THEDESIGNER
FILM TREATMENT
GENRE: Action-thriller
THEME: The drug wars, power-play, human nature.
TONE: Bonnie and Clyde meets Pulp Fiction.
LOCATION: Principal photography will take place on location in Arizona and Mexico.
LOGLINE
In The Designer story - no one is innocent. Peter and Sofie are players in the drug world- she by blood, he by choice. They deliver the final payload in a most unexpected fashion.
CHARACTERS
Our dubious hero PETER (late 50's), whose cover is that he is a fashion designer bringing a clothing line from the US to Nogales, Mexico for a gala fundraising extravaganza hosted by the local drug kingpin, negotiates the nest of vipers that is the US/Mexico borderland. He is an accidental Macchiavelli, almost a movie star, and kind of a screw-up. As a Desert Storm vet, just when we’ve decided he might really be a good guy, he does something despicable.
SOFIE (30's) Peter's girlfriend. She is a petulant mafia princess with showbiz ambitions who surprises us with her manipulative instincts and her guerrilla skills.
BIG OLLIE (50's), Sofie’s former bodyguard and surrogate father is the loveable gangster. He has taught her how to survive in this desert underworld.
MARIA (50's) Sofie's aunt, One of her many roles is organizing the fashion show in Nogales. Her connection to other characters will reveal her need for revenge.
ANDERS (50's) Sofie’s father and PABLO ESTEBAN (50's), are the two drug lords on either side of the border. They have a tenuous business relationship while vying for control of the territory, its people and its lethal, unnatural bounty.
POWER
MAGIC
PLACE
DRUG
WAR
SYNOPSIS
Peter must play them all against each other while fulfilling his contract to bring the big shipment from Arizona into Mexico. Sofie, his companion on the trip, is a serious liability and things do not go smoothly. A series of characters both greedy and innocent cross their path, and most of them die. Some scenes are repeated with different outcomes as Peter weighs his options.
Finally, Peter and Sofie near the border and we see this will be no ordinary fashion show. It will be a Gangsta Collection, using the guns Peter has collected from various perps along the way as accessories for the models. Pablo Esteban, preparing for his role as benefactor to the Nogales community has invited his extended family, and the bull ring amphitheater is packed with criminals in their finery. He is unpleasantly surprised to find out that Peter actually survived the trip.
​
Peter knows from talking to various coworkers that he’s been set up, but he needs to get what’s owed him before the bloodbath is set in motion. He uses Pablo’s little grandchildren as hostages. Sofie, while modeling her red gown, has claimed the coup de grace and beheads Pablo Esteban with an RPG-89. Then chaos is unleashed as the bullring spins with shooters and bloody corpses and the music slows to a growl as the DJ’s mangled head weighs down the turntable. The final scenes are peaceful domesticity as the good people who remain share a meal and contemplate the continuation of the business. We see that they are doomed to repeat the nightmare that has just claimed hundreds of victims – not to mention the thousands of future customers.
