2:22

By Phillip GUZMAN

MOONSTONE ENTERTAINMENT - as SALES All rights, World

Drama - Completed 2008

The perfect heist: the plan was simple … the events that followed were not.

    • Year of production
    • 2008
    • Genres
    • Drama
    • Countries
    • USA
    • Languages
    • ENGLISH
    • Duration
    • 104 mn
    • Director(s)
    • Phillip GUZMAN
    • Writer(s)
    • Mick ROSSI, Phillip GUZMAN
    • EIDR
    • 10.5240/4C71-FA3A-FB86-9666-E774-C
    • Producer(s)
    • Lenny BITONDO
    • Synopsis
    • The plan was simple, the job was not. When a tight crew of four thieves decides to take down a boutique hotel in the dead of winter, things go horribly wrong. Unsuspecting hotel guests unwittingly play a part in this tangled web. Unusual lives and difficult choices collide, twisting the scheme to the point of no return. Loyalty, love, friendship and honor are brought to a boil in this graphic crime thriller. Rooted in reality, 2:22 draws its style from the classic French film “Rififi” along with the story telling of “Dog Day Afternoon.”
      Life-long criminal Gully Mercer (Mick Rossi) sits alone at the bar of the upscale, boutique hotel The Grange, waiting patiently to confront his adulterous wife and her lover, all the while casing the hotel for his crew’s next heist.
      Ten months later, Gully has left his wife, stopped drinking, and come up with a simple plan to take down The Grange: enter at 2:22 am on New Year’s Eve, tie up the night staff, and steal everything in the safety deposit boxes. Gully uses his usual crew: Willy (Robert Miano), an old school thief who did time with Gully’s dad; Finn (Aaron Gallagher), a loose cannon; and Gael (Jorge A. Jimenez), a young and ambitious criminal.
      The heist starts off running smoothly, until the hotel guests start calling reception asking for room service, making noise complaints, and demanding action by the hotel management. Gully and his men do their best to accommodate everyone, but when things threaten to get out of hand, Gully orders his men to tie up the bothersome guests and bring them down to the kitchen.
      One of the guests, Curtis (Peter Dobson), a hot-blooded local drug dealer who operates through the night selling cocaine, shows no fear and threatens dire retribution on the crew if they do not release him immediately. Gully is not phased by Curtis’s threats and orders Finn to watch Curtis closely.
      As the crew continues to work on the safety deposit boxes, two goons show up looking for Curtis and the $40,000 he owes them. Gully, dressed as the night clerk, meets them at the front door and refuses them entry into the hotel. A passing cop car sees the confrontation and decides to check on the situation. Tension runs high, but ultimately, both the goons and Gully know it’s best to “play nice” in front of the law. The goons, suspicious of Gully’s actions, decide to get back into their vehicle and watch the hotel from a distance. Reluctant to push their luck any further, Gully instructs his crew to, “Drop everything. We leave now.”
      Outside the hotel, visibility is low due to a snow blizzard. A gunshot rings out, and Gael is hit in the shoulder. There’s a moment of panic, a moment of calmness, then all hell breaks loose. A shoot-out ensues. Gully and Finn kill the two goons. As their getaway car peels away into the night, the cops show up to the crime scene. Veteran Homicide Detective Swain (Gabriel Byrne) is in charge of the investigation.
      The crew makes it out unscathed and returns to what they consider normal lives. Gully instructs the crew to lie low until the heat dies down. Gully hooks up with his long-time, eccentric jewelry fence Maz (Val Kilmer), who recuts stolen jewelry. It’s a good score and Gully gets paid well. The crew meets at their favorite strip joint to celebrate their victory. The champagne flows freely and the women come easy.
      Unbeknown to Gully, his crew made two mistakes during the heist that soon reveal themselves. The first mistake is exposed the following day, when Finn pays a visit to Yogi, a nefarious drug dealer. Finn sells Yogi cocaine that he stole from Curtis’s hotel room, not knowing that Curtis works for Yogi. Curtis shows up and catches Finn in the act. He beats Finn to within an inch of his life and ultimately forces him to give up the rest of his crew. Curtis wants his 40 grand back and starts tracking the crew down, one member at a time, to get it. First, he finds Willy in his apartment and sadistically beats him. Gully, worried after being unable to reach Willy, arrives at the apartment to find Willy dying. Willy, with his last breath, manages to tell Gully that Curtis did this to him. Willy was the closest thing Gully had to a father. In his anger and pain, Gully falls back to drinking. He swears revenge on Curtis.
      Word is quickly put out on the streets for any information on Curtis’s whereabouts. Working off a tip from a street snitch, Gael and Gully find Curtis’s strung-out girlfriend, Gigi, wasted at a 24-hour rave club. Gully drags her into the bathroom and presses her for Curtis’s location. “Where is he?” Gigi is strung-out and unable to co-operate. Gully places a bunch of crumpled bills in her hand and asks her once again, “Where is he?” At this point she mumbles incoherently that he may be at the Silver Dollar Bar… In a flash Gully and Gael exit the rave.
      Later in the evening, Gully and Gael enter The Silver Dollar Bar. Curtis is at the bar with a woman, his minder close by. Gully approaches him with his gun drawn. He puts one bullet in Curtis’s minder and delivers the second bullet, coldly and methodically, to Curtis. Curtis is hit in the neck. He tries to escape, but it’s too late: he’s mortally wounded and is left to die outside, in the snow, like an animal.
      The crew’s second mistake reveals itself the next day, when Gael’s longtime girlfriend, Roxy, goes shopping at her local grocery store. By chance, Detective Swain is also in the store. He notices that Roxy is wearing a large diamond ring that doesn’t fit her well. Without Gully’s knowledge, Gael pocketed this ring during the heist and gave it to Roxy as a token of his love. Swain’s instincts tell him that something’s not quite right here. Roxy becomes nervous as Swain crowds her at the checkout stand. Realizing Gael’s critical mistake, Swain puts the pieces together and arrests him.
      Simultaneously, we see Gully sitting alone in the quiet of his home. The silence is broken by a loud knock at his front door. There is a gun in his hand. With his friends and crew now gone, he ponders his next move. The knocking becomes deafening. Close on Gully’s eyes…. What will his next move be? But before we find out, the screen abruptly cuts to black…