Warring New York and London drug dealers and corrupt detectives confront the indomitable guile of remote Snowdonian villagers to retrieve 25 kilos of lost cocaine. In Bruges meets Whiskey Galore with a feminist twist.

SYNOPSIS:

It’s the cusp of the Millennium. When fifty inflatable pink elephants, each stuffed with .5kg of coke, are thrown overboard by NYC drug smugglers chased by a customs boat, they wash up on a beach by sleepy Aberdulas in Snowdonia, to be found by excited locals, including Sue (20) and little old lady Eryl.

Sue, desperate to follow her dream to go to art college, begins selling – but also using – the coke, egged on/berated by two cartoon bad & good pink elephants who seem to have arrived with it. Their conflicting advice plagues her throughout the film. Local cop Roberts is charged with finding the elephants. Also after them are the smugglers Roki and Leigh. Roki needs this job to get $72,000 from his gangsta boss Perfecto to pay for his girlfriend Isla's brain operation to fix a bullet injury he himself caused. Perfecto sent Leigh to keep an eye on him. Reebok, a London Yardie and their buyer, is after the elephants too. He befriends Sue and is trailed by Det. Harker and Inspector Willis from the Metropolitan Police. They imagine the case will be a pushover. They couldn’t be more wrong.

The drugs are rocketfuel to the villagers’ secret passions. As the village descends into chaos, Roberts is plunged into labyrinthine cat-and-mouse chases to prove he’s better than the London cops. Eryl hatches a plan too, after a lifetime of putting up with her miserly husband. She hides the coke in a sugar bowl that the Vicar spoons into his tea while composing an anti-drugs sermon.

Harker and Willis take over the investigation, but their hardline approach turns the village against them. Challenged by Sue over his Welsh Nationalist ‘bad boy’ reputation, her father Tomi lures the detectives into a slurry pool. Sue discovers Harker secretly plans to split the drug profits with Reebok, tells Roberts, and advises the villagers to sell their coke to Reebok to guarantee they get cash. But Roki and Leigh kill Reebok, take the drugs and money, and lead Harker and Willis on a chase. It ends when the detectives crash into a chicken lorry. Roki and Leigh think they’ve won until Eryl traps them in her cellar and takes the dope and money.

Meanwhile Perfecto and Isla have flown over to sort out the mess. But Isla, who hates both Perfecto and Roki, double-crosses Perfecto and goes on alone, seemingly to rescue Roki and Leigh.

Sue is working at a visitor centre whose opening day has arrived. Dedicated to Llewelyn the Impaler – a mostly fictional local legend – it’s intended to reverse the village’s fortunes. Two kids have hidden an elephant on the hero’s statue. In the finale, when the statue is unveiled at the big launch, the crowd surges to snatch it, sending the cocaine over the crowd, and the statue collapses. As the crowd degenerates, Perfecto drives into the village to be impaled on Llewelyn’s spear. Roberts arrests Harker and Willis and is hailed as a hero. The publicity finally puts the village on the map. Sue takes the good elephant’s advice and leaves home (and the elephants) for art college.

Instead of rescuing Roki, Isla allies with Eryl and they drive off with the coke. In the cellar, Roki and Leigh kill each other in a fit of mutual blame. But Isla and Eryl have an ethical change of heart and give the cocaine back ot the sea. Just afterwards they find a suitcase of cash washed up on the Portmeirion shore.