LA COSA NOSTRA

BY SIMON HEDLUND

SYNOPSIS V.1 (ROUGH DRAFT)

The sound of a great thunderstorm. Rain is pouring down from the sky as if there was no limit. Lit up by the lightning strikes, there is a BEARDED MAN in worn down clothes, fighting his way into a wall of mud and vegetation with a draw hoe. The hoe hits something rocklike. The man digs out a tablet made of stone; one of the two original Tablets of Stone with the Ten Commandments, that Moses was handed on Mount Sinai, according to the Bible.

Next thing we see is a very masculine, sharp dressed italian man playing with a gun in an office. This is COSTAS DE’AGOSTINI, the head of a small, but yet very respected mafia family. The bearded man steps into Costas’ office and proves to him that the tablet is legitimate, and explains that he wants to sell it to the family. Costas sees the immense value in the tablet and accepts the offer. However, Costas can’t jeopardize people finding out about the whereabouts of the tablet, so he ruthlessly kills the man before he takes off.

Costas and his brother LUCA DE’AGOSTINI are having dinner at a nice restaurant together with RICO CASSANO, a man that is now part of the family after he married the brothers’ cousin. Costas’ attention is drawn to a little girl, playing outside the restaurant that he doesn’t recognize. Rico explains that her name is Sofia and that she’s his niece. He will be taking care of her over the weekend since her mother is in England on a major medical conference. After that they have gotten that out of the way Costas gets serious and starts thanking Rico for his work and accomplishments in the family the last couple of years. Then he pulls out the stone tablet. After explaining how much money they can make from it, Luca and Rico are stunned. The three men are all certain of that this is the opportunity of their lifetimes. All their actions as criminals, the task of protecting a multi-generation mob family, all the brothers that spilled blood for staying loyal to the family...it has all led to this moment of justice.

They go back to dining and having a great time. Luca and Rico go to the restroom, and when they are about to leave Luca tells Rico to go ahead without him. Rico leaves the restroom and Luca suspiciously picks up his phone and starts dialing a number.

Time flys by and when they are all done eating, they agree on making it a night of celebration. They decide that they first take Sofia bowling and then head to one of the nightclubs. They leave the restaurant and starts driving towards the bowling alley.

In an intercut we see a man standing in a street corner, facing the other way. He is holding a mask in his left hand and a duffel bag in his other hand. This is TREVON O’KEIFFE, one of the most feared assassins in Sweden. We see multiple intercuts between the mafia driving towards the bowling alley, and O’Keiffe’s car rushing down the streets at very high speed. The atmosphere in the movie has become very dark and thrilling by now.

The mafia car pulls up in a parking house. Rico and Sofia go to get the parking ticket, while Costas and Rico stay in the car. Suddenly we hear the sound of a car and squealing tires, and O’Keiffes pulls up close to Sofia. O’Keiffe and his companion CHAVEZ, both masked and carrying assault rifles, get out of the car and start approaching Sofia. Rico screams and tries to get to Sofia before the masked men do, but O’Keiffe grabs Sofia and starts pulling her towards his car. Luca and Costas get out of the car and a gun battle breaks out between the mafia and the kidnappers. Luca shoots Chavez in the arm, and him and O’Keiffe make their way back into the car and drive away from there together with Sofia. Rico is devastated, and can’t understand why in the world anybody would kidnap Sofia. Costas and Luca ensure him that when they find the kidnappers, they’ll make sure that the kidnapping of Sofia was their last mistake, and that they’ll get Sofia back alive.

They think about the kidnapping and what they saw, and they realize that the car was an old taxi. After speaking to the local taxi firm, they get find out that the car was sold to a man named Michel Chavez. They go to Chavez’ house and find a video tape containing a message to the mafia. In the video we see how Sofia is tied up in a chair in a dark room. O’Keiffe and Chavez are standing next to her. They explain that they want to trade Sofia for the stone tablet, and that the exchange will take place at twilight that same day. The mafia accepts the deal without doubt. However, they are aware that the exchange could result in a bloodbath if they let the kidnappers get leverage. Nothing stops O’Keiffe and Chavez from simply just killing them all. But on the other hand, nothing stops them from killing O’Keiffe and Chavez either. Therefore, they decide that Costas will be laying on the roof with a sniper rifle, and on Luca’s mark, he’ll shoot O’Keiffe.

The exchange takes place in an alley in an abandoned part of town. The mafia arrives at the alley about an hour before twilight. They walk into the alley in slow-motion, and pull out all their gear and weapons. When everything is set up, Costas pulls out a bag of cookies. Rico and Luca think it’s kind of a bad time to eat cookies now, but then Costas explains that the cookies contain a powerful drug called Phiphelyn. He has an inspirational speech about how it might be their last night alive, and that it’s time to live it up a little. Rico and Luca become super excited and they celebrate by eating a bunch of the cookies. 40 minutes later, all of the three men are high as kites. Luca is talking to a dog, Costas is stripping on a light pole...it’s a disaster. Instead of concentrating on the upcoming exchange, they are just messing around. Eventually, they pull themselves together - just in time. We see a full moon, and a werewolf yelling on the roof. He then falls off the roof. Then a car slowly pulls up in the alley. O’Keiffe and Chavez get out of the car, they look very intimidating. Luca asks where Sofia is, and O’Keiffe opens the back door and pulls her out. She appears to be alright. Luca looks at Rico to watch his reaction, but Rico simply starts walking towards O’Keiffe and Chavez. He gives Sofia a couple $100 bills and she runs away. He shakes hands with O’Keiffe and Chavez. Luca looks like as if he just saw a ghost. He looks extremely baffled. Luca asks him what the hell he’s doing and Rico explains to him how he's had enough of Luca and Costas using him for all these years simply because he's married into the family. He always had to do the dirty work and doesn't get paid no way near as much as they do. Luca tries to calm him down, but Rico continues by explaining how the whole Sofia-kidnapping was a setup. He doesn't have a niece; she was just a kindergarten girl that he would pay if she pretended to be his niece. He hired two of the most notorious assassins there are to imply more seriousness to the situation, and now he’s going to sell the tablet for a very high price to a potential buyer. He’s got it all figured out.

Luca loses it. He yells at Costas to fire, but nothing happens. Rico and the bounty hunters laugh at him for having been betrayed by his own father, and O’Keiffe approaches Luca, who looks a bit terrified by now. Right when O’Keiffe is about to hit him, Costas attack them from behind. After an extremely intense gun- and fistfight, Costas and Luca kill O’Keiffe and Chavez, and leave Rico on the ground, knocked out. They reclaim the tablet and get out of there before the cops show up. The movie ends with an interrogation of Rico, where the police officer tells him that they have been informed that the Agostini brothers have already left the country together with 5 million dollars cash, that they got from selling the tablet. Since they are no longer within Swedish borders, there's nothing they can do about it. Rico breaks down in tears and screams. Then we see Costas and Luca driving by in a Lamborghini next to the ocean.

The End.