UNDERCURRENTS
Jeff Homes is a sailor and ace navigator who likes to know where he's going, but ends
up out of work in Belize, fired off a cruise ship, without a dollar... Adrift.
All of that changes when Kent Dietrich offers him a job on his
luxury yacht, "The Wanderer". Dietrich is taking a handful of rich investors to Mayaguez,
Puerto Rico to sell them shares in a new Casino / condominium.
Jeff likes the destination, and takes the job.
But the minute Jeff lays eyes on Nola Dietrich, he knows he's in trouble. She is
beautiful, seductive, wealthy... and manipulating.
The type of woman to throw a man off course.
And the longer Jeff is on "The Wanderer", the more off course he becomes. Everyone
has a hidden agenda. Everyone has a scam and a con. Everyone is out to cheat everyone
else. The Casino is part of an elaborate con to bilk the investors out of six million dollars. It's
a Ship Of Foolers, and Kent Dietrich is captain.
Nola convinces Jeff to drug her husband and steal the money. Since
Kent's casino scam can't stand up to police scrutiny, Dietrich won't make any waves. The
victim will cover up the crime.
When Jeff goes to steal the money, he finds Kent dead and the six million gone. And
realizes he has been set up by somebody on "The Wanderer".
Probably Nola.
Jeff turns detective, slyly interviewing everyone on the yacht and
searching their cabins. But which clues are real, and which are part of the con?
Caught in a web of deceit, where victims are manipulators and the best lie is the truth,
Jeff is in uncharted waters. His navigation skills can't save him from the lies and twisted
schemes. He must chart his course by gut instinct... dead reckoning.
"UNDERCURRENTS" is a hip mystery-noir in the tradition of "Usual Suspects" and
"Spanish Prisoner": 'The Grifters' on a yacht, with a twist at the crest of every wave.
"UNDERCURRENTS" a screenplay by William C. Martell
For a copy of this script... E-mail me! wcmartell@ScriptSecrets.Net
To read the script online... UNDERCURRENTS.
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MY BIO:
I've written 19 films that were carelessly slapped onto celluloid: 3 for HBO, 2 for Showtime, 2 for USA Net, and a whole bunch of CineMax Originals (which is what happens when an HBO movie goes really, really wrong). I've been on some film festival juries, including Raindance in London (twice - once with Mike Figgis and Saffron Burrows, once with Lennie James and Edgar Wright - back to "jury duty" in October of 2009). Roger Ebert discussed my work with Gene Siskel on his 1997 "If We Picked The Winners" Oscar show. I'm quoted a few times in Bordwell's great book "The Way Hollywood tells It". My USA Net flick HARD EVIDENCE was released on video the same day as the Julia Roberts' film Something To Talk About and out-rented it in the USA. In 2007 I had two films released on DVD on the same day and both made the top 10 rentals.
