VERY TIMELY SCREEN SCRIPT FOR SALE

NISH PREACHER SYNOPSIS

A young Ojibwe is given a Christian faith healing ministry. Outside the Reserve, he must defeat the evil spirits of his family’s heritage in order to grow into his new Biblical powers.

Rom Fisher, a young Ojibwe man in a dark suit, dances wildly behind the podium at a church service. He is attracted to Anita, a much younger blond woman, dancing better than all the other white adults in front of the stage. Rom ignores his Uncle James, a church Usher, stealing money from the offering. Rom walks Anita home through the Lake Superior Park, and suggests that she marry him. She is apprehensive because they are from two very different cultures. He believes that God has brought them together. Therefore, he abandons his fear of rejection and reveals his past addictions and crimes to her. Rom spends the summer picturing for wholesome Anita how his family, facilitated by Uncle James, raised him to be an alcoholic criminal. At age eight, Rom and his derelict Older Brother and Older Cousin break into his Uncle James expensive house and steal some lard to eat and a bottle of whiskey. Rom has a twinge of guilt when he sees Grandfather Spirit inside the house. As the boys run away, through the woods, a thin wolf chases them. Rom bravely saves them by killing the wolf with the whiskey bottle. Rom also tells Anita about the peace he felt when fishing with his Older Brother and Older Cousin at his grandparent’s little farm. Butterflies flit around little Rom as the boys carry fishing poles and brown bags of biscuits to the river. Growing older with the power of booze, the three vandalize their school. Hearing the police siren, Rom offers to drink up and claim that he doesn’t remember doing the vandalism. Truth triumphs, sending Rom to Boy’s Training School. Another Cousin shows Rom how to survive there. When the biggest bad boy tells him to watch his mouth, Rom responds sarcastically, “I can’t watch my mouth because it’s on my own face.” Rom builds some muscles in the weight room and travels home by train for Christmas break. He expects over a hundred of his relatives to be at the train station to greet him. Instead, no one greets him except a family of foxes. He waits in the -40 degree station for a taxi. He opens the door of his family’s ramshackle house where three middle aged drunk Indians are playing cards. His drunken Mama and Uncle James are whooping it up behind a sheet hung on a line. Mama yells, “Is this the week you were gonna come home?” The three Natives start a comical drunken fight over cards. Rom accidentally sends a rifle shot ricocheting. A police siren approaches. Rom leaves the ramshackle house, disgusted. He says, “Merry Christmas!”

Rom spends the Christmas vacation at Uncle James expensive house. Uncle James’ innocent son is the only one home. Rom thinks it’s good that Uncle James keeps the pet snakes and booze locked up. The two of them eat dried venison and watch the Brady Bunch while Uncle James is out. The next year, Rom makes different plans for Christmas break homecoming. Not unfortunately, he misses a bus connection in North Bay and is rescued for the night by a loving Christian couple. They offer to serve him his favorite meal, chicken dinner. Rom is enchanted by their graciousness and pretends that he also has a nice family. When Rom finally reaches the town of Longlac, he knows where to find his whole extended family: In the hotel bar. His drunken Older Brother and Cousin escort drunken Rom out and leave him on the curb. Not knowing how he gets back in the ramshackle house, Rom awakens to his Older Brother and Pal fighting with a baseball bat and skillet. Nearby Police in a patrol car hear a gunshot. The Pal falls to the floor and grabs his bleeding thigh. The Police see Rom run swiftly into the woods with a gun. The Police stumble in pursuit. Rom hides in a thicket. Awaiting trial for the shooting, Rom meets a bumbling Criminal at the Salvation Army. He plants the idea in Rom’s head that Rom should join Alcoholics Anonymous. Instead, they visit Uncle James, who has a second residence in Thunder Bay. Uncle James brings his hunting knife and walks the two of them through the Redlight District. Some red lingerie falls from an upstairs window. Uncle James makes a footprint on it. Rom leaps like a deer over it but the Criminal picks it up and puts it in his pocket. He then asks a group of hookers if any of them would like to buy the lingerie. The three are met by Uncle James’ mafia connections. Rom says he would like to do the type of social work that they do. Uncle James blames Rom for some missing money, which leads to a fist fight with the Mafia. The dumbfounded Criminal punches himself in the face and falls backward into a group of hookers. Rom wakes up on the floor of a public washroom. Rom wants to stick his head in the toilet and drown himself. The Janitor tells Rom that he should join AA, saying, “Look where AA got me.” Instead of jail, Rom is sentenced to finish high school. He’s happy about that because he wants to be a social worker. However, he doesn’t want to do the work. He is allowed to stay in a boarding home run by a French family. They serve his favorite meal, chicken dinner. He goes into the town with the other Indian boarding home residents. At the town fair, he drinks and cheats at a carnival game to help one of the Natives win. The French family kicks him out of their home. Rom moves in with Candi, a woman of low moral character, that he had met at the redlight district. He thinks that he learned how to be a good father by living with the French family for three days. Candi is expecting a baby while Rom is failing school due to drinking. They marry. By the time baby Joshua is fourteen months old, Rom is hopeless. TV Evangelist Billy Graham comes to the rescue. Rom gets on his knees, still holding onto his homework, and prays for a new life. Rom goes to the Salvation Army and tells the Officer that he wants to join AA. He says he wants to be a social worker like her. At the AA meeting, Rom blames God for giving him his drunken family and for his now failed marriage. With less drinking, Rom graduates with cap and gown from college. His drunken sisters and Mama want him to come back to the Reservation and do social work. He does not even consider it. Instead, he takes a short-lived social work job in a mid-sized town where the Whites hate Natives. His desk is stacked with files. His Christian co-worker with a fun-loving attitude, pulls pranks, such as embedding Rom’s stapler into a bowl of Jello. Rom hates the workload and dull life. He moves to a bigger city where he bar hops like a Dallas Cowboy. He finally tells one of his Bar Floozy girlfriends that every bar is a highway to hell. He plops his cowboy hat on her head and says he’s never coming back.

Now broke, Rom wakes up on the couch of his parent’s newly acquired sparse apartment in Thunder Bay. His Mama wants to hit him with a baseball bat because he hasn’t supported them but his Dad welcomes him with moose meat on the hibachi. A young white energetic Christian from the AA group meets Rom in a small Pentecostal church foyer. As a last resort, Rom receives the power of the Holy Spirit. Drunken Uncle James gets out of his expensive car and intercepts Rom as he’s coming out of a Bible study. He threatens Rom with death if he doesn’t finish some illegal work for his Mafia buddies. Rom says, “If they kill me, I’ll just go to heaven and be with Jesus.” The summer is over and Rom convinces reluctant Anita to marry him by the end of October. While driving, Rom has a vision of Jesus and inadvertently causes a semi-truck accident. The police chase Rom’s Firebird. During Rom and Anita’s Christian wedding, Mama stands up and announces that since Rom is not Catholic anymore, he can get a divorce from Anita any time. Rom and Anita begin classes at Rhema Bible Institute in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Rom wonders how he is going to pay for everything. Lectured by Faith Healer Kenneth Hagin, Rom writes BELIEVE in big letters in his notebook. Back in Thunder Bay, Rom begins to preach healing and prosperity in his own church. Rom and Anita have a nice house and a child of their own. He is called to the hospital to pray for sick children who miraculously recover. He becomes ill from over exertion. The clinic nurse questions why he doesn’t just pray for himself. Rom holds a healing and deliverance service at his home reservation. Drunk Uncle James is acting as an Usher. He brings his snake into the service in an offering basket. The Cobra slithers under the chairs toward a demon possessed woman. Grandfather Spirit appears with a hawk on his arm. The Cobra heads for Rom and the demon possessed woman, now at the front. Drunken Uncle James yells, “I’m gonna cut off your head.” Rom casts the demon out of the woman and shoves Uncle James onto his back. Rom stomps the Cobra’s head, smashing it to death. The ushers drag Uncle James out. Back again in Thunder Bay, in a rented restaurant space, Rom delivers a message about healing. Ten people come forward for prayer. Rom prays, with the power of the Holy Spirit, while putting one finger gently on each forehead. Each one falls backward, under the Power of the Holy Spirit.

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