- This unpredictable story follows an agitated fast-food employee, Joe, who's reached his breaking point from being harassed and tormented by his boss. Finally on the last day of summer, Joe snaps and decides to take revenge on his boss but his plans are disrupted when a quick glance from a beautiful girl catches his attention leading him to kidnapping her instead, changing both their lives forever.—Traxview
- Gregory Wilks (DJ Walls), who likes to call himself Joe, is a wimpy, clumsy man working in a burger joint, cleaning it. He is bullied and tormented by a ruthless jerk of a man, Mr. Krolick (William Sadler). Despite trying to tell himself that his life does not suck, he feels, deep down, that it does. After enduring severe, debasing abuse such as being forced to push his arm up to the elbow in a toilet in order to clean it, being told to "Get the Feces!" and finally, being presented with a toilet brush for his birthday, Joe is finally fired by Krolick as an incompetent.
Pushed too far, Joe buys a gun (he only has enough money to afford "The Junior" handgun) and a video camera, rents a room at a motel, and records a video of himself telling "the degenerates" who hate him and bully him, that he is going to make them pay, and bring them to a day of reckoning. He puts the film in the mailbox, the envelope made out to CNN.
Joe goes back to the burger joint, planning to carry out a shooting. Although he envisions himself doing it, he doesn't have the courage to go through with it, and sits in the bathroom, accidentally dropping some of his bullets. On the way out, one of the patrons, a pretty brunette woman named Stefanie (Nikki Reed) deposits her trash in the bin, and happens to glance at Joe on her way out. Distracted, and mistaking her glance as interest, Joe follow her out and tries to make small talk. Stefanie is dismissive of him, not wanting to talk to him, and finally, when her cell phone rings, she simply turns her back to Joe, taking the call.
Something inside Joe snaps and he bats the phone out of her hand, berates her, and finally pulls his gun, jamming it into her hip. He walks her behind a dumpster near the burger joint and berates her further on her demeanor. Now frightened, Stefanie clams up, trying not to look him in the eye. A police squad car pulls up to the burger joint and Joe sees two police officers step out of the car and begin talking to Mr. Krolick. Railing at how he will shoot Stefanie if she tries to struggle or scream, he walks her away, out of view.
Mr Krolick had found the bullets Joe dropped, after using the bathroom, and called the police to "imply" that Joe was up to no good, but the cops don't take him seriously because there's no proof of who dropped them.
Joe takes Stefanie back to his motel. Despite her struggles, including stabbing him with a small blade she managed to take out of her purse, he pushes her into his room and leaves her tied up (albeit flimsily) in the bathtub. She watches, still frightened, as he washes and bandages the small wound she'd dealt him. Stefanie thinks that Joe was going to rob the burger joint and begs him to let her go, promising that she doesn't care if Joe robs the burger joint. She tells Joe she has a five year old son she has to get home to, but Joe doesn't believe her. Joe leaves the bathroom and wrestles with his emotions, He contemplates killing himself, his face wrinkling as he tries to amass enough courage to do it, but he can't.
Stefanie wriggles out of her bindings. She accidentally bangs the tub, which attracts Joe's attention. He opens the door, and Stefanie lunges at him with a knife. His back against the wall, struggling against her lunge with all his strength, Joe manages to push her arms around to one side, and belts her with one hand, knocking her out.
Still suspicious of Joe, Mr. Krolick tries to ask his other employees about any "suspicious activity." The other employees are not overly bright, are lethargic, and blithely carry out several types of food safety and cleanliness violations, all of which Mr. Krolick overlooks.
Stefanie is back in the tub; she's now tied up tighter, and she's gagged as well. Joe continues talking aimlessly, as if he's pouring his heart out to her. She watches as Joe rummages through her purse, and he's amused to find she has several joints there. Removing her gag, Joe shares one with her and despite her fear, the two begin to bond.
Joe takes Stefanie out of the tub and they lie side by side on the bed. Joe accidentally tells Stefanie his real name. Shocked, Stefanie recognizes the name; it turns out they went to the same high school. Stefanie remembers an infamous legend in the school, that Gregory Wilks had been caught masturbating in a study hall, and she begins laughing hysterically, begging to hear Joe retell the tale. Joe snaps again, yelling at her about how embarrassing it was, and that school faculty played a security camera recording of the incident, to his parents. Cursing, he punches a wall of the motel, hard enough to hurt his hand. Suddenly feeling sympathy, Stefanie, who works as a nurse's aide in a hospital, examines Joe's hand and administers some basic first aid. Joe unties her hands and she uses the cloth to wrap up Joe's hand.
Back at the burger joint, Mr. Krolick is beginning to act paranoid. He shadowboxes in front of a mirror, holding a knife, smack talking at his reflection.
Joe's mother calls his cell phone, and he tells her he won't be home for dinner. He admits to Stefanie he still lives with his family at home, and is surprised when Stefanie admits she's jealous. She tells him her father left the family when she was very young, and her mother died of cancer when she was 14. She lived with her aunt until finishing high school, but they didn't get along.
Stefanie notices Joe's video camera, and asks if she may see it. Joe agrees, since the film has been put in the mailbox. But Joe forgets about the camera's memory card; Stefanie replays the recording he made and realizes what Joe was really intending to do at the burger joint. Horrified, Joe grabs the camera and breaks it. In a daze, he admits he doesn't know what to do any more, and feels a lot of pressure. Stefanie admits she almost attempted suicide after her mother died. Both of them feel very awkward and have trouble talking further.
But Stefanie no longer feels threatened by Joe, and she sees he couldn't go through with the shooting. Joe finds he now believes Stefanie's earlier promise not to report him to the police. They leave the motel together. Joe comments about the weather, and Stefanie says, "It's the last day of summer." Joe lets Stefanie go.
Joe disposes of the video camera, and passes by the burger joint as Mr. Krolick is closing up. Joe confronts him, suddenly sporting a hard gleam in his eyes and speaking in a firm, don't-mess-with-me tone as he tells Krolick off, blasting him over his despicable attitude and treatment of Joe. Krolick falls into a squat against the wall of the burger joint as Joe tells him he can "go flush himself" and finally, despite all of Mr. Krolick's behavior, he's not Joe's problem. As Joe walks away, Mr. Krolick finds his knife in his pocket and drops it to the ground, and breaks down crying at his own cowardice.
Joe disposes of his gun, and in a voiceover, announces very affirmatively, that his life does not suck.
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