall while Ray listens. Ray risks his life to push the button that frees the slaves, breaks Ted’s neck, and goes to save Darlene. In the final confrontation, Ray, Darlene and Patricia defeat Iverson and Mickey as Carver and an army of cops from neighboring Chula Vista arrive outside.

CLOSER

Months later, Ray and Darlene wake up in Pete’s apartment and head downstairs to open the diner. Emile the cook survived and is back at his grill. Carver, now Chief of Police, arrives with a case file for Ray and Darlene to review. They’re now a full-time team. And as we fade out, we catch a glimpse of Darlene’s new 1969 Cougar parked out front.