by Zeb Millett
ACTION-COMEDY
LOGLINE
In a small desert town, the residents try to find who is mysteriously destroying their personal items.
PITCHLINE
The new superstore is slashing prices, but that’s not all that’s being slashed.
SHORT SYNOPSIS
Amidst a series of anonymous crimes and suburban sprawl in rural Arizona, trucker and law-abiding citizen Albright’s world is suddenly shattered. Going up against a local bible thumper and the town Sheriff, he teams up with the Icelandic deputy to restore justice, for the first time taking the law into his own hands.
LONG SYNOPSIS
Dilton, Arizona is a small, dusty town far from everything and decades behind the times. With the exception of one man, the people of Dilton are excited about the future, as their first nation-wide superstore is set to open on Labor Day. The one reluctant resident is ALBRIGHT.
Albright, 65, is a law-abiding citizen; he loves Willie Nelson and he tries to avoid crowds. After forty years of long-haul trucking, he is out of work for the first time and has developed a comfortable new routine: a daily trim at the local salon, followed by lunch at the local Ponderosa Steakhouse.
At Ponderosa one afternoon, Albright finds a slashed American flag. Both unsettled and offended, he pockets the flag and leaves. That evening, Albright passes the flag over to LINN, an immature Icelandic man acting as deputy. At the time, Linn is investigating another bizarre offense: slashed bar stools at the local saloon.
After a short power struggle, Albright, dressed incognito as a bearded garbage man (as to stay off of the Sheriff’s radar), teams up with incompetent deputy Linn to find the perpetrator responsible for the overnight epidemic of slashing.
Having polar opposite approaches to “the law”, Albright and Linn begin to tail a local bible thumper who they are certain is the perpetrator, (and against whom Albright has an unresolved Bingo grudge). Meanwhile, Albright's neighbor and closest friend's son sets up a meth lab in the soon-to-open superstore.
After Linn sets fire to the house he and Albright believed to be the perpetrator's, Albright is inclined to believe they've been pursuing an innocent man. However, Albright is knocked unconscious, leaving his and the innocent man's fate in the hands of Linn.
Albright wakes to see Linn has kidnapped the bible thumper. Having gone too far to turn back, Albright acquiesces his authoritative role and assists Linn in throwing the man onto a slow-moving freight train.
Albright and Linn head back into town to face reality: the town fair is about to open and there's still a mad man on the loose, cutting up personal property.
Albright and Linn stake out the Labor Day fair situated next to the superstore. They separate as to cover more ground. Albright plays crowd control; Linn follows two suspicious men into the vacant superstore.
Albright gains access to the Sheriff's vehicle and uncovers a slew of evidence pegging the Sheriff as the perpetrator. As Albright confronts the Sheriff, the makeshift meth lab in the superstore ignites and blows the building up.
Concerned Linn was caught in the inferno, Albright is relieved to spots Linn across the street, casually inspecting a 1970s muscle car for sale. Though just two days earlier Linn was nothing more than a nuisance, Albright’s experience with Linn allowed him to test his principles against the harsh reality of change; when the fabric of his world is being torn like the unravelling threads of an American Flag.
EXCERPT - (WGA REG)
