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The French Deception
is a story about the strength of friendship even in the face of
betrayal. This story is full
of coincidental happenings that all affect our two main characters, Cam
and Dan.
Cam is a moderately
successful businessman who is satisfied with what he has achieved in
life. He cares a lot about
himself, his appearance, and also his training.
Though he is happy as a businessman,
Cam
has the feeling that he was meant to do more than collate copies on this
planet. He says wants more
than anything to be a ninja, but what he really wants is to feel like
he’s made a difference in the world.
Dan is sort of
Cam
’s antithesis. He works in
the same building as Cam, but in a different department. He hates
his job, doesn’t care much about anything except getting enough sleep
at night and breathing in and out. During
the course of this story he changes into a man with confidence, but more
importantly, a man who truly cares for his friends over himself.
We
open with a darkly lit scene in which a car carrying two men stops in a
parking lot, empty except for one other car.
Two men get out of the first car. They are agents from the
CIA, Agent White and Agent Jones. They are making a transfer of a
conspicuous briefcase to the next car.
However, their plan is interrupted when Rasputin, an enormous
Russian is in the car, having killed the CIA agent who was supposed to
be waiting for them. He attacks the agents and makes off with the
briefcase.
The
actual story begins in the small town of
Sugar Land
,
TX
on a normal workday. Both
men live in a small, two bedroom house and they share a morning routine
that they have got down perfectly. Both
of them are ready for work at the same time, and
Cam
always takes Danny to work (Danny doesn’t have a car).
This morning, something is different though.
As they approach their car, they encounter two homeless bums who
have apparently figured out a way to get into their gated apartment
complex. After a brief
exchange, the two friends pay little mind to the bums, but they play a
very important role in the story.
Once
they get to work, things seem to be going normally enough for the two
friends. Things get a little
weird for
Cam
though, when after receiving another lecture from his boss he finds a
letter from the CIA on his keyboard.
At first he discards the letter, but the idea of becoming a CIA
agent (and thus making a difference in the world) obviously stirs some
interest in him. Danny has
run into some interesting problems as well.
While at work he has met with Boris and Rasputin, two Russians
(one you may remember from the first scene).
Boris explains to Danny that he has been chosen to work for the
KGB, something that Danny is not interested in at all (though he happily
agrees after a little convincing from Rasputin).
After the two meet unsuccessfully for lunch (Danny takes too long
with the Russians),
Cam
returns to work to find Agent White under his desk, asking him to join
the CIA. This comes as some
surprise to
Cam
, who wasn’t sure if the letter was serious.
He finds himself actually hesitating when confronted with the
choice to join, but Agent White takes his hesitation as a yes and leaves
before
Cam
really has a chance to say much of anything.
When
Cam
comes to pick Danny up from work, we are introduced to another character
crucial to the story, Paul. Paul
is a traveling poet and male prostitute who is quite clearly unstable in
the head. He drives a white
Honda Civic (also crucial to the story)
Needless
to say, the two men’s lives have changed considerably when
Cam
comes to pick up Danny at the end of the day.
Danny now is practically enslaved in the KGB (with Rasputin as
his watchful master), and
Cam
finds himself living out a slightly different version of his lifelong
dream as a CIA agent. Both
of them keep it a secret, but it is a very awkward tension between them
from this point on.
The next day, Danny and
Cam
are told individually (Danny at work and
Cam
at home) that they are both assigned to the same job.
Danny is to carry the briefcase Rasputin took and drop it off at
a certain location on a certain date so that the briefcase (which was
originally stolen from
Russia
) can be returned to its motherland.
Likewise,
Cam
is to interrupt a drop off that the CIA has learned about, and keep the
briefcase from leaving the
United States
(its innards are vitally important to the president).
Cam
also gets to see a picture of Rasputin, which raises some suspicion in
him regarding Danny, but he shakes it off as coincidence (or maybe the
Russians are already onto him)? Again,
both men keep this a secret between the two of them, but some curiosity
is aroused when Danny brings home a briefcase mysteriously from work
that evening. Even the bums
are intrigued.
That
evening, Danny and
Cam
are approached by their respective government agents and told that the
drop off is to take place at
9am
the following day, in a park nearby at the driver side door of a white
Honda Civic. They are told
at the same time, Danny in person and
Cam
over the phone, which makes for even more awkwardness between the two of
them. It will only get
worse…
The next morning, by a
stroke of bad luck, Danny has forgotten to set his alarm and
Cam
has set his for
8pm
instead of am. Both of them
oversleep and find themselves with only minutes before the drop off is
to take place. Fortunately,
they are both too panicked to realize that they are both panicked, and
they leave for the drop off point (
Cam
in his car and Danny on foot).
At
the drop off,
Cam
runs into Paul and finds it quite odd that he saw Paul at Danny’s work
as well. He begins to
suspect that Paul is involved in this whole scheme along with the
Russians, but Paul is so weird that
Cam
has a hard time focusing around him.
He is so tied up in his thinking that he actually misses the drop
off. Danny misses the drop
off too, but for an entirely different reason:
there are two Civics (one is Paul’s; the other belongs to the
Russians). Danny is so riled
up by everything that he puts the briefcase down without seeing that
there are two identical cars, and Paul finds the briefcase and leaves.
Cam
sees Paul leave with the briefcase and feels that his suspicions have
been confirmed (though he is upset because he technically failed his
mission). Luckily, he has
Paul’s card and knows his address.
At this point, he runs into Danny, who is walking home glad that
he got rid of the briefcase.
When
the two friends return home, they find their door open (Danny apparently
forgot to lock it) and the bums are inside eating their food.
Danny and
Cam
finally get them chased out. While
they are surveying the damage, there is a mysterious knock at the door
and a call for “housekeeping” in a strangely familiar voice.
Danny realizes it is Rasputin’s just as
Cam
opens the door and is knocked out when Rasputin runs him over.
Boris also enters the apartment and explains that he is going to
have to kill Danny because he (inadvertently) screwed up the operation.
Despite Danny’s pleading, it looks like it’s over, when
suddenly
Cam
springs to action and knocks Boris out.
He then pulls a gun on Rasputin, in a very surprising maneuver.
At this point we see a
Cam
that hasn’t been seen before; a deadly serious man who is truly
concerned for his friend.
Once
Cam
gets Rasputin and Boris out of the apartment, he turns his firearm on
Danny. At this point the
movie becomes very serious as Danny and
Cam
both spill their guts about their situations.
They agree to go together to get the briefcase from Paul, though
at this point their not sure what this is going to accomplish; if Danny
gives it to the Russians, Cam will be in trouble, and if Cam returns it
to the CIA, the Russians will kill Danny for sure.
When
Danny and
Cam
arrive at Paul’s house, they have to face his attempts to sell them
some of his “services.” They
finally get out of him that he has the briefcase, and he agrees to give
it to them as long as they will listen to some of his poetry.
They agree, and just before Paul begins his first line, the door
slams and in walk the two bums. Apparently
they rode over with
Cam
and Danny without them knowing, and now they reveal themselves as agents
for the French government.
After
a verbal exchange, the Frenchmen divulge that they were sent to find the
briefcase and figure out what was in it, just so they could get in on
other people’s business. At
this point, they steal the briefcase and defeat
Cam
and Danny in a ridiculous fight. All
looks as if it is lost, when we find out that what was in fact in the
briefcase at that time was Pauls’ poetry, not what was originally in
it.
Cam
loses his job with the CIA for failing his mission.
The President is “very upset” at
Cam
and so they fire him. Danny
worries a lot about the Russians, but they are killed by ninjas.
The French get screwed because there was poetry in their
briefcase instead of whatever it was they were looking for.
It looks like a happy ending, but what was in the briefcase?
Paul discovers that there is a ticket inside to be a cosmonaut on
a Russian rocket (since
Russia
decided to commercialize their space program, the president apparently
really wanted to ride on a Russian rocket ship).
The movie ends with the French upset that they were foiled.
This movie works well
as a political satire and also does an excellent job of making general
fun of the idea of secret services in general.
Throughout the movie the strain on a friendship from outside
interference is very apparent, and the film also reflects the general
feeling the majority of the American public had during President
Bush’s (often called “Dubya”) term in office.
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DIRECTOR: Bobby
Rigg
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR: Thi Lam
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Hunter Smith
STARRING: Danny Rigg, Cam Todd, Johnny Rigg,
Ricardo Castro, Cameron Wyenberg, Thi Lam, Paul O'Hara, Bryan Alford,
Sam Lloydd Hughes
GRIP: Christina Rigg
LIGHTING: Hunter Smith
STAGE OF PRODUCTION: Post production/Cleanup
ESTIMATED COMPLETION DATE: Unknown
**This film was made with assistance from Ferus Somnium
Productions. |