“The Coyote: The Flashback”
Three Immigrant Stories
A TREATMENT FOR A FEATURE FILM SCREENPLAY
By MARTINO VINCENT 2016
Based on a True Story
Timeline from the years 2013 to 2016
A coyote is an animal that likes dry, arid environments.
A coyote is also a slang term for a person who facilitates a border crossing for people entering the U.S. illegally, for a cash sum.
These kinds of coyotes are often disreputable leeches that prey upon the desperate.
The people who enter the U.S. as illegal immigrants do so to pursue the American dream of better jobs and a better life for their families.
American President Trump was elected by people who strongly objected to illegal immigrants entering the U.S. His campaign of “Make American Great Again” activated these voters. Illegal immigration was one of Trump’s campaign points that got him into office.
The immigration process in the U.S. is really only favorable to those who are intellectuals or those who already are wealthy or have a special talent.
People immigrate to the U.S. for the American dream as they can be paid three times more here than in their homeland and American-brands consumer goods are half as expensive.
Synopsis
This is a story about three immigrants, one who entered the U.S. by lawful means and the other two who did not.
The first is Martino, the Legal One, an Argentinian tech entrepreneur, who lives in Malibu and loses thousands of dollars in a big financial crisis, and is in a dilemma when he’s able to vote for the first time.
He followed the legal process of immigration that takes the longest.
The other two entered the U.S. illegally and their stories demonstrates the perils, corruption, and horrors many experience.
The Desperate One took the fast, dangerous way by paying $7,000 and the coyote put a gun to his head and made him make the border crossing with a backpack stuffed with 20 kilos of cocaine.
The Smart One, who took the best way to cross the border, took a bus for $10,000 to travel to Houston with 70 other illegal immigrants.
The corrupt border patrol officers sanction the use of these buses to bring illegal immigrants to the U.S. several times a week.
The movie begins with Martino Vincent finally becoming a U.S. citizen in 2009. As a welcome to America he gets a DUI a week after.
Living in the Hollywood Hills overlooking Beachwood Canyon and the Hollywood Sing takes its financial toll on him and his house falls into default – an all too common occurrence and foreclosure strikes again.
2009 was a horrendous year for America as there were more bankruptcies that year than any other and Martino suffered greatly. As one of the first to use Google’s adsense MySpace, Martino earned nearly $500,000 a year in conjunction with Myspace.
In a perfect storm of financial hardship, Myspace users diminished, causing the funding for the real estate projects to dry up, and as a result all of the goals of expansion were squashed. In addition to this nightmare, the IRS combined all of Martino’s businesses and projects and gave him a hug tax bill.
After this nightmare Martino needed to reinvent himself and restart some of the projects that were so close to fruition. Facebook seemed a possible solution, so he reached out to his ex business partner, Brian Rosenthal, another dot-com veteran.
Fast forward to 2011 when Martino goes to the Silicon Valley and becomes a Facebook developer and releases many games via Facebook.
He moves into a new home in Malibu 2012 and launch more games on Facebook.
For his 40thbirthday, Martino got a couple of friends to get a table at The Edison, a nightclub. After dinner, he goes to a hot dog stand to buy hotdogs for two friends.
He chats with the hotdog stand owner in Spanish, guessing probably correctly that the owner is operating without a business license.
Martino asks him how much each hot dog costs: $5. He then asks him how many the vendor has sold: Over 100.
Martino asks the vendor if he makes $500 cash a day in America, why pay a coyote $7,000 to cross the border illegally and under such dangerous conditions.
The vendor says no, he came from Guatemala and paid $10,000 to travel by bus that had 70 others on it.
Martino concludes that if a border patrol agent makes about $65,000 a year and a coyote can make $700,000 per bus, it’s very easy to bribe the border patrol.
The vendor tells him, “I don’t hate gringos. I just want to make $150,000 and return to my homeland and open my own business and buy a home.”
These are just some of the stories of immigrants who make their way to the U.S. – legally and otherwise.
The events of this movie play out as a flashback as Martino takes a nap.