A frustrated pop-culture reporter is thrust into the hard news story she longs to cover and reluctantly partners with a hard-drinking, fortune-seeking soldier to rescue her kidnapped, politically influential mom in exchange for a stolen mystical biblical artifact that will change their destinies and the world's fate forever.  Comps:  The Lost City and Romancing the Stone.

SYNOPSIS:

THE STAR OF DESTINY

Jessica Callison, Washington Post's reluctant society page reporter, can nail a wedding color scheme at fifty paces but dreams of hard-hitting journalism. Her biggest obstacle? Her perfectionist mother Elizabeth, the White House Counsel who wears power like Chanel and has never approved of Jessica's career choices—or her wardrobe, apartment, boyfriends, or basically anything since birth.

When Jessica stumbles onto the story of a lifetime—the theft of the legendary Star of Destiny from Jerusalem's Western Wall—she's ready to trade canapé coverage for actual journalism. The artifact, a crude six-pointed star with a forty-carat ruby that supposedly gave King David his divine mojo, has vanished. What Jessica doesn't know is that her own mother is currently in Jerusalem, negotiating the artifact's sale while wrapped in nothing but a bed sheet, with disgraced Mossad agent Jacob Levi's gun aimed at her head.

Just as Jessica pitches this international conspiracy to her perpetually exasperated editor Mark, he assigns her to cover the Vice President's wedding to Texas oil baroness Char Morrison-Blackwood-Reynolds instead—the woman who collects husbands like some people collect modern art. Fate intervenes when Jessica finds her mother's home ransacked, with a slit-throated dove as a warning. In a twist of irony that would make any journalist cringe, Jessica isn't just covering the biggest story of her career—she's becoming the headline.

Clutching the ancient artifact she rescues from her mother's fire escape, Jessica makes a panicked escape—directly into the backseat of Stan Merlin's Uber. A disheveled ex-Marine helicopter pilot with a Purple Heart, a flask welded to his hand, and life plans scrawled on cocktail napkins ("Operation Money Shot. Tactical objective: get rich as fuck"), Stan's carefully constructed plan to drink himself into oblivion is shattered when bullets start flying through his windshield.

Their impromptu partnership begins with Jessica hijacking both Stan's cab and his antique Colt .45, cementing a relationship built on the romantic foundation of mutual distrust and continuous bickering. Stan steals the Star from Jessica, Jessica punches Stan in the face, and then a twelve-year-old pickpocket named Kareem steals it from both of them—all within the first twenty-four hours of their relationship.

In Saudi Arabia, Jessica's Harvard education and society column expertise prove surprisingly useless when faced with religious police destroying her designer lingerie collection as "contraband" and having to ride a flatulent camel named "The Lightning" in an illegal desert race. The woman who once critiqued ambassadors' wine selections now finds herself hiding in sheep pens, infiltrating underground clubs, and wearing her traditional thawb so incorrectly it nearly causes an international incident.

For Jessica, whose greatest occupational hazard was previously a paper cut from a wedding invitation, the adventure forces an evolution from observer to participant. The woman who built her career maintaining journalistic distance finds herself shooting at pursuers from a moving vehicle, breaking into foreign government facilities, and strategizing jailbreaks with pre-teens. Her meticulous reporter's notebook, once filled with society gossip, now contains bullet trajectories and explosive formulas.

Infiltrating Omar's palace disguised as wedding journalists, they discover Elizabeth isn't kidnapped but conspiring with Omar. When their cover is blown, Stan creates a diversion with hidden explosives while Jessica—now somehow comfortable wielding automatic weapons in designer heels—provides covering fire. The society columnist who once struggled to get her mother's approval now leads the charge to rescue her from her own treachery.

Captured and thrown in Omar's dungeon, Jessica finally confronts her mother about a lifetime of disappointment. For the first time, she stands her ground not as Elizabeth's daughter seeking approval, but as a woman who's discovered her own strength in the most unlikely circumstances. Her growth is interrupted when Kareem appears with explosives, having followed Stan's bar-napkin instructions to the letter.

Stan, facing his own demons, freezes at the sight of a military helicopter, traumatic flashbacks overwhelming him as his hands shake uncontrollably. But Jessica's newfound courage inspires him, and he climbs into the pilot's seat as Jessica and Elizabeth race toward them with the Star and Omar's ancient parchment.

The escape reaches spectacular heights as Stan crashes the helicopter through Omar's throne room window while Jessica rides the helicopter's skids, firing at soldiers. When Omar hits their tail rotor, sending them spinning toward a mountain with MiGs in pursuit, Elizabeth reads the ancient Hebrew prayer as Jessica and Stan share a moment of genuine connection amidst the chaos.

The Star glows with supernatural light as they hit the mountain and miraculously pass through it, with Stan's hands finally steady on the controls—his own personal redemption mirroring Jessica's transformation from society reporter to action hero.

In the aftermath, Jessica's exposé rocks Washington, bringing down the Vice President's corrupt empire. Her career transformation is complete—no longer just reporting on power from the sidelines, she's reshaping it through her words and actions. Elizabeth leverages her knowledge to position herself for a presidential run, while Jessica and Stan, now a couple, embrace their unlikely bond forged through desert races, camel chases, and gunfights.

The society columnist who once struggled to be taken seriously stands tall in the media spotlight, having lived the very story she was born to write.