A Glaring Emission
– Brian Torro (Sean Dennison) has built his career -- and his sizable fortune -- on his ability to mak..
Brian Torro (Sean Dennison) has built his career -- and his sizable fortune -- on his ability to make people believe anything. When a client (Joe Reed) uncovers his ruse by chance and tries to blackmail him for 50 million euros, Torro's only got a week to turn the tables. Director Aaron Moorhead also co-wrote the screenplay for this independent drama about the fine art of B.S. -- and the business of carbon emissions.
29 Apr 2010
English
Aaron Moorhead
Aaron Moorhead, Andrew Preston
Sean Dennison, Caitlyn Musgrove, Joe Reed, Heath Lanzillotti
A Glaring Emission is a comedy about Brian Maximilian Torro: a liar, a multi-millionaire, and a self-proclaimed genius. Torro has set up a fake business in England in order to take advantage of environmental laws that were put into action by the 1997 Kyoto Accords. England limits the carbon dioxide that companies can put out, and so large companies that must overproduce can purchase carbon dioxide quotas from companies that under-produce. Torro's company, Averadyne, actually produces absolutely no product, and is in fact only a company on paper, but they trade their large underproduction quota that England gives them for a 100% profit venture. BS is his business. Torro is a man of material. He has a gorgeous but completely vacuously stupid girlfriend, Cally, whose sole purpose in life is to live off a rich man and stay as perpetually drunk as possible. He lives as richly as possible through his lies, and it brings him satisfaction. One of Torro's morbidly obese clients, Plimpton, owns a factory that Torro sold CO2 permits to. Through an apparent clerical error, he is informed of Torro's scam, and blackmails him for 50 million Euros, due in one week. Torro and his awkward, British right-hand man, Dillipeck, start looking for ways to get out of the blackmail, and decide to dig up dirt on Plimpton in order to have a policy of mutually assured destruction: if either one of them release their information, they both go to jail. Dillipeck and Torro start a wide hunt for dirt on Plimpton, but are surprised to find that he's completely clean, as far as they can tell. They decide that incriminating information certainly must be kept in Plimpton's office, but are unable to get to it, and nearly give up hope. In desperation, Torro decides that it's time to revisit his old co-president, mentor, and genius, Demetreous Flagg, with whom he'd had a falling out over a soured business deal in the beginning of the company. Cally is at home, being as vapid as always. While sunbathing with her friend Alexis, it is revealed that Alexis is the gold digging young wife of an old man, Englewood, who is (unbeknownst to either of them) one of Torro and Flagg's earlier victims. Torro revisits Demetreous, and after an awkward and unfriendly reintroduction, Demetreous lectures Torro on his stupidity, but decides to join him again after Torro gives a strange show of faith: taking his indescribably homely and irritating niece, Marcelline, shopping. Demetreous thinks up a plan to get into Plimpton's factory. A government inspector was planned to come to Averadyne, and they pretend that Plimpton's factory is Torro's, and use him to gain entry into the factory. While the inspector is distracted with one of the workers, Torro searches Plimpton's office for incriminating papers, but comes up empty. Defeated, Torro goes home to have a grim dinner with Cally, and their relationship deteriorates as Torro gets moodier and Cally, drunker. With one day to go, he meets with Demetreous and gives in, but Demetreous will hear none of it, and literally slaps some sense into him. They are businessmen, men of action, and scoundrels: they will not give in. While Demetrous is out looking for options, Dillipeck and Torro brainstorm at the Averadyne headquarters. Torro gets a great idea: get drunk. Dillipeck shoots down the idea, but Torro is struck with another one, so obvious that it's stunning that they didn't see it before. Dillipeck's job is to forge documents for Averadyne: why not forge documents for Plimpton, plant them on him, and call an audit? After Dillipeck protests lamely, they get to it. BS is their business. Sneaking into Plimpton's mansion is obviously a task they've never attempted before. They are completely inept, weighed down with tools and such that they clearly won't need, and forget obvious ones, like a flashlight. Using an open cell phone to provide light, they sneak through the house. It rings, he drops it, and it vibrates loudly across the wooden floor, but he answers it. Cally has forgotten where the jelly is. After this scare, they proceed to Plimpton's office, where they easily find his hidden safe in the most cliché place possible: behind a painting. It's clearly just asking to get robbed, or in this case, blackmailed. Torro requests the falsified papers from Dillipeck, but Dillipeck hesitates. He reveals that he can't go further because Plimpton cut him in on the blackmail, and that Plimpton should be on his way. Torro doesn't pay him well, so the offer was enticing. Torro attacks Dillipeck, who runs away. He trips over something in the parlor, and Torro lays into him. He then sees what he tripped over: the enormous body of Plimpton, dead, holding a chocolate éclair. The problem had solved itself. Dillipeck and Torro understand this immediately. Dillipeck offers a solution: they keep working together, because each of them have information on the other. Mutually assured destruction. Torro accepts. They hear a noise, and scramble. Driving home, they decide to pull over and sleep for the night. In the morning, they awake to a police officer tapping on their window. They realize that they had ended up sleeping practically in each others' arms. The officer tells them to move along and keep their business in a hotel room. Awkwardly, they drive off. Back at the office, Demetreous is waiting for them. They watch the report of Plimpton's heart attack and death on the local news channel, and celebrate. They soon become completely drunk, and Torro reveals to Demetreous, who never trusted Dillipeck, that Dillipeck sold them out, but ensures that it's water under the bridge. Dillipeck, in turn, reveals that Torro slept with Dillipeck's underage daughter. They laugh it off, and Torro decides to drive his drunken self home. Arriving at his home, there are a multitude of law enforcement cars in his driveway. Wandering into his house, he finds people going through his files and carting off his belongings. Cally rounds the corner, and informs him that she discovered what his business was. Torro had assumed she was too stupid to get curious, but she started getting curious when she discovered earlier that Torro was cheating on her. Torro is arrested.