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Albright, the Kiss Kiss conversation last night prompted me to dust off my old screenplay idea. What do y'all think?
Somewhere in Ohio a down on his luck guy sits at a bar(let’s call him Steve). Wife left him, dead end job. Quiet bar with a Reds game on the TV. Just him, the bartender and one other guy. Steve casually remarks at the television, “betcha Cozart hits one out right here.” And boom there it goes. The other guy at the bar (Rickey), takes an interest. “How’d you know that?” Steve says sarcastically “I’m psychic.” Later that night Rickey shows up at Steve’s house and kidnaps him at gun point. His plan is to take him to Vegas, hold him hostage and make him pick baseball games for him. He throws Steve in the car. In the front seat is a somewhat trashy but extremely hot woman (Lana). Rickey proves to be a complete moron and inept kidnapper as they make the drive across the country to Vegas. Steve could get away at any point, but smitten with Lana and otherwise totally bored with life, he decides to let it play out.
They end up at a seedy motel off the old strip. The hour arrives and Steve realizes he’s going to have to make some predictions. Though Rickey is an idiot, Steve realizes that he is pretty unstable and he starts to worry about how Rickey is going to react when he finds out the psychic thing was bunk. Steve starts stalling by making demands to feed the psychic energy, most of which are designed to bring him closer to Lana.
Eventually Steve is forced to make some predictions and of course they come true. There’s a scene where Rickey ties Steve up extra hostage style and Rickey and Lana celebrate the big win by doing it in the hotel room and Steve suffers the indignity of having to watch them. He suddenly realizes that he really is a captive and a loser and Lana has no interest in him and he wants to get away. But that actually ends up proving more difficult than he had hoped. Rickey, all bumbling before, hardens up now that he’s starting to see the returns from his meal ticket. He moves them out of the motel and into a rented house on the outside of town and keeps Steve locked in the basement.
Steve’s first out is that he figures sooner or later his predictive powers will dry up, but of course he hits the hot streak of all time. At this point Lana’s sister, Lara, enters the picture. Lana brings her out from Ohio to share in the bounty and help keep Steve under wraps. But of course she falls in love with Steve. They plan to bust Steve out, but Rickey gets wind of it and she tosses Lara down in the basement with Steve. Love blooms down in the basement and it becomes something of a Hogan’s Heroes episode for awhile, with Steve and Lara trying various ways to bust out and Rickey and Lana struggling to keep them contained.
Finally the two sisters have summit. They decide they are going to put down one huge bet, all or nothing, and they split the take. But of course they lose. Cut to 5 years later, the two couples are next door neighbors, bar-b-quing together, their kids are playing together in the backyard. Beers on ice, baseball game on the tv in the background. Typical middle class scene.
Whole thing played for laughs. It’s really Steve’s story of going from metaphorical imprisonment to actual to actively struggling for his freedom to finding love and wanting to live.
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