IN BAD COMPANY

LOGLINE:

Never underestimate a woman who will do what is necessary to protect her kids; Max is that mother.

BRIEF
The outlaw biker world is held together by trust, honour, loyalty and unity. But, when these rules are broken- the innocent become victims and its then you know that you are IN BAD COMPANY.

When men everywhere –be they outlaw bikers, religious or world leaders – do not acknowledge the difference between fantasy and reality and can’t recognise that when they confuse the two the very people who suffer the most are the ones they themselves claim to love the best.

SYNOPSIS:

MAX is an ordinary woman caught up in an extraordinary situation.  She is the widow of JOE, the founder and leader of an outlaw Motorcycle Club, ABIGOR RIDERS MC. And mother to BOI and ERIN. She supports her family as a tattooist at JOE’S TATTOO PALACE, which she co-owns with SETH, Joe’s friend and the current Abigor Riders club president.

Max and her family live on a farm with her brother WORM, an Abigor Rider. He lives in the bunkhouse outback and runs his bike-building business in the big shed on the property. When Boi comes home from his first bike run with his Godfather BODEE, he tells his grandfather BEN that he wants to be the future president of the Abigor Riders like his dad was.

Erin wants him to teach her to ride the motorbike so she, too, can join the club. Boi tells her, “Girls ain’t allowed to join the bike club; it’s only for boys.” She breaks her arm on the bike, and the grandmother CARMEN. Tells Max to take better care of the kids. For his sixteenth birthday, Boi wants a Harley Davidson belt buckle like his dad wore. Worm knows a guy who has one, and he lines it up for Max to buy. When she goes to the bar to pay for it, the owner, HEMI, disrespects her, and she cracks him in the jaw.  When he realises that Max is Worm’s sister, he rides out to the farm to apologise and gives her the belt buckle. Boi’s 16th birthday party is a success;  Bodee gives him his dad’s guitar.  Max sees CASSIE doing drugs in front of Boi and Josh in the bathroom and drags her out by the hair.  Seth suggests Max mortgage the farm to buy him out of Joe’s Tattoo Palace.

HUSS, an Abigor Riders nominee, insists his girlfriend HOLLY get a Property of Tattoo. Max tells her, “There’s no way in the world that I will brand any woman the property of any man”. When a disappointed Holly is leaving, Max offers her a job. Max mortgages the family home to buy out Seth and renovate Joe’s Tattoo Palace.  Worm, Hemi, and some of the other club members help Max with the renovations. Hemi and Worm partner up in a bike-building business. Max feels she owes him for his help with the reno and agrees to Hemi moving into the farm. Over the next few months, a relationship develops between Hemi and Max; when Boi discovers this, his loyalty to his father’s memory and his instincts to protect his mum and her happiness cause him conflict. He rebels with his friend Josh and gets into trouble with the police. Taking longer than anticipated to get the Tattoo Palace open, Max risks losing the farm to the bank. Seth commissions Worm and Hemi to build him a V8 DRAG BIKE and pays them a lot of money upfront.  Hemi gives his share to Worm to secretly bail Max out with the bank. Seth sets up a mobile Meth lab and puts an unqualified Huss on as his cook. When Angry asks if he knows what he is doing. Huss tells him he watched YouTube. Meanwhile, Seth’s drug use is rife, and his conduct becomes more erratic and dangerous. Bodee is concerned about his drug use when Seth puts a knife to Weed’s throat and beats a stripper in the Clubhouse. Cassie tries to seduce Hemi, but he rejects her. The following day, when he does come home, Max asks him if there is someone else. 

Boi finds papers hidden in the guitar case that prove Joe bought Seth out of the Tattoo Palace. He has been deceiving Max for a long time.                  

She storms the clubhouse and challenges Seth in front of Bodee and the other members. This betrayal, Seth’s erratic behaviour and rampant drug use cause an inter-club split. Most members go with Bodee and form the “HIGHWAY ROGUES.”Seth wants revenge and orders Huss and the remaining nominees to do drive-byes and beatings on Bodee and others. His wrath escalates to ram raids, bike thefts, and, finally, war. Convincing Huss that Holly had been with Weed, now a HIGHWAY ROUGE.  Seth has Cassie, and the gutter girls beat her into a coma.       

Max challenges Huss, who denies having anything to do with the assault. She stands her ground against his Middle Eastern mates when one tells Huss not to let women speak to him like that. A photo of a woman holding a baby falls out of Holly’s bag onto the car floor; Max later finds the same photo in Joe’s old trunk and makes the connection. Max invites Holly to move into the farm. When she gets the DNA results, Max tells her and the grandparents the truth about her being Joe’s daughter. Police arrest Huss for Holly’s assault, and he tells them about Seth’s Meth lab. This gets back to Seth. Believing he has betrayed him. Seth has Huss and other club nominees ambush and bash Bodee. He gives Huss a pistol to shoot him; when he hands the gun back to Seth, he is shot in the temple. Max and her family are distraught over Bodee’s death.   

Because Hemi had adhered to Seth’s compulsory command to attend the club night, even though he didn’t make it, Max gives him an ultimatum: the club or the family. Harbouring a secret, he moves back to the clubhouse.  Bodee’s murder shatters Boi, but he has developed an admiration for Hemi and is angry with his mother for sending him away.  Again, he rebels, running away from home to join Hemi at the Abigor Riders Clubhouse. Worm tells Max the truth about Hemi giving her the money to pay the bank and why neither of them can leave the club.  She is devastated.  

Hemi brings a very messy Boi home, and Max tells him that she knows everything. He asks her if she will still marry him, and she replies, “Only when you are no longer a club member. Hemi takes Max and the kids to a place on the coast where he grew up and wants to build their new home. 

The Drag meet is a family day out where Hemi and Worm deliver Seth’s new bike and tell him they are leaving the Abigor Riders.  When Weed approaches Seth to parlay, he fires a shot, killing a Highway Rouge, and It turns into a bloody massacre.  Max sees Seth shoot Josh and then train his gun on Boi. Hemi is shot in the thigh when he snatches Boi out of the line of fire. Angry tells Max that Seth admitted to murdering Joe by injection in the hospital. She calmly takes Angry’s gun and kills Seth. Max, Hemi and Worm bury the dead and collect their bikes from the massacre site.  Worm and Hemi are the last two original full patch members left.  Sorting through the club’s documents, they find Seth’s will, and It turns out that he is wealthy and has left everything to the Club.  Max wants Joe’s legacy, the Abigor Riders MC closed down, and its assets sold and distributed among the dead member’s families. She decides to sell Joe’s Tattoo Palace and the farm, and after a wonderful white Xmas and farewell party for friends and the orphans of the massacre. Max moves her family to Hemi’s place on the beach for a safer and better life.

……………………………………….

THE WISDOM OF THE GOOD SISTERS: (WIP)

Life has been better for Max and her family since they moved out of the city after the massacre. Her family are doing well and has grown.  Holly is married and has twins.  Erin won a scholarship to study ballet and lives overseas, but she comes home for holidays. Boi is a talented artist and works with Hemi and Worm in a successful business building custom motorcycles. They bought the block of land next door and built a bigger workshop and display room.

Max wanted to understand why Seth did what he did. She also wanted to know why they ended up where they did. Max was curious about what makes us do the things we do, the choices we make, and who we are.  To find answers, she studied forensic science and psychology and got a master’s degree.

She’s middle-aged now, and everybody in her family is busy, so she has to find something to do. Every day, she did yoga, tai chi, and martial arts in the gym that Hemi built for her.  She still rides her 1934 Harley Davidson servi car trike, that Hemi also built for her when her knees started to play up. She does all the things that she would normally do, but not the same way. But now, her life is about to take a huge change in direction.

When she was hanging up the latest family photos on the wall, one of her late husband, Joe, fell and smashed on the floor. Taped behind the photo is a swipe card to a secure storage unit. And that’s where Max discovers the secret life of Joe and the Good Sisters and that Bodee is still alive because of them.

A group of (6)  middle-aged women, all of whom have particular sets of skills and power.  They live in a run-down apartment block and a couple times a week meet in a  community centre, and do yoga classes because it has heating in the winter and cooling in the summer. After yoga classes, they go to Mai’s Cafe for her Pho soup.

After anonymously winning the largest lottery in history when Joe was alive they setup a foundation to secretly buy and renovate their apartment building,  evicting the drug dealers and criminals and  cleaning up their  neighbourhood of corrupt landlords and other undesirables, with the help of Joe and Bodee. They Create safe homes for the elderly and solo families, with a medical clinics  and  community centers attached.

All the women have back stories eg: Secrets, divorce, illness, retrenchment, mental illness, colour, gender, bankruptcy, Sorrow, Loss, abuse and Fear. 

They all have one thing in common, “A sense of justice and fair play.

But they are smart, strong and unified and they  put their money to good use globally and invite Max to join them.