TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND DIRTY

SYNOPSIS

Few things in life are more depressing than being stuck in a hopeless, dead-end job at a mattress store in a decaying urban strip mall. Native to this environment and products of outdated pop culture are Rob (Mark Greenfield) and Manny (Coolio), the unsuccessful, unrefined and uncouth sales force behind Affordable Mattress. The pair spend their days shifting around unsold inventory, taking smoke breaks, washing windows, and middling with employees from other stores in the strip mall. The story resembles a Bartleby of sorts, but absent Paul Scofield is the store’s irritable manager Preston (Kenneth McGregor), who relieves his endless frustration with verbal abuse bluntly aimed at his miserable employees. How they remain employed is anyone’s guess, which forms the parallel to the Herman Melville story. Desperate to improve sales, Preston hires a pretty woman named Isabelle (Rocío Verdejo) to help sell mattresses. Isabelle turns out to be just what the enterprise needs to stay afloat, and quickly makes friends with Manny, Rob and Martin (C. Clayton Blackwell), the dim-witted gift shop attendant who works next door.

The seemingly charming Isabelle, however, sells not only mattresses but also a scheme to her three new friends that offers them the hope of an exit from the monotonous life they have known for so long – murder her ex-husband and make it look like an accident so that she can collect a $200,000 life insurance payout, which she will split with them. Together, the team comes up with a plan that, when set in motion, would make even Harry and Lloyd from Dumb and Dumber proud, and go about accomplishing the task at hand with not an ounce more competence than what goes into their daily routine at Affordable Mattress.