Logline
Dane Lewis is a local speedster who gets away in a televised police pursuit and then finds a way to cash in on it. His techie friend LM advertises that Dane will get into a pursuit four more times with four of the sweetest cars on the street, if his gofundme backers meet certain financial goals. He will streak across LA streets at 5, 50, 500 thousand, and will make a final spin for a cool million.
Synopsis
Dane, a brash car thief, dreams of doing more with his life than running from the cops. Behind the wheel, no mistakes, no errors, he can’t be caught, but in real life – the kind where people pay rent – he hits every pothole. He and his techie friend LM need to get out of the slums of So. Cal.
A chance meeting with a social network executive changes everything – Dane learns the power of publicity. Their discussion is interrupted by a swarm of kids who clamor around a nearby TV to watch a high-speed police pursuit Dane watches engrossed.
He throws out a question. What’s the biggest problem with high-speed chases?
He answers: The guy always gets caught.
How much of a following would someone get, if they got away? Aturned? that be turned ? With the help of his techie friend, and after hijacking some of the code of Waze, a plan emerges. Dane races through LA in a stolen car with a website address painted across the top for every helicopterto see, www.gridlock.com. The pursuit webcamured by a web cam on Dane’s dashboard, and fed directly to the site.
Fearless driving, combined with razor sharp reflexes keeps Dane ahead of the cops. He ends up at an airport parking garage. The cops arrive on the top level to see the car hitting a ramp and jumping toward the next garage. The car crashes into the side of the building, Fireball.
Dane was not in the vehicle. He hides in a nearby parked car.
Dane’s Gofundme project reads: When private donations reach 5000 dollars, he will hit the streets again.
Dane brags that he can escape five times – but each time will cost more 50,000, 500,000, and finally five million. It looks like the idea is going nowhere, 35 dollars trickles into the account. It is torture. Everyone thinks the driver is dead. They’re going to have to wait. Dane is being evicted from his family house. A high-school crush, Laura, now a paralegal, serves him the paperwork. That night Dane’s house burns down. Driven by guilt, Laura helps Dane with his legal problems.
Laura walks Dane through the precinct when the announcement comes over the TV, the mystery driver is alive. A law-dog police captain, with a nose for cars, has discovered the. deception, he puts his men on alert.
Gofundme donations go through the roof. A band that wants Dane to play their music during the chase puts up $5,000. L.M. puts it on a flash drive and Dane lays rubber.
Dane uses police procedures against the cops in the chase. He gets away, but not before getting close enough to the police captain to make a recording that embarrasses the captain publicly. Now the hunt is personal.
Exposure explosion – everybody wants the mp4; money comes in from every outlet. Bookies, TV execs, car companies, all realize the power of what Dane’s escapist (but real) trips offer the viewer, the bettor and the consumer. Dane researches his next run. The journey leads him to the desert where he grew up. He even visits his estranged father (a drunk absent from his life since his brother’s funeral), before hitting the road again.
Dane hijacks a semi-truck and has a close brush with about 1000 of LA’s finest. With the money stacking up, he comes in conflict with L.M. about whether he should finish what he’s started. Dane’s disconnect – clashes with growing emotional attachment to Laura, Dane lashes out. He thinks he’s totally abandoned, and does what he always does: gets behind the wheel of a car and pushes the pedal all the way down. He feels the exhilaration, the freedom, but for the first time in his life, it’s not enough.
Because of Dane, L.M. gets caught and Laura’s life is in danger. Dane is forced into one more chase with everything on the line. And the worst part is that he knows that there’s no way to outrun what he’s up against. Dane has always wanted to do more than just run away from the cops; it’s a good thing because on his final run, getting caught is part of the plan.
