RETRIBUTION

WGAw # 635346

Type: Drama

Length: 94 Pages

 An Original Screenplay by John P. Kearney

Synopsis

"Retribution" centers on Michael Gardner, a thirty-five year old married man, with an twelve-year-old daughter. The story begins when Michael's daughter, Jo Beth, is raped and murdered in their own home. To make matters worse, the killer ambushes Michael and sets it up to look as though he killed his own daughter.

             Based on the seemingly obvious evidence, Michael is arrested for killing his daughter Jo Beth. However, when questioned by reporters, he proclaims his innocence, and swears vengeance on the real killer. However, swamped by the weight of the early evidence, even his wife, Rachel, believes and accuses Michael of being the killer.

             After the forensic evidence clears Michael of the charges, the police find the real killer, Edgar Weldon, a thirty-something drifter with a long arrest record and history of child abuse. Michael leaves his wife because of her publicly accusing him of the crime, and moves into the killer's former apartment. When the state denies the use of the death penalty, he becomes obsessed with the justice of this man.

            Michael is then mysteriously arrested for the attempted murder of his estranged wife, and is sent to the same maximum-security prison as his daughter's killer. Has he gone insane, or is it all an elaborate plan to extract revenge on the man who killed his daughter?

             All questions are answered after Michael is sent to a maximum security prison, where he finds himself in over his head. Although he never admits his personal mission of vengeance to the authorities, his plans are assumed by the powers that be and he is placed in the black cell block with a former Olympic boxer named Dancer, to keep him away from Weldon.

            Slowly Michael earns Dancer’s trust and hopes to convince him to help train him to eventually fight his daughter’s killer. Something Dancer resists to avoid complications in what should be his last six months of a twenty year sentence. Contrary to the best efforts of the Warden to keep them apart, Michael drifts closer and closer to a final fatal showdown with his daughter's killer.