Treatment
The film opens with a mysterious boy wearing a cowboy hat, leaning next to a hobbyhorse. This brief scene is a prelude of things to come. At a local shopping mall, one morning, a vending man is doing his usual routine of collecting the coin deposits from a hobbyhorse. However, this particular morning, he finds an odd looking fake coin stuck inside the coin slot. While eyeing the people nearby suspiciously, he throws it into a tip box at a liquor store after buying a pack of cigarettes. He then returns to his car to stakeout a possible suspect.
In the meantime, two thieves break into the same liquor store and take the money from the cash register. An odd moment ensues when one of the thieves grabs the tip box and the clerk reaches for it as well, simultaneously. The thieves run with the tip box and the loot. During this brief chase between the thieves and the clerk, the thieves crash into the boy with the cowboy hat, thus dropping the tip box. It shatters, revealing only a single coin, the strange looking coin that the vending man used as tip in the previous scene. The story cuts from this shot of the fallen coin to that of the vending man who sees the boy approaching the hobbyhorse. The boy stops near it for a brief moment, but continues. Just as the vending man realizes that the boy is holding something shiny and metallic in his hand, the boy runs. A chase follows, in a game of hide-and-seek. Finally, he catches up to the little boy and grabs hold of his hand, but then a couple of kids, each wearing little cowboy hats appear out of nowhere and surround the boy, yelling, "Bang! Bang! Gatcha!"
The film cuts to a man with a laundry basket walking toward a laundromat at night. A passing shot reveals a dirty mask within the load of laundry, one identical to the ones worn by the thieves. Inside the laundromat, he falls victim to a dilemma. He realizes that he doesn’t have enough change to do his laundry, but the fake coin can make up the difference. As he approaches the washers, he notices a large sign on the wall that warns, "No Foreign Objects in the Machines..." At this moment, the clerk from the liquor store walks in, holding a laundry basket. A suspenseful sequence ensues, as the clerk glances over to him and starts to approach him. She then asks if he has any extra change to spare for her laundry. The man's pocketful of coins spill over, followed by the clerk's, and, lastly, the fake coin. The scene cuts to a shot of the glass door of the drier and it's mixed content, spinning in a frenzy. The clerk is sitting alongside the man, in front of it, reading a gun magazine. Their eyes meet and the two smile awkwardly.
Finally, the story cuts to a morning scene, and the vending man is crouching by the hobbyhorse, collecting the coins from it. He looks up, returns to his truck, and leaves. Shortly after, the boy with the cowboy hat appears, holding a lollipop. He sneaks up on the hobbyhorse and starts to ride it, smiling. |
