Happy Father's Day

Earl Barray, 55, holding a pneumatic nail gun in his calloused hand, is working with practiced skill as he builds an extension on the rear of the Barray’s family home. His wife Jeanne, 53, yells over the roar of the compressor that she is going to drive their son Daniel, 18, to town to pick up his graduation photos. Along the way, a homeless man, pushing an overflowing shopping cart, steps directly into Jeanne’s path. She swerves, loses control and flips, landing her car on its roof. Jeanne is seriously injured and unconscious. Daniel is vaguely aware of his surroundings as he hangs upside down by his seat belt. As Daniel’s vision begins to clear he sees a flame growing a few feet from his face. Daniel is a first terrified by the flame but soon finds its presence strangely comforting, and the flame’s ‘face’, surprisingly friendly. In the hospital, Daniel vows to the still unconscious Jeanne that he will see to it that the homeless man who caused their crash is arrested but Earl tells Daniel that the man will likely never be found and, when Daniel reacts with anger, reminds Daniel to work on his empathy. On his way home from the hospital, Daniel spots a homeless man who closely resembles the homeless man who caused the accident. Daniel first calls out to the man then pursues him to a homeless camp that resembles a scene from Dante’s Hell. Daniel is searching the camp for the homeless man he was pursuing when Tony Charest, a schizophrenic, filthy, shell of a once happy and healthy young man accidently bumps into Daniel with his cart. Daniel shoves Tony who falls against one of the burning oil drums the homeless denizens use to keep warm. The drum’s flames ignite the cheap wine that Tony accidentally spilled on himself, turning Tony into a screaming, writhing crimson torch. Daniel bolts. Hours later, Samuel Charest, 56, a lean, trim man of wealth with a no-nonsense air about him is led into the morgue by Detectives Mathison and Wallish. Upon seeing his son’s charred corpse, Charest goes ballistic and demands to know who killed his son but the cops remain tightlipped. The next morning, Earl, who has committed to sleeping on a cot in Jeanne’s room to ensure that the hospital staffs don’t make any treatment errors, is having breakfast with Daniel when he becomes concerned that Daniel remains vengeful. At home in his study, Charest receives a phone call from the private detective he hired who tells him that the cops have a psychological profile of Tony's murderer but have no suspects. That night, Daniel becomes engaged in a minor shoving match with the homeless person who is rummaging though the Barray’s recycling bin when he notices five empty pop bottles in his garage and the container of gasoline his father uses to fill the lawnmower. Daniel makes Molotov’s from the bottles, takes a demonic clown mask from a cardboard box marked “Halloween stuff,” revisits the homeless camp and torches a homeless woman with a Molotov when she recognizes him from the night before. Mathison and Wallish identify a suspect based on a psychological profile and decide to pay the suspect a visit. Charest's private detective informs Charest of the detective’s suspicions and provides him with the address of the suspect. Charest loads his recently purchased revolver then speeds to the suspect's apartment, and is only by accident, prevented from killing the innocent man. The next morning Daniel waits until Earl has left Jeanne’s room to get a coffee from the hospital cafeteria before whispering to his still unconscious mother, “I’m going to get them for what they did to you Mom.” Mathison and Wallish are called in by a police department technician to have a look at the video footage they just processed of Daniel’s torching of the woman at the homeless camp. The detectives notice that the ‘perp’ is favouring his throwing arm and begin a search for similar injuries treated in local hospitals over the past few days. The detectives begin interviewing the names on the computer’s list of results, which includes Daniel Barray. Earl and Daniel are elated when Jeanne regains consciousness, although she remains weak and doesn’t remember the accident. That night, Wallish and Mathison visit the crime scene of the third murder of a homeless person; this one is a graffiti artist. At the crime scene, the detectives notice that the murderer stepped in the orange paint from one of the dead graffiti artist’s burst spray cans. Earl, watching the TV in Jeanne’s room, becomes aware of the third killing by the man the media has dubbed, ‘The Molotov Murderer’. When Daniel visits Jeanne in the hospital, his parents become concerned that he has not been eating properly over the past few days of living on his own. Minutes after Earl leaves Jeanne’s room to buy lunch for Daniel in the hospital’s cafeteria, Detectives Wallish and Mathison enter Jeanne’s room asking the whereabouts of Daniel. The detectives show Jeanne the video clip of Daniel throwing the Molotov. She denies the killer is her son despite recognizing the same pain-filled motion that Daniel has been making since the accident. When Daniel returns to her room, Jeanne advises her son to, “run Daniel, run. They know it was you!” Daniel checks into a cheap hotel in a run-down section of the city but quickly grows bored so, when he spots a homeless person who resembles the man who caused the accident, he follows the homeless person to yet another homeless camp and torches the man. Earl discovers in speaking to the cop assigned to stake out Jeanne’s room that Wallish and Mathison are looking for Daniel in order to question him. Earl asks Jeanne if she knows the whereabouts of Daniel but she angrily replies, “No. And leave the poor boy alone,” while insisting that their son is innocent. Earl agrees that their Daniel, “Would never hurt a fly,” then travels home to collect Daniel and take him to the cop shop to, “get all this sorted out.” Earl calls out to Daniel but doesn’t realize that Daniel is hiding in his room upstairs. Earl collects his mail from the mailbox and returns to Jeanne’s room where he begins paying bills with his smart phone. While paying Jeanne’s credit card bill he notices a charge for the ‘Main St. Hotel’. Earl checks his sleeping wife’s wallet and realizes that she gave Daniel her credit card. Earl tells Wallish and Mathison that Daniel is staying at the Main St. Charest discovers Daniel’s home address, grabs his revolver and breaks in. Daniel hears Charest, removes his shoes in order to sneak up on Charest and hit him with a fireplace poker but cowers when he notices that Charest is armed. Daniel sneaks away, leaving his shoes behind. Earl has returned home to pick up more clean clothes, shower and relax by working on his reno when he notices the broken window and Daniel’s orange stained shoes. Daniel returns to his hotel but because of the heavy police presence he ducks into a nearby bar. Earl arrives at the hotel in time to see Daniel duck into the bar and confronts Daniel in the bar’s washroom. Daniel denies everything and Earl believes him until he hears the clash of Molotov bottles in Daniel’s gym bag. Earl grabs the bag and runs. After a chase, Daniel corners his father, slams a heavy door on his arm and retrieves his precious bag of firebombs. Daniel torches two more homeless people but after noticing a heavy police presence in the city, he tries to take a bus out of town but bolts when he notices the bus station’s security guards staring at him. Out of options, Daniel returns home, sneaks in past the stakeout cop watching the Barray’s home and gets comfortable in his room. The next morning, Earl returns to Jeanne’s room, his arm in a sling, and confronts Jeanne about Daniel. Jeanne warns Earl in threatening tone to, “Leave our son be!” Weakened from his diabetes, fatigue, heartbreak, and conflict mind, Earl arrives home and finds Charest, revolver in hand, climbing the stairs to the second floor where Daniel is hiding in his room. Earl and Charest struggle but Charest over powers Earl and chases after Daniel who has jumped from his bedroom window and crash-landed in the reno. Daniel cripples Charest with a blow, gains control of Charest’s revolver then prepares to shoot Charest. Earl shields Charest and pleads for Daniel to put the gun down. Daniel finally hands the gun to his father, but with a sudden change of heart, grabs it again and tries to wrestle it away from his father. With the two men still vying for control of the pistol, Earl accidentally shoots Daniel, who stumbles backwards. Daniel then charges toward his father. Earl pulls the trigger again, and again. The muzzle flash ignites the gasoline on Daniel’s clothes and the flames envelope him in an angry inferno. Earl collapses to the floor in grief. Jeanne, hastily dressed and still wearing her hospital I.D. bracelet, suddenly emerges from the cloud of smoke, rushes to her still smoldering son and cradles him in her arms. Jeanne raises her face to the sky and screams with a combination of immeasurable grief and maternal rage then attacks Earl with his nail gun. As she presses the gun against his chest, about to drive one final nail, this one into his already fractured heart, Wallish disconnects the air hose and says matter-of-factly, “The front door was open.”