The Notary

In this gritty Los Angeles thriller ED CULLEN (50’s) is a Notary Public who makes a living bending his morals to the whims of a money-laundering crime syndicate involved in massive real-estate dealings. In a turn of events that sets Ed square in the sights of both the crime syndicate’s henchmen and two of the LAPD Homicide Division’s best detectives, Ed is framed for murder by his brooding and mysterious business partner SHEPPARD (50’s). What unravels is a tale of revenge, loss, and delirium. The story opens on a hot Los Angeles night as Ed Cullen makes a midnight run to notarize counterfeit papers for a sweaistain of a man known as LEE (40’s), a Syndicate Associate. After notarizing the papers we witness Ed maintaining his addiction as he freebases black tar heroin in the front seat of his rundown Buick. Finally, Ed checks in with his main contact — a Capo named Sheppard who never shows his face in the light of day. He is known by a trademark bolo knife he regularly reveals, and a tattoo that reads “Ego Te Provoco.” In Ed’s meeting with Sheppard he attempts to tender his resignation but is met with the line “This ain’t a job you can just quit.” As a compromise to exit the business, Ed agrees to act as a distraction in the robbery of ANDREW TALEBI — a man purported to have millions in cash in his Beverly Hills mansion. When Ed arrives to the mansion he bears witness to a woman dead in the pool. Inside the house he is surprised when a bloodied and furious Talebi charges at him. Confused and under attack, Ed struggles for his life. When Talebi threatens the life of Ed’s Daughter RENEE, 30s, Ed shoots Talebi in the face, killing the syndicate kingpin and setting in motion the rest of the story. After the murder, Ed scrubs the scene and high-tails it out of the neighborhood on foot. The second act begins with an introduction to DETECTIVE OLIVIA MAY (F, 30’s) and her partner DETECTIVE JOHN COOPER (M, 50’s). May is new to the detective squad after serving on the police force. Cooper is an alcoholic reeling from a divorce; he’d cash in his pension if there was anything else in this world that could distract him from the pain. As the two officers survey the scene of the Beverly Hills murders we get a taste for their uncompromising natures and attention to detail. Among other clues, Talebi’s fingers have been severed, apparently to gain access to a safe. Before leaving the residence Cooper interviews an eery man posing as a neighbor with information on the case, he is referred to only as BAD MAN, (50’s). When we catch up with Ed he is dope-sick in his rundown office bathroom. As he attempts to flush he discovers shrink-wrapped piles of cash and four severed fingers in the toilet’s reservoir. He is startled when the phone rings and Detective Cooper is on the other line (Cooper has an appointment book with Ed’s name in it). Listening in through wire taps, Bad Man discerns the location of Ed’s office which leads to the film’s first major set-piece: a raucous and gritty assassination attempt on Ed’s life that punctuates the story’s midpoint. We watch as Bad Man stands outside Ed’s office, a trunk full of spooled bullets being fed into the barrel of a blasting M-60 machine gun that glows so red-hot it eventually disintegrates altogether. Inside the office, Ed dodges bullets and crawls through the ceiling to neighboring offices where he makes his escape. Detectives arrive at the scene just after the conclusion of the confrontation and both Ed and Bad Man are gone. All that’s left is the smoldering office, a melted gun, and four fingers in a baggie. Act 2B sets off with Ed on the run and the Detective’s investigation swinging into high-gear as they work with the FBI to connect the dots between Ed, Bad Man, Talebi, Lee, and the elusive Sheppard. Ed visits his daughter Renee in an attempt to warn her that her life is in danger but is met with disbelief — a byproduct of his tumultuous past and apparent struggles with mental health issues and addiction. Despite Ed’s best efforts, Renee does not listen and begs instead for her father to once and for all, exit her life. As Ed slides deeper and deeper into the throes of withdrawal, paranoia mounting from his run-in with Bad Man, he begins to receive calls from Shepard who cryptically warns that “revenge is the costliest thing.” Ed meticulously booby-traps a motel room then contacts Lee, letting slip his whereabouts, knowing full-well Lee will pass this information along to Bad Man. When Detectives May and Cooper arrive to question Lee about his connection to the syndicate, Ed is across town holed up in a dilapidated motel room adjacent to the one he’s booby-trapped. Bad man arrives at the motel where he believes he has discovered which room Ed lay in wait. 
Bad man kicks in the motel room door and is met with a barrage of bullets that slap at his gut. Ed fires through the wall in an attempt to finish the job and a bloody firefight between the two rooms — complete with disintegrating walls — ensues. The fight spills out onto the walkway where badman falls over a railing and limps to his car. Badly injured, he gets away. next, a grizzly scene in which Bad Man performs surgery on himself is testament to his unstoppable nature and his otherworldly threshold for pain. As the detectives continue to question Lee in regards to murders, money laundering, and the syndicate, news of the shootout comes in. With Ed still alive, Bad Man injured, Detectives in his home, and Assassins outside it, Lee takes his own life, but not before he levels to the detectives that they will never find Shepard because he is “a ghost.” Fearing for the life of Ed’s daughter, the Detectives decide to stake out Renee’s apartment. When they spot Ed entering the building they give chase. Simultaneously, a haunting shot reveals that Bad Man has already entered the building and is in Renee’s apartment. The dark night of the story comes when Ed arrives moments too late to his daughter’s apartment and discovers her dead on the floor — murdered by Bad Man. The only person he truly cares about is gone. Ed escapes the apartment by climbing out the window before Detectives can detain him. 
Reeling from the loss of his daughter, Ed injects heroin for the first time in the film. Nodding on the floor of a skanky gas station bathroom, Ed’s phone begins to ring. In a series of calls Sheppard guides an exhausted Ed towards the final showdown, explaining we must take responsibility for the state of our own lives, and that “the cost of revenge is everything we love.” Ed willingly enters a syndicate vehicle that takes him back to the mansion where he is placed into a torture chair at the edge of the pool by Bad Man. Bad Man then proceeds to dunk Ed every time he refuses to share the whereabouts of his partner Shepard. With each concurrent dunking, flashbacks reveal the backstory to Ed’s life. His wife was a D.A. who was murdered when Renee was just a child. The murderer who got off from his charges? Bad Man. As Ed is drowning underwater we see him pull from the back of his pants the signature bolo knife that Sheppard uses and we understand the cryptic messages — Sheppard IS Ed. With his hands cut free from restraint, Ed is ready for revenge. 
When Bad Man pulls the chair out of the pool one last time Ed furiously slashes at Bad Man’s legs before the chair again tips back into the water, taking both men with it. Both men underwater, the churning pool turns rouge in a fight that leaves Bad Man dead. Cooper and May pull up outside the home to the sound of gunfire as the guards in the back yard attempt to shoot Ed. May drives through the gate and the detectives run into the yard, guns drawn, where they engage in a firefight that results in Cooper’s death. Just when the last syndicate member has a gun drawn to May’s head he is shot dead and we see Ed holding a smoking gun. Having saved May’s life, Ed stands across the yard, staring at a stunned May who reads the tattoo on his arm: “Ego Te Provoco”… she realizes he is Sheppard. Hauntingly, Ed turns and walks into the night; May does not give chase. The final image is the same as the opening: Ed’s sunken eyes trapped in the rear view mirror of his Buick…