"Held Hostage"

Tagline – “In the Rat Race of Life, We’re All Hostages”

“25 words or less” – A frustrated middle manager, brought to the boiling point by the demands of corporate America, decides to take out his aggression by torturing his bosses.

Full Summary:
Kevin Price is an overworked and stressed out middle manager living the corporate America nightmare in New York City. His freakish dedication to his around-the-clock office job over the last five years eventually costs him virtually everything in his life – his close friends, his family and, worst of all, his girlfriend – as he can’t find time for anything other than his all encompassing career.

Unfortunately this dedication does not allow Kevin to climb the corporate ladder as his overbearing boss, Mr. Benjamin, prefers to keep him as “his little secret” for his own self-interest so he can take Kevin’s ideas and gain favor with company management. This only irritates and frustrates Kevin more as he begins to wonder why he’s making all these personal sacrifices just to elevate his boss while getting no credit of his own.

After another weekday night of coming home from work after midnight, a burnt out and exhausted Kevin relaxes on his couch while watching a prison documentary series called “Lockup” where he becomes transfixed by the prisoner lifestyle – three meals a day, conjugal visits, daily exercise, TV time & leisure activities outside – and decides that jail actually offers a better life than what he has in his 18 hour-a-day cubicle existence in corporate America.

Eventually, Kevin finally reaches his breaking point at work when a perpetual slacker, but well-connected, co-worker gets promoted over him to a coveted position within the firm. Fed up and figuring he has nothing to lose, Kevin decides to take matters into his own hands and dispense his own version of workplace equality by taking his bosses hostage and torturing them.

However he quickly realizes that he doesn’t have a game plan for what to do after he takes his management hostage. What does he do with the men who have made his life so miserable over the last five years; the men he believes are directly responsible for the disintegration of every relationship he has in life? Does he really want to spend the rest of his life in prison? Can he figure out a way out of this predicament? Does he even want to escape or is he content with just playing out the end of his life in one final showdown?

Held Hostage Screenplay