An asocial young man flies home for his estranged father's funeral but finds his life thrown wildly out of balance when he reluctantly agrees to hand deliver, as part of his father's last will and testament, a mysterious sealed envelope . . .

SYNOPSIS:

Small, character-driven film in the vein of GARDEN STATE. MARK ADDISON, an asocial twenty-something production assistant living in Los Angeles, ventures into work one morning to learn - via a voicemail message - that his estranged father in North Carolina has abruptly passed away. Mark's first inclination is not to go (he has never forgiven his father for allowing his womanizing ways to wreck their family) but with legal matters to clear up, and as the only surviving member of the family, Mark finds that he has very little choice in the matter. En route to North Carolina, Mark places some spare change into a coin-operated toy machine. Instead of a toy, however, he receives an ominous fortune-like note warning him that the person closest to him will die if he should ever choose to aid "the dark-skinned stranger". Puzzled by the enigmatic message (and feeling a bit ripped off for not getting a toy), Mark wads up the fortune, jams it into his pocket and boards his plane. At the wake, Mark's father's lawyer pulls him aside and asks him - as part of his father's last will and testament - to hand deliver a large sealed envelope to a woman in Raleigh. At first Mark refuses, but the lawyer - a close family friend - convinces him to do it by pointing out that his late father might have behaved in the same selfish fashion. Delivering the envelope, however, turns out to be more difficult than Mark imagined. On his way to Raleigh, a particularly fierce thunderstorm forces him to spend the night in a small southern hamlet, where he inadvertently rescues an African-American fellow named REGGIE from an unjust accusation. Frustrated at having a companion along but unwilling to leave the man alone in a town teeming with racists, Mark offers to give Reggie a lift as far as Raleigh. Mark's luck doesn't get any better when the duo reaches Raleigh. His attempts to deliver the mysterious envelope are met with one roadblock after another and when the cash-poor Reggie fails to locate his relatives, Mark must resort to sharing his hotel room with the guy. With Reggie's help, however, Mark finally succeeds in delivering the letter to his quarry. But the burgeoning friendship between the two boys is interrupted when an angry and tearful EMILY, the attractive young recipient of the envelope, shows up unexpectedly at their hotel. Shortly thereafter, Mark, Reggie and Emily find themselves catapulted into an entirely new mystery - one that could carry the three of them all the way to a bank in Las Vegas . . .