THE STAGE 32 LOGLINES

Post your loglines. Get and give feedback.

TRIDENT
By Jodi Kraus

GENRE: Action
LOGLINE:

An ex-Navy SEAL and his daredevil brother must save their kidnapped sister by pulling off a dangerous rescue mission for a Mexican drug cartel.

SYNOPSIS:

A tortured man, MOISES MOLINA, refuses to submit to his captors. He’s being held by a rival drug cartel, and they have no mercy. The situation is quickly clear: the Molina cartel family is being pushed out after the death of their father. CARLOS is the heir now, but his brother Moises has fallen into the hands of the rival Cabrera family. Its leader JOSE declares that Carlos has one week to give up his claim on the Molina cartel’s territory, or his brother will die. Brutally.

Carlos has an ace up his sleeve, though. His girlfriend, EVE. See, Eve has a brother, too... ex-Navy SEAL and Wounded Warrior JUSTY. Carlos encourages Eve to make plans for both of them to meet her family, finally, in the US. It’s clear she has no idea what Carlos’s true intentions or real job are. Otherwise, she’d be much more careful.

But who is Justy? A hero. Back in the US, he spins down on a rope from a high tree and lands neatly, despite his prosthetic leg. Justy is about to buy this land to open a rehab center and camp for other wounded vets. He’s buying this land to make it happen, with his fellow soldiers, sister Eve, and brother ROOSTER on the deed.

Oh, yeah, Rooster. Let’s meet him as he dives off the highest hotel in Vegas, stunt-jumping and only releasing his parachute at the last minute. The crowd loves him. He’s quite the reckless, cheerful wild card.

Back to the airport where Justy picks up Eve and Carlos. Something’s off about this guy, off enough that Justy asks his old buddy TIM to run a check on Carlos. In the meantime, the old family banter picks up again, the younger siblings showing off

the Trident-themed lockets Justy got them to remind them of the unity their trio represents. Justy has no locket -- his trident is a tattoo.

Justy shares the news about the Wounded Warriors project, then offers them both work and a place to stay if and when they need it. Carlos doesn’t like that at all. He makes a phone call outside to one of his cartel men: the deal has to go down tonight. What deal? Kidnapping a roofied Eve. She’ll be leverage, to get Justy to help Carlos rescue his brother Moises from the Cabrera family and its leader, Jose. Too bad Justy misses a belated call from Tim, who’s discovered the truth about Carlos.

Carlos hijacks Justy’s private plane with Rooster onboard. He explains the deal: They have to rescue Moises, or Eve dies. But first -- they’re under siege! The Cabreras have found them! They have to defend themselves and get the hell up into the sky.

Moises, meanwhile, is still suspended in chains, half-dead but still defiant enough to spit as his captors. He even crawls back into his own bondage rather than beg for mercy. This is definitely Carlos’ brother.

Landing in La Paz, Justy and the others head back to Carlos’ mansion, where they meet his sister-in-law, Moises’ silent and mournful wife JOVANNA. Justy gets the details and blueprints of where Moises is being kept. It’s 300 kilometers away across the water, and Justy’s being given only one of the Molina thugs -- ROBERTO -- to help. Justy doesn’t flinch. He has enough for an ambush of the crack house where Moises is stashed. That’s what matters. Anything it takes to get Eve back.

The trio set sail for La Paz -- but then Justy tricks his brother and Roberto into a dingy and pushes them away from the boat. Rooster’s furious. WTF? Justy reminds his brother--Rooster isn’t good at following orders. Plus, Justy doesn’t want Carlos’ man Roberto around the Cabreras. Justy can handle this one on his own. He promises his still-angry brother that he’ll come back and pick the two up after the mission is complete. All Rooster has to do is fire the flare gun--in one hour.

Justy drives the boat away, leaving the other two men dead in the water. Surprise! They haven’t been alone more than a few minutes when out of nowhere, the guard

is shot dead. A bright light picks out Rooster. What next?

Across the water, ignorant of his brother’s peril, Justy is in his own trouble. A cigarette boat with some drug smugglers has spotted his craft and they open fire. War on the water! Justy gets the best of them but is badly burned when the boat explodes, and he has to make a desperate swim for shore. Once there, Justy pretends to be a tourist while he waits for the lone survivor from the cigarette boat

to make his way to the beach from the wreckage. He follows the man into town

and to a Gentleman’s Club, where cartel head Jose Cabrera waits.

Actually, Jose has other business to take care of first. He shanks a picture-snapping reporter, to the horror of witnessing journalist, MERCEDES. She stays quiet, though.

Inside the club, Jose finds out that his cigarette boat is destroyed, and that the perpetrator yelled “Molinas!” before leaping in the water. Jose is furious and sends his man Cordova out to cause some damage. Justy follows, but soon finds himself trapped in a fast-late shootout between two limos, each from one of the cartels.

There’s no room for error as the cars fly top speed, a hail of bullets around Justy. One car flips over, and the other veers off followed by police. Justy is forced to crash-stop into a cement barricade. He sails over the obstacles, ducking and curling and landing neatly on his feet. Not far away, Cordova in the other limo pays off the cops.

Justy follows Cordova to where Moises is being held captive. Using a flashing camera on his drive to distract the cartel members, Justy sneaks in and is able to carry out Moises--but the other man is barely clinging to life. Justy takes care of him as best he can in an emergency, then speeds off.

Crossing the water back to Carlos, Justy worries when he sees that there’s no flare gun and no sign of Rooster and Roberto. But there IS a body floating in the waves, its face shot off. NO! Before Justy can panic, though, Rooster and Tim emerge. Yes, Tim’s back! It’s a brief but happy reunion, then the four men set off for Carlos.

Things are tense with Carlos and Jovanna. Their history is revealed: Carlos and Jovanna were once together, but she left him for his brother. Now Carlos is paranoid that Jovanna is attracted to Justy. He blames her for losing their baby. She storms off, offended. And that’s when she misses the call from Moises.

Her husband is dying on the beach as Justy and the others desperately try to save him. No chance. The torture takes its toll, and he coughs blood, then dies.

This is going to be a problem. Now how do the brothers negotiate Eve’s safe return? They don’t even know that she’s already tried one bold escape and failed. Then, as the corpse rocks in the water, Justy calls Carlos with a demand of ten million dollars

-- and Eve -- in exchange for Moises. And proof of life is on the message Moises left for Jovanna. Then Justy calls Mercedes and spins a story that a big confrontation is about to go down between the cartels, on the riverbanks.

Justy’s lie sparks fury in both cartels. They prepare for battle. Meanwhile, Justy, Rooster, and Tim hustle through a massive street party, then spy Mercedes. But she’s ratted them out! Thugs arrive. There’s a gun battle, with acrobatics over balconies and diving through traffic. The good guys are lucky to get away.

Eve is still prisoner, and another of her escape attempts fails, even though Jovanna is compelled to help when Eve confesses that she’s pregnant with Carlos’ baby. Instead, Carlos catches her. He’s quickly distracted by gunfire--the Cabreras are attacking his house! BOOM! Soon everything is left as a pile of smoking wreckage.

Justy and his guys fend off another attack by boat and arrive to see the mansion in ruins. Justy is crushed, rocked to his soul by guilt. He believes this is all his fault--no matter what Rooster says to console him. Then an underground tunnel leads them to a terribly wounded Jovanna, who eventually tips them off that Eve is actually alive and on Carlos’ yacht. What they don’t know is that she’s been set out to die in an abandoned shark cage... and that it is slowly sinking. Thank god she has the smarts to tie her Trident pendant to a floating piece of pipe--Justy spots it.

Fighting off hungry sharks, Rooster gets his arm mangled when he blows his air tank up in order to get the lid off the cage and keep his sister from drowning.

Things are happening fast now. Jose is cornered and dealt fatal vengeance by the son of the journalist he shanked. Carlos becomes unhinged when his men report discovering Moises’ body. He calls for Justy’s assassination and flees to another of his mansions. But he can’t avoid justice. Or Justy. The ex-SEAL and his team arrive fully armed. And they come with full U.S. military backup. Carlos loses it completely, using his own son as a body shield and diving off a cliff to his death on the rocks below. No time to wait. Justy, Rooster, and Tim leap off the cliff to save the boy.

A few weeks later Rooster is back to status quo, or so he thinks, until the Grimaldi crime family catches up with him at a boxing match and he calls big bro and little sis for a little help…

Bobby G

Rated this logline

register for stage 32 Register / Log In