THE DEALER

Logline: 

A Las Vegas blackjack dealer experiences flashbacks to military service during the Vietnam War. Can he forgive himself? A storyline inspired by C.S. Lewis' quote, "The gates of hell are locked from the inside."

Opening Scene: A small boy sits in a church pew staring up at a large cross. A bump on the head. It's his dad affectionately using the usher's collection basket to get his attention.

More About the Film: In the quiet hours of midnight, Steve deals blackjack in a small Nevada casino, his Army pension supplemented by the steady rhythm of cards and chips. But beneath the surface of this seemingly ordinary life, Steve battles PTSD and insomnia, his nights punctuated by vivid flashbacks to pivotal moments in his past. 

We see him as a young man in 1965, breaking life-changing news to his girlfriend Lucy in his '57 Chevy. We witness his heroic rescue of 11 passengers from a burning plane in Northern Alaska in 1970. Most hauntingly, we follow him into a highly classified headquarters in Vietnam, where his exceptional intelligence and strategic mind catapulted him from enlisted man to becoming the architect of Operation Rolling Thunder - planning missions that would drop over seven tons of bombs in just three years. 

Each afternoon, Steve meticulously crafted bombing plans in complete secrecy, presenting them the following morning in a classified room where even generals required special clearance. The routine never varied: approve the plans, dispatch the bombers, and then the next morning's inevitable question: "Steve, what was our body count from yesterday?" 

Through these fragmentary memories, the film explores themes of guilt, redemption, and the possibility of self-forgiveness, suggesting that sometimes our harshest prison is one of our own making.

Social Impact Entertainment: 

The film addresses crucial themes including:

• The lasting psychological impact of war on veterans
• The moral complexity of military service and decision-making
• Deforestation and environmental destruction as weapons of war
• The human cost of conflict and its generational ripple effects
• The role of faith and forgiveness in healing from trauma