Front Man -Expanded Synopsis
Stefan Stavros is the gifted, arrogant lead singer of Backfire, a band
on the verge of superstardom. He treats his bandmates, even his lifelong best
friend and lead guitarist, Erik, as if they are nothing more than his paid
backup.
On stage that night, Stefan flirts with a pink-haired girl in the front
row. While revving up the crowd by swinging from a lighting tower, he suffers a
terrible accident when the tower breaks loose and falls. A thousand pounds of
lights and steel crush him, breaking bones, tearing off part of his left hand
and leaving him with a severe concussion.
The pink-haired girl is killed by the debris- a fact Stefan will not be
told for weeks.
While recovering at his estranged wife's ( Jessica) house,
Backfire’s manager, Stan, attempts to talk him into continuing the back half of
the band’s cancelled tour. Even when Stan tells him that the band has been on
the verge of breaking up for months, with only the tour holding them together, Stefan
refuses. He can barely stand, much less be the wild front man of a rock band.
Soon after, while trying to play guitar with half a left
hand, Stefan is upset and confused when he discovers that a girl died in the
concert accident.
He throws his guitar, a unique instrument his father gave
him, in his car and speeds away, pushing Jessica out of the way when she tries
to stop him. After driving aimlessly for hours, he loses consciousness and
crashes into a Santa Monica hotel, aggravating his injury to the extent that he
loses himself completely.
Stefan winds up homeless on Venice Beach, a shadow of who he
once was, hidden behind a full beard, sunglasses and a cowboy hat. He ekes out
a living panhandling on the boardwalk and sleeps in an abandoned lifeguard
tower
He is harassed by a band of homeless men who want to steal
his guitar. Despite fighting the gang off, Stefan again blacks out, awakening
to find his guitar gone and the initials of the gang carved into his forearm.
He breaks into the pawn shop the gang sold it too and
recovers the guitar but the gang attacks again. The Venice beach lifeguard
tower he lives in is set afire. One of the gang tries to stab Stefan but the
knife is impaled in the guitar instead, breaking it into pieces.
Jessica and Erik search for him, canvassing the area with flyers,
offering a reward, but Stefan’s appearance has changed drastically. A few
people seem to recognize him but can’t quite place him. Erik and Jessica come
close to finding him but several near-misses, Stefan disappears completely.
Time passes. His wife and friend still look for him whenever
they can. One day, acting on a tip, Erik searches Venice once again. After yet
another fruitless day, just as he is giving up, Stefan spots him from a
distance. He realizes he knows him but can’t recall his name.
After a wild chase through the streets of L.A. , Stefan
stumbles into his friend’s studio.
He returns to Jessica open arms. She nurses him back to
life and Stefan slowly recovers. He tries to reconstruct what he can of his
once bright career and, in the process, discovers a new well-spring of
creativity.
With Jessica’s and Erik’s help, Stefan brings his old band
together as equal partners to play one more gig.
The concert of a lifetime.