By John & Jimmy Flynn
In 1848 California, a conman, a Mexican outlaw, a lady of the night, and a legendary gunslinger band together to scam a gold mining camp owned by the most deadly man in the West.
Feature-length Movie | Action, Western
Think of Pirates of the Caribbean
meets Ocean’s Eleven — in the West.
Synopsis
Nobody said the West was an easy place to live.
Out-of-work actor Duke Bishop gambles his way through San Francisco, the premier destination for gold miners who have struck it rich. As part of a practiced con, Duke pretends to be a “dandy”––a fancy man unsuited to the rigors of the West––so he can distract and disarm his marks before lifting their recently harvested gold.
One night in a saloon, Duke pushes the act too far and nearly gets killed; but a Mexican ranchero-turned-outlaw, Joaquín Santana, saves him. Impressed by the dandy con, Joaquín recruits Duke to join his Medicine Show—a traveling exhibition of a “miracle elixir” that Joaquín sells to gullible miners to trick them out of their gold.
As an audition, Joaquín takes Duke to a brothel, where he dances with Jia Shu––a Chinese peep-show star who works with Joaquín to lure miners to his Medicine Show. Later, the newly formed trio stage a jailbreak of Quickshot, a legendary Native American gunslinger whose infallible aim proves the elixir’s supposedly infinite powers. Together, the gang then steals the supplies for their Medicine Show from a rowdy American fort.
They seem headed for an easy payday until Joaquín reveals their destination is a mining camp owned by the notorious Slaughterin’ Sam Carter—a ruthless believer in Manifest Destiny, who has killed hundreds of innocent Mexicans and Indians. Further, Carter stole Joaquín’s land after slaughtering his cattle, murdering his workers and leaving him to die.
Joaquín confesses he only organized the Medicine Show to enter Carter’s camp under less suspicion. His true plan? Stage a heist of Slaughterin’ Sam’s 500-pound stockpile of gold. Shocked by these revelations, the gang threatens to disband, but Joaquín convinces them that this quest for vengeance is too lucrative to refuse. So the gang presses on.
To set up the Medicine Show, Duke enters Carter’s mining camp in disguise as his dandy character––quickly becoming the butt of the gold miners’ jokes. But the fun stops when Sam Carter returns to camp, executes a young Native American and demonstrates the chilling cruelty with which he and his wife, Debbie run “Carter’s Canyon.”
When the Medicine Show arrives the next day, the gang easily dupes the miners, but struggles to find a way to lower Slaughterin’ Sam’s defenses. Outnumbered, outgunned and out in the middle of the wilderness, our heroes will risk everything to avenge Joaquín, take back a stolen fortune and rewrite the first pages of California history.
Script
Bible
Budget
