A father’s estranged son unwittingly aids a hacker in his plot to terrorize the team of a small, independent bank where the father works. 

SYNOPSIS:

THEME & SYNOPSIS

Set some time in the near future, Have A Great Day tells the story of senior copywriter, Jack Conway, and his estranged son, Josh, who are caught up in a sophisticated terrorist attack by an angry computer genius intent on revenge for his father’s death at the hands of the same bank that employs Jack.

The theme of the movie is Rebirth. When we meet him, Jack is pretty much where Bill Murray’s Phil is in Groundhog Day. He’s just joined a new firm but everything’s pretty much the same – only, slightly more stressful.

The Avatar directs them to a hidden cache of weapons. Anyone who refuses to participate will be killed through their nanobot implant, which the hackers now control.

“YOUR NANOBOT HAS BEEN COMPROMISED. YOU MUST kILL If YOU WANT TO LIVE”

The Avatar gives everyone one hour, and a digital clock starts ticking. Everyone is skeptical and confused. They can’t call for help because they had to turn in their cellphones on arrival.

What follows is a series of darkly comic events that see three teams hunt each other down to the death.

Life would be easier, he’s told after a disastrous conference call, if he got the firm’s nanobot. With the 650x installed, he’d be able to process more information more efficiently. Reluctantly, Jack goes down to Bio-IT where the door opens and a techie guy invites him inside...

Returning home late that night Jack finds his estranged son, Josh, (18) stationed as usual in front of his computer chatting with a virtual friend who, unbeknown to us, is a serious hacker called Sergey.

The pair argue about Josh’s skipping school, Jack’s selling out to his soul-destroying office job, Jack’s recent affair with Jasmine, a self-shooting film director, and Jack and his wife’s upcoming counselling appointment.

By the time Jack’s wife gets home from a drinks evening with clients, he’s in no mood to be reminded of their appointment with the marriage guidance counsellor the next day.

The next day, Jack sets off for an away-day event at a remote spot in the city. He’s just joined his colleagues on the 7th floor when he runs into Jasmine, who is there to record the event. There’s clearly some lingering chemistry between these two. Could it be rekindled?

Escaping a group warm-up exercise, Jack slips away to the toilets where he finds colleagues, Colin and Pete, busy trying to surgically remove maggot-like creatures from their bodies, creatures they see but Jack does not.

Jack slips away and bumps into Jasmine. They get into an elevator planning to call security. Except, then the elevator gets stuck between floors.

When one of the men opens the door and is hit by a crossbow bolt in the head – What the fuck! – It becomes apparent they must fight... or be killed.

The rest of Jack’s colleagues split into three groups and congregate in three offices where they are given a video presentation that is interrupted by a FEMALE AVATAR that tells them they must follow the “rules of the game” if they want to live.

Jack goes from being a man who hides to a man finds the courage to face danger, save lives and overcome his groundhog indifference to the world.

Through fighting and caring for the wounded he finds that he actually needed this crisis to feel alive again.

Jack’s son, who is in cahoots with Sergey, is shocked to discover through live feeds that Sergey has delivered real weapons not paintball guns – and that this is not the prank Josh thought it was going to be. Sergey reveals that he is doing this as payback for the bank’s unjust firing of his father, which led to his father’s committing suicide.

Angry to find out he has unwittingly conspired to put his dad in real and imminent danger, he uses the technology he’s hacked in order to communicate with his dad and warn him of impending danger.

As the bad guys close in, Jasmine shows her true colors caring less for Jack than chasing a juicy story, while Jack and Josh become a team.

Then Sergey reveals that he is in fact just a few minutes from where Josh lives. He invites Josh round to drive to reverse the hack.

Arriving with a skid of rubber outside Sergey’s hideout, Josh dives inside and jumps on Sergey’s computer. With minutes to go he stops the game.

But then Sergey starts it up again and just as everyone is celebrating the end of the game, the nanobots explode... Only Jack is left standing.

Josh is about to sigh with relief when it occurs to him to check the activation time of his dad’s nanobot. If he doesn’t deactivate this last remaining ‘kill’ command against his dad’s nanobot in 15 minutes’ time, his dad will die.

He’s just managed to pull it off, when armed police, alerted by Sergey, burst in and arrest him as a terrorist.

The nightmare is over and Jasmine is asking Jack for an exclusive. He shows her the middle finger and wanders off toward the exit. Now the elevators are working he can get back down to reception where he picks up his phone.

As he steps outside, still in a sort of daze, his wife calls his phone. When she reprimands him for being late for their counselling, he tells her he realizes, finally, they’re wasting their time; the person who most needs their love and understanding is their son, Josh, who has just called, in tears, confessing to having been involved in the attack on the bank.

If nothing else, Jack and Josh have found their true bond again.