KENTUCKY FRIED KARMA

Logline
A struggling actor who embarks on writing a comedy to pay for his dying mother’s treatment must go through a spiritual growth process with the help of a Buddhist monk mentor, to cope with the nonstop adversity on his way to defeating the villain and getting the girl.

Synopsis
A teaser introduces us to the world of our hero’s comedy screenplay. From there to the end, we alternate between that and the hero’s “real” world.

Talented but down on his luck actor Willy Wanker struggles with feelings of inadequacy as he strives for a modicum of success. He feverishly writes while everything goes against him, including his mother’s worsening cancer. News of a therapy that may save her sets him off to finish and sell his script to pay for it. But first he must do some soul-searching until Buddhist monk Farthal Daylong helps him find his way.

Movie exec and nemesis Jack Falzetto, Willy’s phony friend from film school, offers to get the script produced but really plans on stealing it. Willy realizes he must let go of the crutches of vice and get into physical and mental shape. He begins meditation training with Farthal, cleans up his act and apartment and puts his heart and soul into writing a great script. But along his spiritual growth journey, he must learn that after doing your best you need to let go and not cling.

Willy delivers his first draft at Jack’s wacky party, where he also meets Dawn, the disputed love interest. We laugh at the zany script, cry in the real world, where distraught Willy visits his sick mother, Farthal and bartender Hank (who knows the truth about his father’s shooting death), and also seethe at vile, evil Jack’s despicable persona and scheming. Willy’s celebrates a false victory when Jack says they love it and will green light a second draft. But as Willy works his butt off on it, dapper, handsome Jack wines and dines Dawn while ripping off the script.

Willy’s world then crumbles: Dawn chooses Jack, who tells Willy the script’s a no go (it’s actually in production as Jack’s work), Nelly agonizes, Hank dies and finally... Farthal gets killed. Wretched Willy loses all faith, gets wasted and comes close to shooting himself.

Meanwhile, Jack has invited Dawn to lunch at his penthouse, where he will finally show her the stolen script as his own work. But, unbeknownst to him, Dawn had read a bit of Willy’s script a while back, and she explodes in rage when she realizes what Jack did.

The tide finally changes with the “call from Dawn,” who fills Willy in. The two hatch a plan so Willy can recover his copyright. They file suit but have very little proof. Willy’s on the verge of losing his case, but comes up with a last ditch, cockamamie proposal to the judge: a writing contest between Jack and him. It works! Willy finally triumphs in every sense of the word. The Judge rules in his favor with a two million dollar award. The studio offers to produce his movie with him as the lead, he gives Dawn the kiss of a lifetime right there and she gets to direct!

Approximate runtime: 105 minutes. Thematic references: The Kentucky Fried Movie and other ZAZ team films, Monty Python series.