A liquored-up yet wildly successful Hollywood director must shed his vices in time to stop a madman's murderous war on corporate America.

SYNOPSIS:

A CREDIT SEQUENCE features images of the most familiar brand names popularized by advertising transitions us into events 20 YEARS AGO. Super 16mm stock captures the era.

Director WARNER BATES (mid 20s), has a plan. First, he goes to a cemetary and pays for three coffins and three burial plots. Then he goes directly to an ad agency and shoots and kills the three ad executives that tampered with the editing of his commercial. Police arrive on the scene, but Bates is able to escape.

Over at the HELMER estate in New York, young TOMMY HELMER (10 years old) watches TV as he prepares to leave for boarding school. The news on the TV reports the shooting and shows the aftermath of the carnage on the streets of Manhattan.

Pristine 35mm stock. The California coastline transitions to PRESENT DAY, sweeping into a Beverly Hills ad agency where contemporary executives await the arrival of the director of their commercials, TOMMY HELMER (now 30). Rather than attend his scheduled appointment, however, Helmer has opted to attend a concert in LONDON at the Royal Albert Hall. He is extremely drunk as a text message from his PRODUCER, SOPHIA SAVANNAH (30s), soon has him traveling back to LA.

The following day Helmer scoots in to the rescheduled meeting, fresh off his red-eye from London and drunk out of his mind. the AGENCY CEO MARTY MULLIGAN (50s), and his FLEET OF EXECS are appalled, but it is clear that Helmer is given a lot of leeway. Helmer is the best in the business, having won more awards than Streisand, Streep, and Nicholson combined, Helmer is now advertising's spiritual leader, and the demand for his directing services earns him many free passes.

Helmer may be supremely talented, but even he is beginning to push his luck. Successful, good-looking, and rich, a man who has abused his substantial means to the fullest, spending most of his time drunk, partying in Vegas, and hooking up with models, prostitutes, and actresses. Recall DUDLEY MOORE IN ARTHUR.

Helmer's reckless ways ultimately catch up with him during a big-budget commercial shoot. He decides to take liberties and introduce a very out-of-place grizzly bear. Savannah cautions him, but Helmer defends his art and sticks with the grizzly. However, he soon discovers that the ad agency has been replaced him with another director on a re-shoot.

Helmer is furious at the loss of creative control, drinking in his apartment when there is a knock at the door. He is greeted by THE CLOWN (50s) a homeless bozo who has apparently arrived to entertain kids at a birthday party, and disappointed to have hiked up so many stairs only to have found the wrong address. No problem, Helmer invites him in for a drink. The pair enjoy beverages as Helmer explains the recent downturn in his career.

The Clown listens intently, offers a sympathetic ear, and has a solution. He just happens to be a member of the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army, a group of bozos that use their clowning skills, along with non-violent direct action, to oppose society’s injustices. The Clown explains that the predicament is clearly a case of injustice, of “profit over dignity,” and that the grizzly bear should remain in the commercial.

Helmer's barely lucid mind likes what it hears, and he agrees that the world need the bear in the commercial instead of prefabricated ideas fed to them by corporate America. Better yet, The Clown will work for free to help him defy one of the biggest talent agencies in the world. Before leaving he asks Helmer to write a Manifesto to deliver to the agency.

The Clown leaves, and arrives drunk at his next birthday party where mayhem ensues. He juggles fire in front of an audience of terrified kids, and clumsily sets fire to his clown outfit. He sprints away from shocked parents, jumping backyard fences until he finds a neighbor's pool to douse the flames.

Later, Helmer meets The Clown at a cafe. The Clown, now in singed outfit, aasks to read the MANIFESTO. Helmer hands it over: it is numerous blank pages that end with a single sentence on the final page granting him total creative control. It’s not a manifesto; it’s a contract, and The Clown heaps praises on Helmer's masterful effort. The Clown then berates a WAITRESS (20s) for adding generic ketchup to an empty Heinz bottle and goes on a rampage destroying tubs of generic dip in the cafe.

The Clown joins Helmer in their subsequent meeting at the agency, but their joint efforts fail to convince its CEO MULLIGAN to reinstate the bear back in the commercial. Helmer is frustrated with the wasting of his time, energy, and creativity with the Clown, and attempts to end their relationship.

However, the Clown is manic, rallying Helmer to continue to oppose Agency capitalism but Helmer makes it clear that he is done with their bizarre form of activism. Savannah reaches Helmer at his apartment saying she has remedied the situation. Mulligan will retain their services if he commits to dropping the bear from the ad. Once Helmer's inflated ego calms down, he finally concedes, accepts the offer and agrees to meet her at the agency.

As he leaves, Helmer finds a red balloon floating outside of his front door with a cryptic message attached from The Clown, stating that their manifesto continues.

He arrives at the agency to find a protest on the streets where hundreds of people lie naked. The Clown whips people and announces that he is weaning them off of the agency's propaganda machine. The protest

quickly gets out of hand and police arrive, arresting Helmer in the melee.

Savannah bails him out of jail and drops a bombshell when she reveals that she is dying of cancer. Helmer is shocked, immediately gives up his playboy lifestyle and turns his attention to saving Savannah's life, but no amount of money will cure her. She dies, but Helmer has matured and found a permanent sense of balance and adapts to a more conventional lifestyle, enduring the daily communte back and forth to work. Meanwhile, The Clown, however, spray paints anti-corporate messages along the freeway in hopes of appealing to Helmer on his commute.

The Clown lures Helmer back to his cause during a round of golf, pleading to help him “awaken the stumbling masses” from their brainwashed, advertising-induced hypnosis. But Helmer says he has no interest, to stop harassing him, and that he will be laying low for a while.

The Clown will have none of it and protests by running across the golf course, stripping off his clown

costume until he stands naked on a hill, and then runs away.

Later, Helmer lounges by his hotel pool when a disturbance in the lobby gets his attention. He investigates, and finds The Clown in the clutches of staff members, belting out words of caution about the corporate influence the hotel patrons are living under. Although he is no longer in costume, The Clown still wears his red nose and wig, but these come off in the scuffle, revealing The Clown to be WARNER BATES, undercover as the director-turned-killer from the FADE IN.

Helmer intervenes, frees the Clown, but soon regrets it as the Clown spouts the demented ramblings of a madman, pledging to destroy advertising and force people to question the machine. Helmer outright rejects his ridiculous game plan, but Bates won't listen. He shows Helmer a .357 magnum, inisisting that he take it and kill on behalf of their cause, but Bates is escorted out of the hotel by security.

As the Clown mounts his attack, stalking Helmer until the resolution, recall Bill Murray's character in WHAT ABOUT BOB? who won't leave Richard Dreyfuss's psychiatrist character alone...

The next day Helmer receives a written note: “Mulligan is dead. Death to oppression.” Helmer knows the message is from the Clown and believes he is serious, immediately driving to Mulligan's agency to warn him. En route, he learns that Mulligan is actually back at his hotel hosting a conference, so he whipe his Ferrari around and heads back.

Back at the hotel, Helmer finds Mulligan in the restroom and warns of the imminent danger at hand, but they are ambushed by the Clown who jumps out of a stall with a gun. The Clown takes them both to Helmer's hotel room at gunpoint, and ties up Mulligan.

Police arrive on the scene, and pound on Helmer's locked door, causing a struggle to break out between the Clown and Helmer. The gun goes off and Mulligan is hit in the side. The Clown sets fire to the curtains and yanks Helmer across the room toward the window as the room goes up in flames.

The Clown shoots at Helmer, but Helmer throws his body backward and smashes through the window, bullets narrowly missing him as he falls down to certain death -- but he lands in the hotel pool.

Helmer surfaces to see the Clown above, still in the hotel room, surrounded by violent flames. POLICE break into the room and drag Mulligan out, the Clown is stuck by the window unable to get

through the flames.

The Clown accepts his fate, and sits cross-legged on the floor. Thick smoke rolls over his head and out the smashed window as he lights on fire, fully engulfed in flames....

Helmer stumbles out of the pool, staggers away from the fire and out onto Sunset Blvd. The Santa

Ana winds blow strongly, gusts carrying the flames from the hotel onto adjacent buildings and billboards. Sunset Blvd and its many billboards are on fire. Helmer waves down a cab, ordering the driver to take him anywhere. Helmer looks on at the billboard ads on fire, logos of iconic brands burning to the ground across Hollywood.

The cab continues on, and disappears through thick, churning smoke...

FADE OUT ...

NOTES

MANIFESTO is a clever, dark comedy that pokes fun at our capitalist society. It serves to criticize the extent to which advertising messages shaped by a few powerful companies impose culture and point-of-view on the masses, and does so through humor in the form of exaggerated personalities and circumstances.

The story is fast paced, compelling and engaging. It immediately grabs the reader with crazy WARNER BATES killing three people and then vanishing. The subsequent scenes of a Scotch swilling kid TOMMY HELMER compel the reader to try and figure out what the connection is.

The story then shifts 20 YEARS LATER, quickly introducing Helmer's now booze-induced antics and best attempts at career suicide as a director in Hollywood. THE CLOWN follows suit, and maniacally communicates the story’s central contention, quickly moving the story to its climactic resolution. The Clown is plain insane, mouthing off radical babble, while MARTY MULLIGAN is the pompous ad exec.

Initially, the villain is really Helmer himself. He is his own worst enemy. He screws up his own life by drinking, partying and refusing to follow orders. SOFIA SAVANNAH is the take charge producer, the dry voice of reason, while Helmer is her adolescent and clueless director. Savannah is hilarious, colorful, and easy to root for. Her career is on the line so she has a valid interest in Helmer's success, as well as genuine affection, while Helmer is the one who is out of control and causing so many problems.

Savannah keeps Helmer's ego in check throughout, developing conflict between the two; the reader roots for Savannah to rein Helmer in, and Helmer is finally jolted back to reality after Savannah's untimely death.

The Clown and Helmer initially bond but their friendship quickly fizzles. Helmer just wants to get rid of The Clown but he doesn't know how. With Savannah no longer around, Helmer is left to fend for himself while the Clown mounts his attack, stalking Helmer until the resolution.

MANIFESTO is reminiscent of FIGHT CLUB in its offbeat approach to societal observations, even CONCLUDING with disastrous images of the antagonist's efforts paying off. MANIFESTO could also be thought of as a twisted comic take on THE FISHER KING, the emotionally touching story of an arrogant DJ and his friendship with a street vigilante, while the humor recalls the British classic WITHNAIL AND I.