7 days in La Suerte

“7 Days in La Suerte” is a high-concept, character-driven dramady – a dark yet uplifting story that takes place today and moves between New York City and a small desert town in New Mexico.

“La Suerte” means “lot in life.” “7 Days in La Suerte” focuses on the lot in life of one Sam Mercurrio. Sam is a former NYPD detective who’s dealing with the repercussions of his partner’s death during a drug takedown. That traumatic event has turned Sam’s life upside down and transported him from big-time drug arrests to a small diner in the middle of nowhere.

Former New York City cop Sam Mecurrio lives with his wife in the desolate town of La Suerte, New Mexico, as proprietor of a small diner. He uses this mundane existence to hide from his haunting memory of not having saved his partner – a memory that plagues him in frequent nightmares.
What Sam doesn’t know is that the town he picked to run from his law-enforcement past is actually a crime-infested mecca – serving as both a major drug-smuggling link to the West Coast and a witness protection relocation site for two recent mob informants. For a guy who never really wanted to follow his family into chasing crime, he’s picked the worst place possible.
Led by matriarch Winnie Plotter, the Plotter family has designed and operates the perfect drug-smuggling business – a tunnel between La Suerte and Juarez, Mexico that connects to the infamous Suarez cartel. (That’s right, Suarez from Juarez.) The plan is so perfect that it includes a private bank to launder the money and distribute the drugs. It’s a system that, as Winnie says, can’t go wrong.
Unknown to the Plotters, the bank has recently had a cash infusion – millions of dollars of stolen East Coast mob money deposited by two FBI informants who have been relocated to La Suerte. Obviously unaware of the Plotters’ drug ring, the former mob guys see themselves as big fish in a small pond and quickly set out to build their own crime empire.Enter the Jones brothers, a family of building movers with mounting debt, who see the not-quite-fully-built bank as the answer to their prayers. Thinking, like everybody else, that the town is the perfect means to their needs, they rob the bank – literally – rob the building and hide it in the desert.
What transpires next is a series of events that lead the sinister Mexican cartel, the Plotter family, the informants, an East Coast syndicate and a lone, young FBI agent into a wild scramble to find – variously – the bank, the money, the drugs, the bank robbers and the mob informants.
The search ends with a showdown/shootout in La Suerte that Sam is pulled into. Faced with the same demons that brought him to La Suerte, Sam makes the right decision that, sadly, leads to his death … until …
Sam regains consciousness in the midst of his original New York drug takedown. La Suerte has been a trauma-induced dream that has given Sam insight into what a bad decision could become.
The audience now sees the incident occur in reality. Armed with knowledge of the consequences, Sam now makes the right choice. Although he still doesn’t save his partner and he’s left with injuries that force him to leave the department, Sam can live with himself. He’s out of a career that the family legacy forced on him.
In the end, Sam’s lot in life is his dream come-true – not a diner in the back of beyond but a upscale restaurant on New York’s East Side.