Title: Relic

Key Characters:Ethan Parker is the 25 year old main character. He is a white male, about 6′ tall with a muscular build and light facial hair.

Detective Daniel Alexander – Detective assigned to Ethan’s case. Older white male in his 50’s. Athletic build and greying hair.

Setup: Ethan Parker is running down a dark sidewalk on the outskirts of Los Angeles when he hears a gunshot ring out over the street, turning the corner, he finds himself face-to-face with two masked gunman. When they see Ethan, the taller of the two raises the gun and fires. The screen cuts to black and the beginning credits role with a montage of the LA city streets, including police cars and other crimes being committed. In the next scene, Ethan wakes up in a hospital bed, only able to see out of one eye. Ethan has no family, and has been a loner his entire life. The only person in the room is detective Daniel Alexander who steps forward and explains that Ethan was found on the street with a gunshot wound that grazed his head, coming within inches of killing him. When the detective asks, Ethan realizes that he has no memory of anything before getting shot. The only thing he remembers is the opening scene. Throughout the film, Ethan uses a series of flashbacks to piece together his life, and more importantly piece together what actually happened that night.

Conflict: Through the series of flashbacks, we learn about Ethan’s troubled childhood and trouble with the law. His parents were murdered when Ethan was 10 and he looked to the local gangs for a sense of family. The Film cuts back and forth between these flashbacks that get longer and longer, the more recent the memory is, and Ethan’s struggle to find his assailants. He has taken it upon himself to piece together his own life, and soon realizes that he has a very bumpy road ahead of him. As he is re-tracing his steps prior to the shooting, Ethan uncovers details of his past that trouble him. From flashbacks of assault to robbery, Ethan soon realizes that he was not the man he thought he was.

Resolution: Ethan soon realizes that he was not so much an innocent bystander, but a key factor in planning a robbery of a local convenience store. The owner of which, being the man he saw dead on the street just before he got shot. He realizes that he had backed out of the plan at the last minute, and was on his way to stop the two men from committing the crime. What he didn’t know is that when he backed out of the robbery, he had been black-listed by his gang and had a hit put out on him. This is why he was shot. Ethan realizes that the only way to remove this bounty is to bring down the leader of this gang. With the help of Detective Alexander, Ethan plans an assault on the gang’s headquarters. The ending scene shows Ethan on a rooftop with a pistol in his hand and the leader of the gang hiding behind a corner with his own gun, pinned down by Ethan. As the gang member turns the corner and begins to raise his gun at Ethan, we see a close-up of Ethan pulling the trigger and the screen fades to black.

Genre: Action/Drama

Style: Stylistically, this film is a lot like Memento directed by Christopher Nolan. The audience does not know of Ethan’s violent past until i is uncovered by his flashbacks. As the present story of Ethan’s search for answers moves forward, his flashbacks slowly reveal the real answers until the two meet in the final conflict.