MAXINE & THE QUEEN - Birds of Prey!

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TREATMENT/SYNOPSIS Millionaire Maxine is on top of the world with her successful start-up company but smacking up against news of tremendous financial success, Maxine has to make an instant life and death decision involving a young man she has known for only 15 seconds… and she fails --- miserably. After the man loses his leg after being hit by a car she cowardly freezes and doesn’t realize that her scarf was the tourniquet that would have saved his life. It's this tragic event that creates a powerful collision of her business success but her failure as a human being that results in her epiphany and her decision to give up her highly successful start-up company. Moments later Maxine and Queen have a happenstance first meeting in a women’s clothing store and it becomes thee momentous cross-point in their lives. As they part ways inside the store they’ll quickly reunite outside bonding them in their new calling. So cue two bandits dressed as clowns running out of a bank. They place money bags on the sidewalk and step back. A dye pack in one bag blows up throwing red dye all over but not on them. They pick up the remaining bags and jump in a waiting getaway car. When Maxine hears the dye pack explode across the street and sees the robbers dressed as clowns violently assault a woman pushing a stroller outside the bank she won’t stand for it and jumps in her car ready for a stealth pursuit. And in a split-second Queen goes from a senior journalism student at UNLV to the most fearless TV newsroom intern ever as she sees the quickly unfolding drama as an opportunity to begin a career as a TV reporter. As they witness the unfolding drama and the robbers dashing away, Maxine and Queen decide to pursue the bank robbers so they don’t get away scot free. With their differing motivations laid out moments before, they partner up and become the ballsiest Good Samaritans ever! Their reverse-Thelma and Louise stealth pursuit turns into a frenetic high-speed chase with Thelma's... oops, I mean Queen’s awesome narration and in-car POV video (via her just-purchased special sunglasses with a pin camera and paired to her phone) broadcast live during a 5pm newscast. But little do the women know that it will escalate into the most incredible and dangerous event in their lives. Enter the third key player of the drama, Alberto Dixon, who provides lifesaving dramatics of his own. The amazing groundbreaking in-car live broadcast of the chase comes to a thrilling conclusion in a Henderson, Nevada parking lot as bullets are flying and the lady's escape plan backfires necessitating a SWAT sharpshooter to save their lives by taking out two of the three robbers and with the third being arrested. As the drama concludes Maxine is even more convinced that she needs to devote her life to doing good in the world and to do it with partners. So she recruits Queen and Alberto to form a Three Musketeers-like team of crime-fighters. With this foundational experience, Maxine, Queen and Alberto become crusaders for justice and which forms the bonds of their new relationships. Queen and Maxine end their dramatic day back together again. Maxine offers her support as Queen details her rollercoaster day ending an hour earlier not with the expected marriage proposal but with heartbreak as her boyfriend Logan unexpectedly left town for a new job in New York City. So on a moonlit Lake Las Vegas beach Maxine finds a way to give Queen hope for the future. But with emotions settling down things only get worse for Queen. Seems the one surviving member of the clown-costumed bank robbers is determined to avenge the deaths of his two partners – his son and daughter. He escapes from the county jail and, disguised as a sheriff’s deputy, kidnaps Queen and her beloved cat which he threateningly uses to keep Queen in line. But she’s able to astutely tip-off Alberto and Maxine which results in one final High Noon-like shootout with Queen’s guardian angel, Alberto, and the one surviving bank robber/jail escapee inside the Neon Museum full of flashing retired iconic casino signs. With that success behind them they take on yet another daring case, although not quite as foolhardy, that they evolve into a massive case of police corruption. To start… it wasn’t a Taser but a bullet mistakenly fired by a rookie cop on the job for only one hour that unfolds a cascading series of wrongdoings and cover-ups for other officers by a corrupt and murderous “Guardian Devil” rogue police sergeant. The “Taser, Taser, Taser...” declaration by the police officer on her first day ends with a deadly result. The tragic mistake leads to the exposing of four other scandalous cover-ups involving the deaths and murders of six people. In each case one police sergeant was the “Guardian Devil” for the other officers and their misdeeds. She’s also personally responsible for the murders of a teenage skateboarder and citizen reporter who was the one who initially brought our investigators in on the fatal shooting by the rookie police officer. The sensational way that Maxine presents the video evidence to the rogue police sergeant in a packed shopping mall and (unbeknownst to the dirty cop) on live TV concludes the story in dramatic fashion. This film is a metaphor for all of our lives and as represented in this string of back and forth elations and crashes for both Maxine and Queen… starting for both with the well-intentioned but insane car chase of the bank robbers… and ending with the shootout inside the Neon Museum with the flashing retired iconic casino signs. In between, for Queen… an expected marriage proposal that crushingly doesn’t come and only coincidentally in the shadow and mist of a full-on Bellagio fountain spectacle which she thinks is part of her boyfriend’s plan. And for Maxine… her career as a millionaire entrepreneur gets flipped on its head when she cowardly refuses to try to save a man’s life which results in her epiphany and seeking penance, whereby she recruits Queen and Alberto to form the Three Musketeers-like team of crime-fighters. The film is also a smorgasbord of Las Vegas brilliance and visual eye candy. …opening with a front row seat on the heart-pounding and dipsy-doodling Big Apple rollercoaster at New York-New York… …to the romantic setting on the veranda of the Lago Restaurant overlooking a full-on Bellagio music, fountain and light spectacle... …to the beautiful revelers at gorgeous Lake Las Vegas… …to the Venetian with gondolas passing in opposite directions… …as well as taking in the flashy Neon Museum in the High Noon-like shootout. With the previously noted “reverse-Thelma & Louise chase” with two women behind the wheel, there might be casting (also two women) and certainly visual similarities (the chases) to the highly acclaimed and financially successful 1991 film Thelma & Louise (which included Oscar nominations for Susan Sarandon, Geena Davis and director Ridley Scott as well as an Oscar win for screenwriter Callie Khouri). But in this case it’s two balls-to-the-walls women who are the chasers (after the clown-attired bank robbers) and not the chashees (trying to allude law enforcement) and where the well-intended but mind-bending high speed pursuit of the bank robbers so they don’t get away scot free… blows up in their faces… versus their car shockingly flying over a cliff. The final scene brings together Queen and her new beau in police officer Pete Slack who Queen initially crossed paths with when she barged in, of all places… the men’s locker room. The touching romantic setting is a very flirtatious and sexy game of one-upmanship teasing the audience… but then they’ll be graced with a powerfully intimate and endearing final few moments… but with not one inch of skin being shown!