Red Ribbon Blues (1995) Movie Script
(MultiCom Jingle)
- [Narrator] The day I
found out I was HIV positive
was the worst day of my life.
I felt my whole world
suddenly turn upside down.
I didn't know what to
feel or how to react,
so I ran and ran for miles.
I didn't know where I was going.
Even though I knew I
couldn't escape the news,
somewhere in the back of my mind I felt
if I could keep running
just keep running, maybe
It's pretty silly, isn't it?
Then again, just how
are you supposed to face
a death sentence?
- Oh really?
You sure?
Yeah.
Well fuck you too.
(laughs)
(weeping)
- Honey, I'm home!
What's wrong?
(church bells ring)
(thud)
Oh no.
(cries)
(somber music)
- It all started at a funeral.
Yesterday you came to lift me up
As light as straw and brittle as a bird
Today I weigh less
than a shadow on the wall
Just one more whisper of a voice unheard
- [Narrator] You know
since this epidemic began,
we've all spent time,
too much time, mourning.
As fear grows please
hold me in your arms
Won't you help me if you can
To shake this anger
I need your gentle hand
- [Narrator] I'm 29 years old
and I've been to 23 funerals.
To keep me calm
'Cause I never thought I'd lose
I only thought I'd win
I never dreamed I'd fear.
- We all loved him.
- I know.
This fire beneath my skin.
I can't believed you loved me.
- Darcy and I have been friends
ever since we lived in the
same (mumbles) building
on the lower east side of New York.
We shared some good
times and some bad ones.
When I moved to L.A. to paint full time,
I felt like a part of me was missing.
I was pretty happy when
she decided to move too.
Darcy.
I didn't think you'd make it.
- Yeah well, came to pay my
respects to Evan you know.
I can't believe he's gone, man.
You know, he was gonna take me camping.
- Yeah?
- Yeah, I've never been camping before.
Guess I ain't going now.
I hate this fucking disease.
I hate the memorials too.
- Troy!
Troy.
- [Troy] Duke and Harold
have been together for years.
They had owned a gallery
before Harold got sick
and Duke started panicking.
They gave me my first show.
It was a disaster but
we all became friends.
- How you doin' Harold?
- We're all having sort of a bad day.
- Yeah.
- Somebody tell me when
the good ones are supposed
to start again.
I was just trying to convince Darcy
to come to a group meeting.
- Troy please not now, come on.
- Yeah, what's it gonna
take to get you back?
- I'd rather stick needles in my eye okay.
- That'd be about the only
place you haven't stuck 'em.
- Duke.
- Excuse me?
- Sorry, I'm sorry, sorry.
Feeling a little bitchy today.
- I'll say.
- Listen, I'll tell you what.
You come to the next meetin,
I'll give you, half a dozen
of Harold's Percodans.
- Yeah? When was that meeting?
- [Narrator] We called our
support group, Defiance
I always thought the name
was a little extreme but
when it came to a choice between that
and Duke preferred Randy
Schultz love children
Defiance didn't seem so bad.
- Oh, look who's here?
Darcy dear, I knew you'd show up.
- Don't give me any shit.
- Nice to see you too babe.
- [Narrator] In addition
to Darcy, Duke and Harold
there was James, the straight lawyer
Francis, the unapologetic cruiser
Alice, who's ambition
in life was to become
the gay Martha Stewart.
And then there was Helen
who was always available
to be a surrogate mom.
- Troy
- No. Thanks Helen.
- You bring them pills?
- Okay, welcome and it's great
to see you all here tonight
and especially Darcy, who
hasn't been with us for awhile.
(applause)
As you all know, we lost Evan last week
and, although we mourn the loss
we know he's in a good place now.
- But I'm in an even better place
because I'm still alive.
- I thought that we could start tonight by
discussing how we feel about Evan and
coming up with a joint resolution.
- Again with the resolutions.
- Come on guys, we've
been through this before.
Resolutions are symbolically important.
- I think we all agree
that we should be unified
but, a joint resolution
sounds like we're sending
out a communique from NATO or something.
- Fine, if you don't want
to pass a joint resolution
can we at least have a
moment of silence, okay?
- Hey Francis, you got a cigarette for me?
I ran out.
- Hey James, do you think you'll be able
to lend me your car on Thursday?
(laughter)
Hey, what's so funny?
- Unbelievable. I can't even get a moment
of silence done with this group.
- Lighten up Troy.
- No, Darcy. You get
a little more serious.
The whole purpose of this group is for us
to try and help each other.
And yet every time I try
to get something going,
you guys shoot it down.
- Troy, darling. We really appreciate you
trying to lead us each week, we truly do.
Lord knows, none of us could do it.
- Right?
- But, must you be
- Such a pain in the ass?
(laughter)
- Thank you.
- Who are we kidding?
- Okay, okay. I relinquish
my feeble attempts
at leadership and open up the floor
to anyone else who cares
to lead off the session.
- Come on
(group) Troy come on.
- Don't be so sensitive.
- I lost my insurance last week.
- [Narrator] The insurance
companies had figured
out a dozen different ways
to cancel a policy ever.
Sometimes they just raised
the premiums to such
an extent that it becomes
impossible to pay.
The net effect, to be canceled.
- I'm a painter. There's
no way I can afford
insurance on my own, so
when Apothecary Industries
announced their indigent
drug program, I immediately signed up.
(soft music)
- [Narrator] They ran it like a lottery.
Every six months they had a drawing.
100,000 people signed up for 7,000 slots.
I didn't win. I was the 85,612th
person on the waiting list.
But hey, they said I was
automatically enrolled
in the drawing in six months.
You know, when your
T-cell count is dropping
every day, six months may
as well be a lifetime.
Even the AIDS trials couldn't keep up.
- God bless 'em, they tried.
But the drug was just too expensive.
With their budgets stretched so thin
trying to care for people who were dying,
they just didn't have the funds
for people who needed D64.
(knocking)
- Hey.
- Bad time?
What's goin on?
- Troy, I'd like you to meet Chris Lee.
- Nice to meet you.
- Mr. Lee is sort of an insurance agent.
- I thought you guys were fully covered.
- Well, our problem is Harold's policy
doesn't cover D64.
Because he has full blown AIDS,
they say his, what do you call it?
- Risk reward ratio.
- Isn't high enough to
put him on the drug.
- You got some nerve comin
into my friend's house
- Troy, Troy listen he's
not from our health plan.
- But you said Mr. Lee was in insurance.
- Early, receivable death benefits.
Mr. Strayhorn and Mr. Kelley contacted me
about buying out Mr. Kelley's
life insurance policy.
I'm a viatical agent to be precise.
- Death futures, to be precise.
They'd become all the rage.
You sold your policy at
a discount to a broker.
They advantage to Harold, was that he got
some of his money while
he was still alive.
The advantage for Mr. Lee was he made
a hell of a profit on Harold's death.
- He's giving us 80 cents on the dollar.
- Which is a very good price I might add.
- Duke, if that life
insurance was supposed
to be your nest egg when Harold...
I'm sorry Harold.
- That's okay. I'm not afraid to die.
Of course, I'd rather not
be there when it happens.
- If we sell out to Mr.
Lee, we'll have enough money
to put Harold on D64.
It might give him a few more months.
- You do know that D64
doesn't have the same
kind of effectiveness
on patients as chronic
as Mr. Kelley?
- I know.
I think it's worth a shot though.
[Troy voiceover] A shot
in the dark more likely.
D64 was designed for people
before they got sick.
But when it came to people like Harold
with full blown AIDS, the
results were spotty at best.
But then again, how can
you put a price on hope?
(upbeat music)
- You know, every time I come here
I order the same thing.
And every time you bring it to me,
you manage to fuck it up.
Now, take this back to wherever
and bring me what I ordered, thank you.
- Uh oh.
Here comes Ms. Congeniality.
- [Troy] Craig Janson had
been a pain in the ass
ever since I turned him down for a date.
He'd taken my rejection way too personal.
It's not that I didn't
find him attractive,
it's just that I'm a good old fashioned
Catholic boy. Even
though it feels sometimes
like God has cast me aside.
I still need to be in
love with someone before
I can have sex with them.
In fact, I've only ever
had sex with five men.
Not that it did me any good.
I should've stopped at four.
- Well, if it isn't Troy.
Patron saint of lost causes.
- I'm in no mood for it today Craig.
- And his merry band of infirms.
- Oh stuff yourself chicken boy.
- Some of us don't have to stuff.
Besides, Harold aren't we
all just one big family?
- Yeah, so were the Madisons...Craig.
- Craig, please give it a rest?
- If you ever bothered to call me Troy,
I swear I'd never rest.
- Well, if it isn't my favorite person.
- Shouldn't you be pouring
coffee for someone?
- Shouldn't you be treatin
those calluses on your knees?
You're in my seat, get out of here.
- I was leaving anyway.
- Good, freak.
- Bitch.
- Bye Craig.
- I don't know why you
hangin with that loser for.
- Come on, Craig's just a lonely guy.
- That's because he's
murdered all his friends.
- So what's goin on?
- Duke and Harold are
thinking about selling out
their life insurance.
- Oh really? Loan mommy some money?
- Darcy.
- I'm only kidding.
- We wanna try the D64 on Harold.
- Well you better have a
little bit more than that
life insurance because
that shit is expensive.
- We don't have any other choice.
- What do you think God was thinking
when he gave us a drug that
none of us could afford?
- That God, she's such a tease.
- It's not the drug.
It's the company he let discover it.
- Yeah but Apothecary is no different
from any other drug company.
- You're right, they're all bad.
- They do make some
fierce chemicals though.
- You know, I wish I could
- What? Wish what?
- Teach them a damn lesson.
That they can't arbitrarily
play with people's lives.
- I say we just steal it.
- Steal it?
- What is there an echo in here?
Look, none of us can afford D64.
They make it and we need it.
They got lots of it and we don't have any.
So I say we just steal the stuff.
- We can't do that.
- Why not, they can always make more.
- She has a point.
- Yeah.
- We're not criminals.
- Yeah, but most the drug companies are.
You know, Apothecary,
the guys who make D64
they cleared almost $250 million dollars
in profit last year.
Meanwhile, you're on the waiting list,
Darcy can't afford it.
- God knows.
- And Harold and I are about to cash in
the last real asset we have.
- I can't win if you
guys are gonna use logic.
- That's your trouble Troy,
you're just not open to new experiences.
- Jail is a new experience
I could do without.
- How would we do it?
- Go where the drugs are.
Hit a pharmacy.
- You have one in mind?
(rock music)
- It's actually pretty
small, shouldn't be so hard.
- I'm getting excited
just talking about it.
- Come on, we're not seriously thinking
about doing this are we?
- Yeah, absolutely, what
are you talking about?
- Hey, if Troy's in I'm in.
- Right on.
- Don't put that on me Duke.
- Troy, you see, it's not
about robbing a store,
it's about taking control of our lives.
It's poetic in a way.
You know, we are so dependent on people
we don't even know
telling us what we can and can't have.
Why should they make the decisions?
- What about Harold?
If anything were to happen to you...
- I think you guys should go for it.
- And he always has his mother.
- On second thought.
- Hey listen, we're not
gonna get caught alright?
- Okay, just for the sake of argument,
how would you go about it?
- We go in, we bust some
(cars drown out speaker)
clean out the register
and then bust our way
with an M16.
- Thanks Darcy. Call me
when you reach planet earth.
- You got a better idea Perry Mason?
- You know what?
I saw this documentary once
on the Discovery Channel.
- Yeah.
- About a thief that, who devised that
robbed banks. I don't know
what they robbed them for...
- [Tony] I don't know what's worse
letting my two best friends go out
on their own and getting
themselves killed.
or discovering that I might
actually like breaking the law.
Someone once said,
the best ideas are born
out of desperation.
Lookin' back, I find it
hard to argue with that now.
Besides, what did I or
anyone of us have to lose?
- You should probably
come in down here because
he's behind the counter.
- Yeah, but we don't know
how many are gonna be there.
I think if we come in through the front,
I can maybe hold down the front.
I don't know.
(powerful, soul music)
- Oh my god!
- What do you think?
- Honey, I don't know
if something goes wrong
there's no point in getting
busted in that thing.
I'd save it for Halloween.
(powerful, soul music)
(crickets chirping)
(quick, audible breathing)
(suspenseful sounds)
- I smell the chickens.
(suspenseful sound)
I wanna get outta here.
They're burning the chickens.
- Harold?
- They smell bad.
I wanna get out of here.
- Oh, not again.
- They're burning the chickens!
I want outta here!
- Harold, Harold, Harold.
Look, it's me, Harold. Calm down.
Calm down.
- They've got the chickens in the silo.
- Come on, you look cold.
- And it's burning down,
it's gonna fall on us.
- Come on, listen.
Breathe.
- It smells, it smells.
- Harold.
- It smells bad.
- Harold!
- I'm outta here!
- Calm down. Calm down.
It's okay.
- I've gotta get outta here.
- Come on baby.
Just breathe.
- The silo.
- You're home. We're home, in our house.
It's okay.
- I wanna go, I wanna go
- It's gonna be okay.
Just calm down and breathe.
- I wanna go.
- Calm down.
- [Troy] Okay. What else, what else?
Masks?
- Check.
- Gloves?
- Double check.
- Guns?
- You know, I think it'd be more effective
if we used my real 38.
- Darcy, we have
discussed this ad nauseum.
No real guns.
I mean what we're doing with the fake ones
is bad enough. I don't
want anyone getting hurt.
- Yeah but Troy, I really think...
- Darcy!
Please?
- Alright already, alright.
(toy gun sounds)
That one's real menacing.
- Where the hell is Duke?
- I never thought he'd show.
- He shoulda been here ten minutes ago.
- Damn queens. They're always late.
- This from the master of punctuality?
- Hey look I'm here aren't I?
- Yeah. Sorry.
Let's go over the list again.
- Troy, we've been over it ten
times, would you just relax?
- Well, well.
If it isn't Thelma and Louis.
- You know, Duke where
the hell have you been?
I've been worried sick.
- I'm sorry. Harold had another one of his
dementia attacks last night.
- Was he in the Navy again?
- No, this time he was back on the farm.
- Is he okay?
- Yeah, he's okay.
So, are we ready to go?
- Yeah, you bring the crowbar?
- What crowbar?
- You said you was
gonna bring the crowbar.
- No, no, no, no, no.
My job was to get the
fake guns and the mask.
Troy's job was to get the
fake license plate on the car.
And your job was to get
the crowbar my dear.
- You specifically said you got a crowbar
you got off some skinheads.
- No, no, no, no, no.
I said that I attacked some
skinheads with a crowbar.
I had to get rid of the evidence fool.
- You always do this.
- What?
- Change the story.
- What are you talkin' about?
- This is reality. This is you
and never the two shall meet.
- Hey, that's enough!
We've got a job to do.
Can we end this petty
spat and get down to it?
- What about the crowbar?
- We can use part of my jack.
- Bitch.
- Queen.
- Fish.
- Bottom.
- You don't have to get so damn personal.
- You don't have to be so nasty.
- Here. Okay, we're all set.
- Alright.
- Now remember, keep the
talking to a minimum,
always keep your gloves on,
and for god's sake, don't steal anything
while we hold up the pharmacist.
- Alright, that makes sense. Let's do it.
- Let's go.
(suspenseful music)
Perfect, there's only one
customer inside, get ready.
- Troy, I think I'm scared.
- Oh, what a surprise.
- Duke, you're doing this
for Harold, remember.
- We're sitting here robbing a store.
- Shh!
- It's now or never.
(dramatic music)
- Oh my god. What do you two punks want?
I gotta put on my reading glasses.
- Hurry up!
- Do not panic.
Give us all of your stocks of
D64 and bacterial ointments.
What is this?
- Throw in some percodan
while you're at it.
- What are you doin?
- I figured, while we were here.
- That's not part of the plan.
- Oh fuck the plan!
- Thirty seconds!
- Let's go.
- We don't have time for this.
(toy gun sounds)
- It's just beepin, don't
pay any attention to it.
- Yeah, I gotta call.
So come on!
- No.
- What?
- You don't understand
no? No, I won't do it.
- Oh yeah? Just say "yes" motherfucker!
- This way.
- One minute!
- Move it.
- And keep your hands up.
- Let's go.
- Here they are.
- Cuff 'em.
- What are you doin?
- It's on the counter.
- This is it?
- I'm sorry, I don't
have a big gay clientele.
- It's not just a gay disease.
- I know, I should've
ordered some more, I'm sorry.
- You should've.
- Listen, is this really necessary?
- Humor me, I'm feeling
a little extreme here.
- Oh you are. While I'm not
feeling so fresh myself.
I've never been held up
in my own store before.
- Okay, let's go
(suspenseful music)
- Look, you're not gonna take all of that.
- Yeah.
- What are you an HIV
vigilante group or something?
- Hurry up.
Let's go.
- I'm really sorry for the inconvenience.
- Oh, you're sorry. Hey wait a minute.
- Where the hell is he?
- What did I do with them?
God.
- I don't see him.
- Figures, those damn queens,
they're all into themselves.
Let's get outta here, come on.
Where were you?
- I couldn't find the keys.
- Don't worry, let's get out of here.
Come on, come on.
- Alright, alright.
- Let's go
(suspenseful music)
- Harold! We're back!
- We are the champions!
- Darling we did it. Can you believe it?
We really, really did it.
- Yeah.
- God, I feel good!
- Harold, you shoulda seen us, man.
- Only some of us anyway.
- I'm seeing you but I do
not hear you miss thing.
- Hey, hey, hey. We were
all a little nervous
but the important thing is
we pulled it off!
(all cheering)
- You woulda been so proud
of Duke, he was amazing.
- Congratulations.
- You shoulda seen what Darcy did.
He said "no," he said "no"
to me and I looked at him
[Tony Voiceover] So we celebrated,
intoxicated with our own power.
- That's so great!
- [Tony] We'd taken on the system and won.
A small victory but we'd won.
While I knew we'd crossed over the line
that separates victim from victor
we'd also crossed over
from citizen to criminal
and there was no turning back.
- D64, some bacterial
ointments, AIDS drugs.
- That's all they stole?
- I'm telling you it's weird,
they weren't interested
in anything else.
- They didn't go for the cash register?
- Didn't even look at it.
(crashing sound)
- What are you doing?
You're causing more damage
than the crooks did.
Pick that up. Come on.
Crooks or cops, I don't know what's worse.
And what about that one?
- You gotta check with Ernie
at the lab and let me know.
What do you got Steve?
- Oh
Hey, hey, hey. You guys are
supposed to be detectives.
Detect already.
What are you doing?
- So, what do you think?
- Well, let's see.
Three perps knock off a drugstore.
They don't go for the hard drugs.
They don't go for the cash register.
- They wear gloves, masks, they spend
most of their time
arguing with each other.
And this thing, with
pinning on the red ribbon.
You know what that means?
- Yep. Over time, lots of over time.
- Right.
(knocking)
- [Tony] Darcy?
(somber music)
Come on I know you're in there.
(knocking)
Open the door.
(knocking)
Darcy!
Hello?
(music drowns out speaker)
Darcy.
Hey wake up.
Come on. Come on.
Darcy wake up. Do you
know what time it is?
- No, what time is it?
- You stole these during the robbery?
- Percodan, D64, what
difference does it make?
- You can't keep doing this to yourself.
(loud sound of bottle banging on counter)
Come on, let's get you up.
- I wanna sleep.
- Come on.
- Troy no.
No.
- Darcy, sweet Jesus, Darcy?
Come on, come on, come on. I got ya.
Come on Darcy, hang in there. Come on.
Come on Darcy, come on. Darcy.
(squeaking)
Hey, come on, that's it.
Come on Darcy wake up.
Darcy, wake up. Come
on. That's a girl, yeah.
(recthing)
That's a girl, yeah, that's a girl.
Yeah, I've got ya. I've got ya.
(coughing)
- Oh Troy, I wanna die.
- It'll be okay.
Here.
- Troy
- Darcy
- Troy, I'm really sorry.
- Yeah and so you should be.
You are the most fearless
person I have ever met.
You're also completely irresponsible,
utterly unreliable and
your substance abuse
is truly frightening.
- Thanks for the kind words.
- I can't imagine a better person
to have by my side while
doing these robberies.
You're cool, calm, seem to
have this natural affinity
for brandishing a gun.
Darcy, if we're gonna
continue doin these robberies
I need your help.
- Troy, I don't know
what happened to my life.
I just know that it's too
late for me to change things.
So if you're asking me to go
it straight and give it up,
I'm just tellin' you that I can't.
- You mean you won't.
- No, I mean I can't.
I don't wanna spend what
time I have left sober
and regretful for the
mess I made of things.
And to be honest with you,
I'd rather be a little numb.
- I'm not asking you to stop.
I just need you to cool it a little bit.
I need to know I can rely on you.
- You know you can.
- Do I?
Times like this, I'm not so sure.
- Troy, don't judge me man.
I mean, you know how fucked
up my life was back home.
And between my father's
cock and my mothers silence
I'm lucky I got outta there alive okay?
You know, in the thirty years of living,
there's only been one person I can trust
and the fact that he's
gay, catholic and poor
never made a difference to me.
Look, I need to know
that you trust me back.
I wanna be there for you.
I wanna feel it okay?
You're the only thing I have Troy.
- You know I'm always there for you?
- Yeah. Troy, sleep with me please?
- Darcy, you know I can't do that.
- Come on, you just mean you won't.
Come on Troy, let me just at least
give you a blowjob.
I could turn you out like any man can.
Just close your eyes, you
won't know the difference.
I promise you.
- Hey, hey. We've been through this.
- I know.
I just, I just don't know any better way
to show you that I love you.
- It's okay. I know you do.
Come on. Let's get some food.
- Never fall in love with a fag.
- [Tony] Our next target was Owl Drugs,
about twice the size
of Legal Rock Pharmacy.
He'd had a large gay clientele,
so we knew it'd have a good stock of D64.
- I'll get some photos of the inside.
Darcy, you check around the back.
Duke, hold down the front.
- Alright, get me some
tampons when you get in there.
- Me, tampons?
- Troy, I'll give you a note okay?
- I'll do it, it's alright, I'll do it.
I need some condoms anyway.
- Condoms? You and Harold still get busy?
- Honey, he may be sick
but he still gets the occasional urge.
- Alright, come on.
(camera clicks)
- Okay, I've seen this shot before.
(Opera music)
- Duke. Can you turn it down please?
- What it's (music drowns out speaker)
- You know I hate opera.
- How you gonna keep
your gay membership card?
- Can we get back to work now?
Do you wanna sit down on the couch?
- No, I'm perched, I'm fine.
- Duke, that's yours.
So I think that at the end
when you get to the cars
you gotta stop it right there for us.
[Tony Voiceover] The first robbery,
we were all a little nervous
and made a few mistakes.
(upbeat music)
[Tony] This one was a test, to
see if we could do really it.
(music drowns out speaker)
- Where's the D64?
- Over there.
- Thirty seconds.
- Sixty seconds.
- Troy.
- Oh come on, not this.
- I gotta have one.
- Come on.
- Alright, alright.
- I'm out of here.
- I'm really sorry for the inconvenience.
(tires screeching)
- Seven, eight, nine...
- What's the count Darcy?
- Seventy-three,
seventy-four, seventy-five.
We got seventy-five bottles here.
- Great.
- It is and it isn't.
Check out the expiration date on there.
- What's wrong?
- Look, this batch goes
bad in three months.
We couldn't possibly use all this.
- What are we gonna do?
- I mean we could give
some to our close friends
but we gotta be careful.
- What do you think
our friends would talk?
Even if we asked them not to?
- Our friends? Could definitely talk.
- What're we gonna do?
(rattles)
(upbeat music)
[Troy Voiceover] We
decided to cover our bases
and drop them anonymously.
(buzz)
(music drowns out speaker)
So many people reaching
to the stars now.
Searchin' the sky to
find the heavenly side
Wantin to wake up to a new tomorrow.
Wishing that they could
leave the past behind.
Too much confusion, too much of
everything has crossed my mind.
Such disillusion.
From now on I'm taking mine
(car alarm)
One day at a time.
I'm walking the line.
I know that everything is
gonna work out just fine.
(baby cries)
One day at a time.
I'm walking the line.
Everything is gonna be just fine.
- D64. What is this some
kind of a sick joke?
Who are you?
- It's a gift.
- Nobody gives this stuff away.
(cocks gun)
Get outta here before I catch you again.
Take your gift.
- So many positives have been victimized
by hustlers and cheats
lookin to make a fast buck.
It's a wonder they have any trust left.
- So what do we do. We
just stop givin it away?
- We still have a case left.
- We can't continue to snake around it.
Eventually, someone's gonna recognize us.
- How bout giving it to a buyers club?
- Harold may not speak much,
but when he does, it pays to listen.
[Tony Voiceover] A buyers
club is a life line
for HIV. You can purchase drugs in bulk
and sell them at a decent
amount to its members.
(music drowns out speaker)
Most AIDS patients on their last legs
end up (music drowns out speaker)
Buyer's clubs pass things on as well.
Selling one fix drug could solve
their distribution problem.
We gave our stolen D64
Why didn't we rob any buyers clubs?
That's a pretty stupid question.
(phone ringing)
[Answering machine
Answers] Hi, this is Troy
leave a message and I'll call you back.
- [Duke] Troy, Troy pick up.
Please look on channel 12.
- Yeah. Duke, what's up?
Okay, okay, just a sec.
[Television Reporter]
What makes this robbery
so unusual is that the suspects ignore
the cash register and most of the drugs.
In fact, they stole
specific items including
D64, a new antiviral AIDS compound.
Sources say much
Sources tell channel 12 that
police have new leads in this case.
Although, a similar robbery
was reported last week.
And in both cases, a red
AIDS awareness ribbon
was pinned on the pharmacist.
Could it have been a
statement by the robbers?
The police aren't saying.
This is Amy Scott reporting.
(TV clicks off)
- We're famous.
- You mean infamous?
- I prefer notorious.
- So long as we stay anonymous,
I don't care what they call us.
- You know it's just typical of my life.
I'm finally a celebrity
but I can't show my face.
- Oh and the world mourns a loss darling.
- Fame, so fleeting.
- I think it'd be a good idea
if we laid low for awhile.
- No way. We're just getting good.
- Troy's right. And we got
enough D64 for three months.
- No, no, no, no no, look
it's not about us anymore.
Think about all the people we're helpin
through the buyers club.
You know if that's not an excuse
to keep on going, I don't know what is.
And besides, I love doing this.
I mean, I haven't had a
high like this in years.
- Darcy, you won't find this high in jail.
- Oh fuck jail man.
I'm not afraid of getting busted.
I mean for the first time in my life,
I feel like I'm doing something good
by doing something bad.
- Yeah, that's easy for you to say.
You don't have someone
that depends on you.
- Yeah, well tell me
something, and be honest.
When was the last time
you felt this alive,
this validated, this...
- Empowered?
- Yeah.
I mean the cops in this
town are overwhelmed.
They solve less than 20% of all crimes.
- Where did you get those stats?
- I fucked a narc once.
Look, the point is, if we stop now
we lose all momentum, okay?
We can do another hit in
another couple of months.
We have the same chances of
getting caught then as we do now,
practically nothing, alright.
So, why wait?
- I hate it when you make sense.
So, what do ya say? You down?
- [Troy Voiceover] I've known Darcy
for almost twelve years and this was
the most amount of passion
I had ever heard from her,
what would you do?
(energetic music)
Over the next few weeks...
(speaker drowned out by background music)
(speaker drowned out by background music)
(techno music)
(salsa music)
- [News Reporter] The
governor has pronounced
the perpetrators as savages with guns
who've caused widespread terror.
However, there are those
who support the group
and herald them as the
Robin Hoods of the 90's.
- That's now man.
- Look, there's what's his name,
that guy.
- Jerry? Is that Jerry?
- Yeah, yeah, he came to the meeting.
- Uh huh.
- He's cute.
- What the bandits have done,
is draw attention to
the outrageous policies
of the drug conglomerates who for
years have been putting a price on life.
Their profits determine price.
It's about time someone stood up to them.
- Tell it like it is.
- I applaud the bandits and the righteous
work that they do.
To the Robin Hoods of our time,
the heroes of our generation.
- You better work Jerry.
- The bandits are doing something,
we all should have such
control in our lives.
- They're nothing but criminals.
- You prick, fuck you.
- In an interesting aside,
what does this tell us?
The HIV buyers club has
reported a phenomenal
surge in donations.
- Yeah, that'd be right.
- Police are investigating as we speak.
It's Megan Scott reporting live.
(cheering)
- My priorities are in permutation rates.
If there's a law to protect you,
there's a law to protect
the drug companies
and if that law's broken,
it's not gonna protect
you or anybody else.
- Okay people.
Please.
- Where's the compassion
- I got compassion, what are you...
- The laws ... we're the victims.
- Come on guys, we all know we never
get anything accomplished when we all
talk at once.
(group chatter)
- Shut the fuck up!
- Darcy Lindross, the enforcer.
- Okay, let's take a seat.
I thought we could start tonight's meeting
by discussing the NIH's
latest recommendation on diet.
- Forget that. Let's talk
about the Red Bandits.
- That's the Red Ribbon Bandits
you Geraldine Paige Wannabe.
- Well.
- I hear they're ex-cons from upstate.
- Regardless of who they are.
How does everyone feel
about what they're doing?
- I think it's wonderful the way they've
touched people's lives.
- Well, I don't.
Frankly, I think it's
a shame that it's taken
a group of lawless anarchists to finally
put the drug companies' feet to the fire.
- Hey, whatever works.
- Until they get caught, and then what?
- Wait a minute.
I mean here look. Here we
are trying to lead our lives
as normally as possible, okay?
We're gradually being
accepted in the world.
Now these bozos come along
(belch)
and cast all positives as vigilantes.
All it does is reinforce people's fears.
- Well, what about the protest?
And all the media coverage?
- No, no, no. That's the wrong kind Duke.
It's based on crime and false heroics.
- But, the drug companies.
- Look, if we want lasting change,
we have to do it within the system.
- You're so full of shit James.
- Hey, you know something?
Coming from you, that means
absolutely nothing to me.
- You know, fuck you yuppie scum.
- Why don't you grow up.
- Come on guys, we're here to support
not attack.
- All I know is I got
two free bottles of D64.
- Me too, I got two from Higher Law.
- And my T-Cell count has stabilized.
- Alright.
(applause)
- Right on.
- Can't you read between the lines?
Don't you see where the clubs are getting
these pills from?
- It's easy for you to criticize James,
you've got insurance. But the rest of us.
- People who need D64 have it now
that's what's important.
- And there's more to come.
I hope.
- What about we make the joint resolution
either praising or condemning
the Red Ribbon Robberies?
- Again, with the giant resolutions.
- All in favor of the bandits?
- Ridiculous.
- All opposed?
- Yeah.
- Great, the motion carries.
The support group Defiance
officially affirms
the work of the Red
Ribbon Bandits by a vote
of seven to one.
(applause)
- We made a joint resolution that no one
will ever hear about.
When we already know who's
forming this god given work.
You know Craig Jantzen?
In fact, I think everybody
here knows Craig.
- Get outta here.
- Wake up and smell the latte Francis.
- He got a few drinks
in him the other night
at Saddle Bar and let it
slip that he's involved.
- Oh great. Gay bar gossip,
the ultimate in reliability.
- I don't know. He
sounded pretty convincing.
- Francis, darling I can assure you that
Craig Jantzen is not a Red Ribbon Bandit.
- Oh, how can you be so sure?
- Because the guys a complete idiot.
- I personally don't think Craig Jantzen
is a Red Ribbon Bandit.
But, if any of you guys
do, feel free to thank him.
- Troy.
- The lesbian action committee
are waiting for the room
so, I suppose we can finish for tonight.
See you all next week.
And, if you wanna ring me,
feel free you know my number.
Take time...
(slow music)
- Well if it isn't Craig Jantzen.
- Well, well, well. Is it the
Wicked Witch of the wasted
without her broom no less.
What are you doing here in these parts?
- Hear you're calling
yourself a Red Ribbon Bandit.
- So what if I am?
- You know you always
were a real asshole Craig.
- Thank you.
- Let me give you a little.
(thud)
Come on, come on, you don't
wanna fight me you fuck?
(Groans)
You don't have the balls?
(groans)
I guess you do have balls. Yes you do.
Stop taking credit for
other people's work.
- Fucking crazy bitch.
God, do I hate women. I
do, I do, I do, I really do
I hate 'em.
- So did you hear about what happened
with Craig Jantzen?
- No.
- Four neo-nazis cornered
him outside the Saddle Bar
beat him to a pulp, okay.
- You heard there were four of them?
- Apparently Craig put up quite a fight,
he put two of them in the hospital.
- You can't tell me Craig
didn't have it coming?
- This gay bashing thing never stops.
Harold and I even keep a gun in the house.
- You smart.
- Can we get back to work please?
- Hey Darcy, saved some
of my codeine for you.
- Harold, thank you.
Harold you are the better
half in this relationship.
I'm only kidding.
- Hey Harold, you're looking great today.
- He's had his best week in months.
- D64 really helps.
See, I even ironed this shirt myself.
(laughter)
- What?
- No, nothing, nothing, you look great.
- Come on, let's get down to business.
- Okay, the inside, is
pretty straightforward.
But, because it's our biggest store yet
the time is gonna be a little tricky.
- How so?
- Well, we have to hit
it right when they open
before any customers come in.
- What time we talking?
- Six am.
- I don't know about that,
I don't know if I can get up that early.
- Come on Darcy, I mean you don't go
to bed until four anyway, just stay up.
- Six am, that's harsh.
Can't we just hit it at closing time?
- No, there could be customers inside
and we don't have the man power to
control that situation.
- I'll go.
I mean I wanna go.
I wanna help.
- Harold, I...I don't know.
Are you sure you're up to it baby?
- Yeah, yeah I think I am.
- But if something goes wrong
then we have to get out of there fast.
- I don't know, I think we
should take Harold along.
I mean he's been hearing our
conversations the whole time,
he knows the ropes, I mean you know?
- I promise I won't get in the way.
(kiss)
- You never cease to amaze me baby.
- Okay, Harold's in.
But, I still think we
should go in at dawn.
- Duke, you help us get the drugs until
it's time to get the car.
Harold, Harold. You
hold down the front door
until Duke comes to get 'ya.
Darcy.
- Troy, look I've been over
this ten times already alright?
I know what I'm doin', let's just do it.
- Yeah, let's light this candle.
- Okay,
(gun cocks)
let's go.
(engine revs)
- Did you hear that?
- Come on, get your mask on, let's go.
Come on.
(suspenseful music)
- Just wait right here,
I'll be back to pick you
up in 90 seconds okay?
- Don't move and we won't hurt you.
Come on, get in the corner.
Move it.
What are you fucking deaf?
Let's go, over here. Put your hands down.
Cover me.
(gasps)
- Where do you keep the D64?
- What?
- The D64, where do you keep it?
- Thirty seconds.
- Oh my god. You're them,
you're the Red Ribbon Bandits.
- That's right and unless you want us
to become the Red Ribbon Murderers,
you better tell us where the D64 is now.
- It's alphabetical, it's
over there on the right.
In the front.
- Fuck.
- I read all about you guys.
- Is there any more?
- There's two more cases in the back.
- Come on then.
- What are you doing?
(suspenseful music)
(glass crack on floor)
(heavy breathing)
- Got 'em, I'm outta here.
- Let's go, come on.
(gun cocks)
(gun fires)
- What the hell was that?
- It sounded like a gun.
- This much I know.
- Harold, come on buddy.
- What the hell is he doing?
- Where'd he get a gun?
- I don't know, don't ask me.
- Where's the chickens?
- There's no chickens here,
just put the gun down okay?
- Shit.
- Put the gun down.
- You don't understand.
- Yes, I understand. I
love you baby it's me.
Put the gun down okay?
- No, I can't, I can't.
- Yes, you can, just lower your arm.
- Put the fucking gun down!
(shrieks)
(gun fires)
(glass shattering)
- I got it.
- Come on.
Go get the car, go get the car.
(shouting)
Turn around baby, turn around.
(tires screeching)
(tires screeching)
Shit!
Fuck! I can't believe this.
- Harold, I'm here, I'm here.
- What happened?
- He had an attack okay?
- No shit.
- But, I thought the dementia
wasn't hittin him anymore.
- Shit, goddammnit!
- The D64!
- There's a big difference between having
full blown AIDS and
being HIV positive Troy!
You know maybe the stress just got to him.
I don't know.
(police siren)
- Oh fuck!
- What?
- We got a cop on our tail, that's what.
- Oh my god, what are we gonna do?
- I don't know.
- We're gonna lose him
that's what we're gonna do.
- Are you crazy?
I've got a sick man back here.
- Man, I knew he wasn't
up to this, I knew it.
- Watch, turn it!
(tires screeching)
- Did we lose him?
(police siren)
- No, no. Maybe, we should just pull over?
- I'm not going down without a fight.
Forget it. Now just turn it.
- Where, where, right or left?
- I don't know, just turn it.
- This is no good, this is no good.
(police siren)
- Go
(car honking)
- Hold onto your balls boys.
- Oh on, we can't do this.
- Floor it.
(car engine revs)
- We're gonna die, we're gonna die.
(suspenseful music)
- Troy, car look out!
There's a fucking car!
(crash)
(tires screeching)
(shrieking)
That was fun huh?
- I think I wet myself.
- Man, I must be out of my mind.
- Are we home yet?
- It appears that the
bandits are getting violent.
The bandits fired their
guns for the first time
in the robbery to save more drugs.
Using their firearms in an
apparent attempt to intimidate
the staff, they shot out a
mirror and a display case.
The sales clerk was cut
by some broken glass
but was not seriously injured.
And the bandits got away.
(somber music)
- Here you go baby.
That'll make you feel nice and warm.
[Troy] Over the next few days,
things started getting
a little out of hand.
- [News reporter]
Authorities have announced
a $10,000 award for any information
leading to the arrest and
conviction of the bandits.
In a related development.
Apothecary industries,
the manufacturer of D64
has announced a 15% price hike
for the miracle AIDS drug.
- This temporary elevation of the
base retail acquisition quotient
is directly related to the terrorism
now being perpetrated
on this organization.
- A protest was immediately
launched following
the announcement.
That's it from here.
Back to you in the studio Ted.
(somber music)
Someone is good to see.
But if you think of me.
- Mom, please.
Always know that I love you.
- We've been over this before.
It's not a phase.
Always know, that I love you.
Mom.
I'll be home for you.
- [Troy] Even I had trouble
getting back to normal.
I'll be home for you.
Then things really started going wrong.
- Yeah, hello. Police?
Look, I think I've got some information
on the Red Ribbon Bandits.
(knocking)
- Hey.
- Hey.
- Can I come in?
- Yeah.
(kisses)
- How you doin?
- Good.
- What you up to?
- Cleanin.
- Clean house is good, I love your house.
- Thanks. You wanna soda?
- You got any beer?
- No. No beer.
- Alright, I'll have a soda. You got Coke?
- Yeah.
- Good.
Wanna have sex with me?
(slams door)
I'm only kidding.
Come on, if you're not
gonna have sex with me
have it with somebody at least,
you're so damn uptight.
Thanks.
- What's so funny?
- I don't know. I was just thinking about
the look on that pharmacist's face
when you pinned the ribbon on his lapel.
You know on our first hit?
- If you're gonna talk about the robberies
you may as well leave now.
- Come on Troy.
- Darcy, we have been over this.
We got out last time by
the skin of our teeth.
It's time to call it quits.
- No, no, no. We can't go out that way
that's too weak.
- Why? I mean why can't we?
What do you wanna do?
You wanna do another
robbery so they can blame
another price hike on us?
- We couldn't afford this shit anyway.
- Well that makes me feel so much better.
- Look, I was talking
to Duke the other day.
He's down.
- God knows why.
I mean he was freaked
out about the last time.
- I know, he sure was, man.
- Look, it's a gorgeous day.
You wanna just go for a ride?
Let's get some fresh air.
- No, no, no. I gotta clean up.
- Oh come on. You can
clean anytime, clean later.
Just get outside. It's sunny out.
- Okay.
- Yeah.
(keys jingling)
(engine speeding by)
- This is special.
When you said "let's go for a ride"
I thought we would go to a park,
take in the sights before we go to jail.
But this...
Apothecary Industries?
No.
- Look. There's a single
guard at the front gate.
There's enough D64 in
there for half the city.
- I'm not listening to you.
- Come on Troy.
- No, Darcy!
- Where ya going? I mean wait a minute.
(scuffle)
Are you okay?
- Jeez. Damnit.
Great, I'm bleeding.
Now I'm officially a public menace.
I hope you're happy.
- Let me see it.
- Don't touch me.
- You're cut.
You know, my life was miserable
before we started all this.
I spent all my time getting stoned
out of my face and
feeling sorry for myself.
- You're such a picture of sobriety now.
- Look I feel good about me.
I feel good about all we've done.
We've taken control of our lives.
- Took control Darcy, past tense.
- No, no, no, no. It's not over yet.
- Darcy please.
I'd rather take my chance
with the lottery again
than having cops chase me around.
- I know you feel bad about
what happened last time.
- It was only the Vietnam robberies.
- Yeah, well.
This one's beautiful.
- No, no, no it's too dangerous.
- Precisely my point.
You've been our leader
from the very beginning.
Ultimately, we've always
followed your plan Troy.
We can't let Apothecary get
away with raising their prices.
Somebody has got to send them a message.
- What good would it do?
I mean, yeah, okay I agree with you.
There's probably a lot of D64 in there
and we could have our
biggest giveaway yet.
- Yeah.
- But it's finite.
I mean pretty soon we run out of pills
for ourselves and the clubs.
And then what?
We do another robbery, we
get caught, we go to jail.
Where does it end?
- It ends here.
With the big score, we pull this one off
and we pack it in.
- Famous last words.
- Troy, you've started
an important journey.
I mean at first it was about ourselves,
but it's grown.
- We've got people talkin
about prices, about access.
I mean yeah, maybe robbery's
not the most subtle way
to handle things.
But it's working okay?
We need closure, baby
don't give out on me now.
Come on, we need the grand finale.
Then we go home.
- Well this is big.
You know, how could they
blame the price hike on us?
- Fuckin unbelievable isn't it?
- And no one stands up to 'em.
- Pricks.
- I think somebody should
teach 'em a lesson.
- So you're saying you'll do it?
- I'm saying I never
really had a choice did I?
- No you didn't.
- Ow.
- I'm sorry.
- I talked him into it.
- You're kidding?
- No.
(screams)
- [Troy voiceover] After
we broke the news to Duke,
we started a plan.
(loudspeaker)
We knew we were really gonna have to have
our act together to pull this one off.
So we spent a lot of time
casing the place checking everything out.
- You got that.
- Yeah.
- Okay. This is the guy
I think he's the boss.
- Kind of cute.
- Him? Cute?
- Yeah, he ain't bad.
- You wouldn't go out
with a guy like that.
- Honey, the guy runs a drug warehouse.
Yes, I'd go out with him.
- [Troy Voiceover] There
was one last thing to do
before robbing Apothecary.
To see if they were
gonna give me D64 anyway.
(cheering)
- Cool, hey listen man,
let's get together tomorrow.
- Okay, yes!
- James?
- Troy, shit what are you doing here?
- Hey, I'm here every six months right?
Are you okay?
- No.
Have a seat.
- What's goin on?
- I'm in big trouble Troy.
- Talk to me.
- I just lost my D64.
- How? You're an up and coming lawyer
you have money, insurance
- No. My law firm carries full coverage
but I don't get my D64 that way.
- But the whole point...
- The whole point is that
if I take the drug from them
my firm will find out I have HIV
and in a matter of minutes my career
will be dead.
- They can't do that. There are laws.
- Yeah sure there are laws.
They probably won't fire me.
But I'll never make partner either.
- So now you're in the lottery.
- Yeah, I'm in the lottery.
- I've been paying for this
stuff out of my own pocket
for almost two years now.
My finances were a House of Cards before.
- James I'm so sorry.
- I was so
cavalier about HIV
ever since I was diagnosed.
I always thought I could cheat it somehow.
And when they introduced the D64,
I hatched up this brilliant scheme
to beat the whole system.
And now...
- And all the time you were
criticizing the bandits.
- I know can you believe that shit?
I feel like such an asshole.
- Look, don't worry.
I'll get you some D64.
- You will?
- Yeah.
- How?
- I'll tell the bandits you need some.
- You know who they are?
- Is it Craig Jantzen?
- Craig Jantzen? In his dreams.
- Well who then?
- I can't tell ya that.
Let's just say they're
another group of people
who hatched a scheme to beat the system.
[Troy Voiceover] I felt sorry for James.
I truly did. When you're positive,
having D64 and losing it is much worse
than never having it at all.
(somber music)
- Craig
- Craig
- Craig Jantzen
- Who wants to know?
- Detective Bjorkin.
This is Detective Bones.
- We wanna talk to you about
the Red Ribbon Bandits.
- Look honey, I don't
even have time for this.
- This is really important Craig.
Just find the time, won't take long.
- I'll even give you a ride.
- Look, I really think
you're making a mistake here.
- If we are, we'll give
you a formal apology, okay?
Now watch your head. Easy now.
There we go, atta boy.
(door slams)
(fingers tapping)
- Can I have a cigarette?
I mean don't you guys give out cigarettes
in situations like these?
Thank you.
(coughs)
- You sure are smooth with that Craig.
- I think I'm gonna be sick.
(coughs)
- You gonna tell us the truth Craig?
- Look, I've told you.
I was just bragging in a bar.
- Bragging about the robberies?
- No, no, no. I was
just trying to get laid.
I had nothing to do with the red ribbons.
I wasn't even in town for most of them.
- Come on Craig, you
can do better than that,
that's what they all say.
I was in San Francisco on the sixteenth.
- You expect us to believe that?
Maybe we should rough him up a bit.
- No! I hate women.
Okay.
Look
I had nothing to do with them.
I'm not involved at all,
but, I think I know who did.
- Really now?
- Yes.
You see there's this girl who, well
she's this crazy, fucking bitch right
she beat the shit out of me one night.
And, I was drunk.
She took advantage of that fact.
- I bet that.
- I may be a queen,
but honey I can scratch
with the best of 'em.
- I could tell that.
- So anyway, this girl...
- So, what's her name?
- Darcy.
- Darcy? She have a last name?
- Trollop.
(suspenseful music)
- [Troy Voiceover] We decided to go in
on a Sunday morning when the place
would be at its least busy.
Strangely, none of us were nervous.
(clanging)
Maybe I should've taken that as a sign.
(car passing)
- Harold. What are you doing here?
- Harold's coming with us.
- Oh look, I don't know.
We tried this once before
and it didn't work out
if you recall.
You're not for nothing Harold but...
- Don't worry, I'll stay in the van okay?
- We're a package deal Darcy.
- Duke goes down I have
to be there with him.
- Troy?
- Well it is our last hit
and I searched him and
he doesn't have his gun.
- Don't worry, I'll be cool.
- Alright, let's do it.
- Help me!
Please help me.
- What the...
- Help me
(crying)
- Are you okay?
- No, help me.
- It's okay, we'll get you some help.
(thud)
(groans)
- You, just stay put and
I won't hurt you, okay?
(grunting)
- How'd it go?
- Alright.
Taking out men seems to
be a specialty of mine.
- That's my girl. Let's do it.
(typing)
- That's strange.
(suspenseful music)
(groans)
(thud)
- Okay guys, we're clear.
(groaning)
- How do you turn off security?
- I don't know.
(thud, groan)
- We could make this easy or
we could make this difficult
now what's it gonna be mother fucker?
- Over there. It's on the table.
- Alright, go.
- To the right, it's in there.
- Got it?
(suspenseful music)
- Where, is he?
(thud)
- You just be quiet, and
I won't hurt you okay?
I'm gonna go find the other guard alright?
- Okay go. Stay on the radio.
- Be right back.
- Duke, what's the story out back?
- No guard. Repeat, no guard.
(static)
- The other guard's not at his post.
- Oh man. Yeah, guard three's missing too.
- We got a problem.
- Stay put and keep out of sight.
- God, I think I'm getting a rash.
- Christ, Duke. We're together
and we're gonna be calm.
(slam)
(talking in background)
- You hear that?
- Yeah, what do you think it is?
- I don't know.
- Come on, let's go.
(noise in background)
(grunts)
(grunting)
- It's them.
- Okay.
- On three.
- Okay.
(door swinging open)
- Freeze!
- Who the hell are you guys?
- Put your hands up.
Hell, keep 'em where they are.
- Now I've seen it all. Come on.
- We got 'em guys, bring the van around.
- Where were they?
- You would not believe it.
- Goddamnit Quinton,
you always take so long.
- Shut up Lawrence!
- Sorry boys, I really am.
Hope you were using your condoms.
Let's get out of here.
(grunting)
(clanging door opening)
(door slams shut)
- Damn.
(footsteps)
Wow.
- This is big.
- It's kinda like finding
a needle in a haystack.
There's a lot of drugs here.
- Come on. We gotta find Duke and Harold.
- Yeah.
(rattling)
Come back.
Cut it.
(thud)
- Hey, what was that all about?
- Later.
- Let's get to the phone.
(grunting)
- Let's go.
(heels walking)
- Hurry back.
(dramatic music)
(beeping)
- Hello? Hello?
We need help at Apothecary
Industries. Right now.
(engine slows)
- Is this the place?
- Two, two, six eight.
- [Police Radio] Attention all
units, attention all units.
Two eleven in progress,
Apothecary Industries.
Please respond.
- Isn't that a drug warehouse?
- Go, go, go, go!
(police siren)
Detective responding to two
eleven Apothecary Industries.
(music slows)
- Oh my god!
(ecstatic music)
You guys, we got it! We got it!
(screaming)
(music drowns out speaker)
(cheering)
- I've never seen so much D64.
- It's the motherload.
- Boxes, it's heavy.
- Okay.
- Man, the buyer's club's gonna bug out.
(laughter)
- Okay.
- You alright Troy?
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
(grunts)
(police sirens)
(thud)
- Say drugs.
- Hold on, hold on.
Drugs.
(camera click)
(suspenseful music)
- The last one.
- Alright, good work.
(hands clapping)
Well, if you don't mind.
I'm gonna go grab me a little
somethin in aisle seven.
I'll be quick.
(heels clicking)
- Hey Troy.
- Yeah?
- Thanks.
- Thank you.
Now, let's get this stuff in the van.
(door slamming open)
- Shit.
- Hey you guys, say Liza.
- Liza.
- We got trouble.
- What are we gonna do Troy?
- Duke, get in the van.
- Harold, start it up.
- Freeze.
Drop the gun now.
- Fuck you.
(tires screeching)
(thud)
(gun firing)
- Jesus Christ Troy,
they are shooting at us.
(suspenseful music)
(cocking gun)
- Damn.
(gasps)
- Driver of the van. Take
the keys out of the ignition
and put your hands where I can see them.
- Like the lady said. Fuck you.
(shots firing)
- Duke, I want you to get to the van.
I mean that cop is gonna figure out
that Harold is unarmed.
And then I want you to
get the hell out of here.
- But you and Darcy.
- No buts, just do as I say.
- I can't do that Troy, I can't.
- Duke, this is gonna end badly
no matter which way you look at it.
At least let's get the drugs out, okay?
(gun cocks)
- Troy, Troy.
- I know.
Come on, I'll cover ya.
(whispering)
(multiple gunshots fired)
(tires screeching)
(suspenseful music)
(thud)
- Hold it.
(panting)
- You're trapped, there's no way out.
Put the gun down.
Put your hands up where I can see them.
I just have one question for you.
Why?
- You don't know?
- I know what the media says,
I wanna here it from you.
- You see? That's the problem.
If you have to ask, you
just don't understand.
- You wanna be a hero right?
- I'm no hero.
- Drop the gun.
- Bones?
- Don't you fuck me.
I'm one seriously crazed bitch right now.
- What are you gonna do?
- What are you waiting
for a fucking invitation?
Drop the gun.
Drop the gun.
(clanging)
Use these.
Get down.
- This is crazy. Both of you.
You're not gonna get away with it.
You know that.
- Maybe.
But that doesn't scare me anymore.
Nothing does.
I got it.
- Come on.
- You alright?
- Shit.
(mellow music)
- [Troy Voiceover] We'd started
out with selfish reasons.
- Yeah, nothing in there. False alarm.
- No problem. Thank you.
- [Troy Voiceover] But quite accidentally,
we ended up helping hundreds of people.
It started a debate on
the whole issue of access.
Did the end justify the means?
(exhales)
I guess it depends on who you ask.
A month after the warehouse caper
Apothecary Industries
lowered the price of D64
and announced an expansion of their
indigent drug program.
They said it had nothing to do with us
but they were getting so
much heat from the press
they had no choice.
So, for the vast majority of positives.
The answer is yes.
(hopeful music)
Even James agrees with that now.
Duke and Harold wound up getting away
from the warehouse without any trouble.
- Is there somebody there now?
- [Troy Voiceover] They made anonymous
deliveries all over the city the next day.
They're still going strong.
And no, they never did
have to cash in their
life insurance policy.
- We did it again.
(laughter)
I love you.
- I love you too.
(laughter)
(distant conversation)
- Okay we're set.
(cheers)
- [Troy Voiceover] Darcy
had a little more trouble.
The cops knew who she was so
she couldn't stick around.
- Red Ribbon
- [Troy] She took to the open
road living a biker's life.
I think she actually preferred
it to living conventionally.
I still hear from her once in awhile.
She even went to an AA meeting once.
But got into a fight with the
chapter leader, that Darcy.
And me?
Well everyone knows what happened to me.
- Let's go, wrap it up.
- I can't say I was
surprised when they caught up
with me in San Francisco.
And the jury gave me a fair shake.
What I did was wrong.
With any luck, I should be
outta here in five years.
I'm paintin every day.
And because of all the media attention,
people actually wanna buy my art now.
I suppose the biggest irony of it all
is the state of California
mandates D64 for all its prisoners.
Can you believe it?
(exhales)
And after all that craziness.
Anything else?
- [Journalist] Yeah,
would you do it again?
- Would I do it again?
- Hi Troy.
Troy.
- Hey.
- Have you heard the news?
There's a new drug, A67.
They're saying it might be a cure.
(laughter)
- [Troy Voiceover] Would I do it again?
You bet.
(uplifting music)
We're all connected.
Part of each other right or wrong.
We're all a family.
Together weak, together strong.
Everybody needs some help.
We all need someone else.
When the day is blue,
it's just me and you.
I will stand beside you, hold you up.
Turn to me whenever times get tough.
I'm your helping hand.
We can lift each other, you and me.
Be the strength in ever need.
I'm your helping hand.
I'm your helping hand.
And when a tree falls.
Somebody's got to hear its sound.
If there's a shadow. Somewhere
glistening from the ground.
Well it's up to me and
you to make our destiny.
Destiny comes true. Everything we do.
I will stand beside you. Hold you up.
Turn to me whenever time gets tough.
I'm your helping hand.
We can lift each other you and me.
Be the strength you'll ever ever need.
I'm your helping hand.
I'm your helping hand.
Spinning, spinning,
spinning out of control.
Then one day, the ride just ends.
But when it all comes
down we will never know.
We just start it up again.
I'm your helping hand.
I will stand beside you hold you up
Turn to me whenever times get tough.
I'm your helping hand.
I'm your helping hand.
(Multicom jingle)
- [Narrator] The day I
found out I was HIV positive
was the worst day of my life.
I felt my whole world
suddenly turn upside down.
I didn't know what to
feel or how to react,
so I ran and ran for miles.
I didn't know where I was going.
Even though I knew I
couldn't escape the news,
somewhere in the back of my mind I felt
if I could keep running
just keep running, maybe
It's pretty silly, isn't it?
Then again, just how
are you supposed to face
a death sentence?
- Oh really?
You sure?
Yeah.
Well fuck you too.
(laughs)
(weeping)
- Honey, I'm home!
What's wrong?
(church bells ring)
(thud)
Oh no.
(cries)
(somber music)
- It all started at a funeral.
Yesterday you came to lift me up
As light as straw and brittle as a bird
Today I weigh less
than a shadow on the wall
Just one more whisper of a voice unheard
- [Narrator] You know
since this epidemic began,
we've all spent time,
too much time, mourning.
As fear grows please
hold me in your arms
Won't you help me if you can
To shake this anger
I need your gentle hand
- [Narrator] I'm 29 years old
and I've been to 23 funerals.
To keep me calm
'Cause I never thought I'd lose
I only thought I'd win
I never dreamed I'd fear.
- We all loved him.
- I know.
This fire beneath my skin.
I can't believed you loved me.
- Darcy and I have been friends
ever since we lived in the
same (mumbles) building
on the lower east side of New York.
We shared some good
times and some bad ones.
When I moved to L.A. to paint full time,
I felt like a part of me was missing.
I was pretty happy when
she decided to move too.
Darcy.
I didn't think you'd make it.
- Yeah well, came to pay my
respects to Evan you know.
I can't believe he's gone, man.
You know, he was gonna take me camping.
- Yeah?
- Yeah, I've never been camping before.
Guess I ain't going now.
I hate this fucking disease.
I hate the memorials too.
- Troy!
Troy.
- [Troy] Duke and Harold
have been together for years.
They had owned a gallery
before Harold got sick
and Duke started panicking.
They gave me my first show.
It was a disaster but
we all became friends.
- How you doin' Harold?
- We're all having sort of a bad day.
- Yeah.
- Somebody tell me when
the good ones are supposed
to start again.
I was just trying to convince Darcy
to come to a group meeting.
- Troy please not now, come on.
- Yeah, what's it gonna
take to get you back?
- I'd rather stick needles in my eye okay.
- That'd be about the only
place you haven't stuck 'em.
- Duke.
- Excuse me?
- Sorry, I'm sorry, sorry.
Feeling a little bitchy today.
- I'll say.
- Listen, I'll tell you what.
You come to the next meetin,
I'll give you, half a dozen
of Harold's Percodans.
- Yeah? When was that meeting?
- [Narrator] We called our
support group, Defiance
I always thought the name
was a little extreme but
when it came to a choice between that
and Duke preferred Randy
Schultz love children
Defiance didn't seem so bad.
- Oh, look who's here?
Darcy dear, I knew you'd show up.
- Don't give me any shit.
- Nice to see you too babe.
- [Narrator] In addition
to Darcy, Duke and Harold
there was James, the straight lawyer
Francis, the unapologetic cruiser
Alice, who's ambition
in life was to become
the gay Martha Stewart.
And then there was Helen
who was always available
to be a surrogate mom.
- Troy
- No. Thanks Helen.
- You bring them pills?
- Okay, welcome and it's great
to see you all here tonight
and especially Darcy, who
hasn't been with us for awhile.
(applause)
As you all know, we lost Evan last week
and, although we mourn the loss
we know he's in a good place now.
- But I'm in an even better place
because I'm still alive.
- I thought that we could start tonight by
discussing how we feel about Evan and
coming up with a joint resolution.
- Again with the resolutions.
- Come on guys, we've
been through this before.
Resolutions are symbolically important.
- I think we all agree
that we should be unified
but, a joint resolution
sounds like we're sending
out a communique from NATO or something.
- Fine, if you don't want
to pass a joint resolution
can we at least have a
moment of silence, okay?
- Hey Francis, you got a cigarette for me?
I ran out.
- Hey James, do you think you'll be able
to lend me your car on Thursday?
(laughter)
Hey, what's so funny?
- Unbelievable. I can't even get a moment
of silence done with this group.
- Lighten up Troy.
- No, Darcy. You get
a little more serious.
The whole purpose of this group is for us
to try and help each other.
And yet every time I try
to get something going,
you guys shoot it down.
- Troy, darling. We really appreciate you
trying to lead us each week, we truly do.
Lord knows, none of us could do it.
- Right?
- But, must you be
- Such a pain in the ass?
(laughter)
- Thank you.
- Who are we kidding?
- Okay, okay. I relinquish
my feeble attempts
at leadership and open up the floor
to anyone else who cares
to lead off the session.
- Come on
(group) Troy come on.
- Don't be so sensitive.
- I lost my insurance last week.
- [Narrator] The insurance
companies had figured
out a dozen different ways
to cancel a policy ever.
Sometimes they just raised
the premiums to such
an extent that it becomes
impossible to pay.
The net effect, to be canceled.
- I'm a painter. There's
no way I can afford
insurance on my own, so
when Apothecary Industries
announced their indigent
drug program, I immediately signed up.
(soft music)
- [Narrator] They ran it like a lottery.
Every six months they had a drawing.
100,000 people signed up for 7,000 slots.
I didn't win. I was the 85,612th
person on the waiting list.
But hey, they said I was
automatically enrolled
in the drawing in six months.
You know, when your
T-cell count is dropping
every day, six months may
as well be a lifetime.
Even the AIDS trials couldn't keep up.
- God bless 'em, they tried.
But the drug was just too expensive.
With their budgets stretched so thin
trying to care for people who were dying,
they just didn't have the funds
for people who needed D64.
(knocking)
- Hey.
- Bad time?
What's goin on?
- Troy, I'd like you to meet Chris Lee.
- Nice to meet you.
- Mr. Lee is sort of an insurance agent.
- I thought you guys were fully covered.
- Well, our problem is Harold's policy
doesn't cover D64.
Because he has full blown AIDS,
they say his, what do you call it?
- Risk reward ratio.
- Isn't high enough to
put him on the drug.
- You got some nerve comin
into my friend's house
- Troy, Troy listen he's
not from our health plan.
- But you said Mr. Lee was in insurance.
- Early, receivable death benefits.
Mr. Strayhorn and Mr. Kelley contacted me
about buying out Mr. Kelley's
life insurance policy.
I'm a viatical agent to be precise.
- Death futures, to be precise.
They'd become all the rage.
You sold your policy at
a discount to a broker.
They advantage to Harold, was that he got
some of his money while
he was still alive.
The advantage for Mr. Lee was he made
a hell of a profit on Harold's death.
- He's giving us 80 cents on the dollar.
- Which is a very good price I might add.
- Duke, if that life
insurance was supposed
to be your nest egg when Harold...
I'm sorry Harold.
- That's okay. I'm not afraid to die.
Of course, I'd rather not
be there when it happens.
- If we sell out to Mr.
Lee, we'll have enough money
to put Harold on D64.
It might give him a few more months.
- You do know that D64
doesn't have the same
kind of effectiveness
on patients as chronic
as Mr. Kelley?
- I know.
I think it's worth a shot though.
[Troy voiceover] A shot
in the dark more likely.
D64 was designed for people
before they got sick.
But when it came to people like Harold
with full blown AIDS, the
results were spotty at best.
But then again, how can
you put a price on hope?
(upbeat music)
- You know, every time I come here
I order the same thing.
And every time you bring it to me,
you manage to fuck it up.
Now, take this back to wherever
and bring me what I ordered, thank you.
- Uh oh.
Here comes Ms. Congeniality.
- [Troy] Craig Janson had
been a pain in the ass
ever since I turned him down for a date.
He'd taken my rejection way too personal.
It's not that I didn't
find him attractive,
it's just that I'm a good old fashioned
Catholic boy. Even
though it feels sometimes
like God has cast me aside.
I still need to be in
love with someone before
I can have sex with them.
In fact, I've only ever
had sex with five men.
Not that it did me any good.
I should've stopped at four.
- Well, if it isn't Troy.
Patron saint of lost causes.
- I'm in no mood for it today Craig.
- And his merry band of infirms.
- Oh stuff yourself chicken boy.
- Some of us don't have to stuff.
Besides, Harold aren't we
all just one big family?
- Yeah, so were the Madisons...Craig.
- Craig, please give it a rest?
- If you ever bothered to call me Troy,
I swear I'd never rest.
- Well, if it isn't my favorite person.
- Shouldn't you be pouring
coffee for someone?
- Shouldn't you be treatin
those calluses on your knees?
You're in my seat, get out of here.
- I was leaving anyway.
- Good, freak.
- Bitch.
- Bye Craig.
- I don't know why you
hangin with that loser for.
- Come on, Craig's just a lonely guy.
- That's because he's
murdered all his friends.
- So what's goin on?
- Duke and Harold are
thinking about selling out
their life insurance.
- Oh really? Loan mommy some money?
- Darcy.
- I'm only kidding.
- We wanna try the D64 on Harold.
- Well you better have a
little bit more than that
life insurance because
that shit is expensive.
- We don't have any other choice.
- What do you think God was thinking
when he gave us a drug that
none of us could afford?
- That God, she's such a tease.
- It's not the drug.
It's the company he let discover it.
- Yeah but Apothecary is no different
from any other drug company.
- You're right, they're all bad.
- They do make some
fierce chemicals though.
- You know, I wish I could
- What? Wish what?
- Teach them a damn lesson.
That they can't arbitrarily
play with people's lives.
- I say we just steal it.
- Steal it?
- What is there an echo in here?
Look, none of us can afford D64.
They make it and we need it.
They got lots of it and we don't have any.
So I say we just steal the stuff.
- We can't do that.
- Why not, they can always make more.
- She has a point.
- Yeah.
- We're not criminals.
- Yeah, but most the drug companies are.
You know, Apothecary,
the guys who make D64
they cleared almost $250 million dollars
in profit last year.
Meanwhile, you're on the waiting list,
Darcy can't afford it.
- God knows.
- And Harold and I are about to cash in
the last real asset we have.
- I can't win if you
guys are gonna use logic.
- That's your trouble Troy,
you're just not open to new experiences.
- Jail is a new experience
I could do without.
- How would we do it?
- Go where the drugs are.
Hit a pharmacy.
- You have one in mind?
(rock music)
- It's actually pretty
small, shouldn't be so hard.
- I'm getting excited
just talking about it.
- Come on, we're not seriously thinking
about doing this are we?
- Yeah, absolutely, what
are you talking about?
- Hey, if Troy's in I'm in.
- Right on.
- Don't put that on me Duke.
- Troy, you see, it's not
about robbing a store,
it's about taking control of our lives.
It's poetic in a way.
You know, we are so dependent on people
we don't even know
telling us what we can and can't have.
Why should they make the decisions?
- What about Harold?
If anything were to happen to you...
- I think you guys should go for it.
- And he always has his mother.
- On second thought.
- Hey listen, we're not
gonna get caught alright?
- Okay, just for the sake of argument,
how would you go about it?
- We go in, we bust some
(cars drown out speaker)
clean out the register
and then bust our way
with an M16.
- Thanks Darcy. Call me
when you reach planet earth.
- You got a better idea Perry Mason?
- You know what?
I saw this documentary once
on the Discovery Channel.
- Yeah.
- About a thief that, who devised that
robbed banks. I don't know
what they robbed them for...
- [Tony] I don't know what's worse
letting my two best friends go out
on their own and getting
themselves killed.
or discovering that I might
actually like breaking the law.
Someone once said,
the best ideas are born
out of desperation.
Lookin' back, I find it
hard to argue with that now.
Besides, what did I or
anyone of us have to lose?
- You should probably
come in down here because
he's behind the counter.
- Yeah, but we don't know
how many are gonna be there.
I think if we come in through the front,
I can maybe hold down the front.
I don't know.
(powerful, soul music)
- Oh my god!
- What do you think?
- Honey, I don't know
if something goes wrong
there's no point in getting
busted in that thing.
I'd save it for Halloween.
(powerful, soul music)
(crickets chirping)
(quick, audible breathing)
(suspenseful sounds)
- I smell the chickens.
(suspenseful sound)
I wanna get outta here.
They're burning the chickens.
- Harold?
- They smell bad.
I wanna get out of here.
- Oh, not again.
- They're burning the chickens!
I want outta here!
- Harold, Harold, Harold.
Look, it's me, Harold. Calm down.
Calm down.
- They've got the chickens in the silo.
- Come on, you look cold.
- And it's burning down,
it's gonna fall on us.
- Come on, listen.
Breathe.
- It smells, it smells.
- Harold.
- It smells bad.
- Harold!
- I'm outta here!
- Calm down. Calm down.
It's okay.
- I've gotta get outta here.
- Come on baby.
Just breathe.
- The silo.
- You're home. We're home, in our house.
It's okay.
- I wanna go, I wanna go
- It's gonna be okay.
Just calm down and breathe.
- I wanna go.
- Calm down.
- [Troy] Okay. What else, what else?
Masks?
- Check.
- Gloves?
- Double check.
- Guns?
- You know, I think it'd be more effective
if we used my real 38.
- Darcy, we have
discussed this ad nauseum.
No real guns.
I mean what we're doing with the fake ones
is bad enough. I don't
want anyone getting hurt.
- Yeah but Troy, I really think...
- Darcy!
Please?
- Alright already, alright.
(toy gun sounds)
That one's real menacing.
- Where the hell is Duke?
- I never thought he'd show.
- He shoulda been here ten minutes ago.
- Damn queens. They're always late.
- This from the master of punctuality?
- Hey look I'm here aren't I?
- Yeah. Sorry.
Let's go over the list again.
- Troy, we've been over it ten
times, would you just relax?
- Well, well.
If it isn't Thelma and Louis.
- You know, Duke where
the hell have you been?
I've been worried sick.
- I'm sorry. Harold had another one of his
dementia attacks last night.
- Was he in the Navy again?
- No, this time he was back on the farm.
- Is he okay?
- Yeah, he's okay.
So, are we ready to go?
- Yeah, you bring the crowbar?
- What crowbar?
- You said you was
gonna bring the crowbar.
- No, no, no, no, no.
My job was to get the
fake guns and the mask.
Troy's job was to get the
fake license plate on the car.
And your job was to get
the crowbar my dear.
- You specifically said you got a crowbar
you got off some skinheads.
- No, no, no, no, no.
I said that I attacked some
skinheads with a crowbar.
I had to get rid of the evidence fool.
- You always do this.
- What?
- Change the story.
- What are you talkin' about?
- This is reality. This is you
and never the two shall meet.
- Hey, that's enough!
We've got a job to do.
Can we end this petty
spat and get down to it?
- What about the crowbar?
- We can use part of my jack.
- Bitch.
- Queen.
- Fish.
- Bottom.
- You don't have to get so damn personal.
- You don't have to be so nasty.
- Here. Okay, we're all set.
- Alright.
- Now remember, keep the
talking to a minimum,
always keep your gloves on,
and for god's sake, don't steal anything
while we hold up the pharmacist.
- Alright, that makes sense. Let's do it.
- Let's go.
(suspenseful music)
Perfect, there's only one
customer inside, get ready.
- Troy, I think I'm scared.
- Oh, what a surprise.
- Duke, you're doing this
for Harold, remember.
- We're sitting here robbing a store.
- Shh!
- It's now or never.
(dramatic music)
- Oh my god. What do you two punks want?
I gotta put on my reading glasses.
- Hurry up!
- Do not panic.
Give us all of your stocks of
D64 and bacterial ointments.
What is this?
- Throw in some percodan
while you're at it.
- What are you doin?
- I figured, while we were here.
- That's not part of the plan.
- Oh fuck the plan!
- Thirty seconds!
- Let's go.
- We don't have time for this.
(toy gun sounds)
- It's just beepin, don't
pay any attention to it.
- Yeah, I gotta call.
So come on!
- No.
- What?
- You don't understand
no? No, I won't do it.
- Oh yeah? Just say "yes" motherfucker!
- This way.
- One minute!
- Move it.
- And keep your hands up.
- Let's go.
- Here they are.
- Cuff 'em.
- What are you doin?
- It's on the counter.
- This is it?
- I'm sorry, I don't
have a big gay clientele.
- It's not just a gay disease.
- I know, I should've
ordered some more, I'm sorry.
- You should've.
- Listen, is this really necessary?
- Humor me, I'm feeling
a little extreme here.
- Oh you are. While I'm not
feeling so fresh myself.
I've never been held up
in my own store before.
- Okay, let's go
(suspenseful music)
- Look, you're not gonna take all of that.
- Yeah.
- What are you an HIV
vigilante group or something?
- Hurry up.
Let's go.
- I'm really sorry for the inconvenience.
- Oh, you're sorry. Hey wait a minute.
- Where the hell is he?
- What did I do with them?
God.
- I don't see him.
- Figures, those damn queens,
they're all into themselves.
Let's get outta here, come on.
Where were you?
- I couldn't find the keys.
- Don't worry, let's get out of here.
Come on, come on.
- Alright, alright.
- Let's go
(suspenseful music)
- Harold! We're back!
- We are the champions!
- Darling we did it. Can you believe it?
We really, really did it.
- Yeah.
- God, I feel good!
- Harold, you shoulda seen us, man.
- Only some of us anyway.
- I'm seeing you but I do
not hear you miss thing.
- Hey, hey, hey. We were
all a little nervous
but the important thing is
we pulled it off!
(all cheering)
- You woulda been so proud
of Duke, he was amazing.
- Congratulations.
- You shoulda seen what Darcy did.
He said "no," he said "no"
to me and I looked at him
[Tony Voiceover] So we celebrated,
intoxicated with our own power.
- That's so great!
- [Tony] We'd taken on the system and won.
A small victory but we'd won.
While I knew we'd crossed over the line
that separates victim from victor
we'd also crossed over
from citizen to criminal
and there was no turning back.
- D64, some bacterial
ointments, AIDS drugs.
- That's all they stole?
- I'm telling you it's weird,
they weren't interested
in anything else.
- They didn't go for the cash register?
- Didn't even look at it.
(crashing sound)
- What are you doing?
You're causing more damage
than the crooks did.
Pick that up. Come on.
Crooks or cops, I don't know what's worse.
And what about that one?
- You gotta check with Ernie
at the lab and let me know.
What do you got Steve?
- Oh
Hey, hey, hey. You guys are
supposed to be detectives.
Detect already.
What are you doing?
- So, what do you think?
- Well, let's see.
Three perps knock off a drugstore.
They don't go for the hard drugs.
They don't go for the cash register.
- They wear gloves, masks, they spend
most of their time
arguing with each other.
And this thing, with
pinning on the red ribbon.
You know what that means?
- Yep. Over time, lots of over time.
- Right.
(knocking)
- [Tony] Darcy?
(somber music)
Come on I know you're in there.
(knocking)
Open the door.
(knocking)
Darcy!
Hello?
(music drowns out speaker)
Darcy.
Hey wake up.
Come on. Come on.
Darcy wake up. Do you
know what time it is?
- No, what time is it?
- You stole these during the robbery?
- Percodan, D64, what
difference does it make?
- You can't keep doing this to yourself.
(loud sound of bottle banging on counter)
Come on, let's get you up.
- I wanna sleep.
- Come on.
- Troy no.
No.
- Darcy, sweet Jesus, Darcy?
Come on, come on, come on. I got ya.
Come on Darcy, hang in there. Come on.
Come on Darcy, come on. Darcy.
(squeaking)
Hey, come on, that's it.
Come on Darcy wake up.
Darcy, wake up. Come
on. That's a girl, yeah.
(recthing)
That's a girl, yeah, that's a girl.
Yeah, I've got ya. I've got ya.
(coughing)
- Oh Troy, I wanna die.
- It'll be okay.
Here.
- Troy
- Darcy
- Troy, I'm really sorry.
- Yeah and so you should be.
You are the most fearless
person I have ever met.
You're also completely irresponsible,
utterly unreliable and
your substance abuse
is truly frightening.
- Thanks for the kind words.
- I can't imagine a better person
to have by my side while
doing these robberies.
You're cool, calm, seem to
have this natural affinity
for brandishing a gun.
Darcy, if we're gonna
continue doin these robberies
I need your help.
- Troy, I don't know
what happened to my life.
I just know that it's too
late for me to change things.
So if you're asking me to go
it straight and give it up,
I'm just tellin' you that I can't.
- You mean you won't.
- No, I mean I can't.
I don't wanna spend what
time I have left sober
and regretful for the
mess I made of things.
And to be honest with you,
I'd rather be a little numb.
- I'm not asking you to stop.
I just need you to cool it a little bit.
I need to know I can rely on you.
- You know you can.
- Do I?
Times like this, I'm not so sure.
- Troy, don't judge me man.
I mean, you know how fucked
up my life was back home.
And between my father's
cock and my mothers silence
I'm lucky I got outta there alive okay?
You know, in the thirty years of living,
there's only been one person I can trust
and the fact that he's
gay, catholic and poor
never made a difference to me.
Look, I need to know
that you trust me back.
I wanna be there for you.
I wanna feel it okay?
You're the only thing I have Troy.
- You know I'm always there for you?
- Yeah. Troy, sleep with me please?
- Darcy, you know I can't do that.
- Come on, you just mean you won't.
Come on Troy, let me just at least
give you a blowjob.
I could turn you out like any man can.
Just close your eyes, you
won't know the difference.
I promise you.
- Hey, hey. We've been through this.
- I know.
I just, I just don't know any better way
to show you that I love you.
- It's okay. I know you do.
Come on. Let's get some food.
- Never fall in love with a fag.
- [Tony] Our next target was Owl Drugs,
about twice the size
of Legal Rock Pharmacy.
He'd had a large gay clientele,
so we knew it'd have a good stock of D64.
- I'll get some photos of the inside.
Darcy, you check around the back.
Duke, hold down the front.
- Alright, get me some
tampons when you get in there.
- Me, tampons?
- Troy, I'll give you a note okay?
- I'll do it, it's alright, I'll do it.
I need some condoms anyway.
- Condoms? You and Harold still get busy?
- Honey, he may be sick
but he still gets the occasional urge.
- Alright, come on.
(camera clicks)
- Okay, I've seen this shot before.
(Opera music)
- Duke. Can you turn it down please?
- What it's (music drowns out speaker)
- You know I hate opera.
- How you gonna keep
your gay membership card?
- Can we get back to work now?
Do you wanna sit down on the couch?
- No, I'm perched, I'm fine.
- Duke, that's yours.
So I think that at the end
when you get to the cars
you gotta stop it right there for us.
[Tony Voiceover] The first robbery,
we were all a little nervous
and made a few mistakes.
(upbeat music)
[Tony] This one was a test, to
see if we could do really it.
(music drowns out speaker)
- Where's the D64?
- Over there.
- Thirty seconds.
- Sixty seconds.
- Troy.
- Oh come on, not this.
- I gotta have one.
- Come on.
- Alright, alright.
- I'm out of here.
- I'm really sorry for the inconvenience.
(tires screeching)
- Seven, eight, nine...
- What's the count Darcy?
- Seventy-three,
seventy-four, seventy-five.
We got seventy-five bottles here.
- Great.
- It is and it isn't.
Check out the expiration date on there.
- What's wrong?
- Look, this batch goes
bad in three months.
We couldn't possibly use all this.
- What are we gonna do?
- I mean we could give
some to our close friends
but we gotta be careful.
- What do you think
our friends would talk?
Even if we asked them not to?
- Our friends? Could definitely talk.
- What're we gonna do?
(rattles)
(upbeat music)
[Troy Voiceover] We
decided to cover our bases
and drop them anonymously.
(buzz)
(music drowns out speaker)
So many people reaching
to the stars now.
Searchin' the sky to
find the heavenly side
Wantin to wake up to a new tomorrow.
Wishing that they could
leave the past behind.
Too much confusion, too much of
everything has crossed my mind.
Such disillusion.
From now on I'm taking mine
(car alarm)
One day at a time.
I'm walking the line.
I know that everything is
gonna work out just fine.
(baby cries)
One day at a time.
I'm walking the line.
Everything is gonna be just fine.
- D64. What is this some
kind of a sick joke?
Who are you?
- It's a gift.
- Nobody gives this stuff away.
(cocks gun)
Get outta here before I catch you again.
Take your gift.
- So many positives have been victimized
by hustlers and cheats
lookin to make a fast buck.
It's a wonder they have any trust left.
- So what do we do. We
just stop givin it away?
- We still have a case left.
- We can't continue to snake around it.
Eventually, someone's gonna recognize us.
- How bout giving it to a buyers club?
- Harold may not speak much,
but when he does, it pays to listen.
[Tony Voiceover] A buyers
club is a life line
for HIV. You can purchase drugs in bulk
and sell them at a decent
amount to its members.
(music drowns out speaker)
Most AIDS patients on their last legs
end up (music drowns out speaker)
Buyer's clubs pass things on as well.
Selling one fix drug could solve
their distribution problem.
We gave our stolen D64
Why didn't we rob any buyers clubs?
That's a pretty stupid question.
(phone ringing)
[Answering machine
Answers] Hi, this is Troy
leave a message and I'll call you back.
- [Duke] Troy, Troy pick up.
Please look on channel 12.
- Yeah. Duke, what's up?
Okay, okay, just a sec.
[Television Reporter]
What makes this robbery
so unusual is that the suspects ignore
the cash register and most of the drugs.
In fact, they stole
specific items including
D64, a new antiviral AIDS compound.
Sources say much
Sources tell channel 12 that
police have new leads in this case.
Although, a similar robbery
was reported last week.
And in both cases, a red
AIDS awareness ribbon
was pinned on the pharmacist.
Could it have been a
statement by the robbers?
The police aren't saying.
This is Amy Scott reporting.
(TV clicks off)
- We're famous.
- You mean infamous?
- I prefer notorious.
- So long as we stay anonymous,
I don't care what they call us.
- You know it's just typical of my life.
I'm finally a celebrity
but I can't show my face.
- Oh and the world mourns a loss darling.
- Fame, so fleeting.
- I think it'd be a good idea
if we laid low for awhile.
- No way. We're just getting good.
- Troy's right. And we got
enough D64 for three months.
- No, no, no, no no, look
it's not about us anymore.
Think about all the people we're helpin
through the buyers club.
You know if that's not an excuse
to keep on going, I don't know what is.
And besides, I love doing this.
I mean, I haven't had a
high like this in years.
- Darcy, you won't find this high in jail.
- Oh fuck jail man.
I'm not afraid of getting busted.
I mean for the first time in my life,
I feel like I'm doing something good
by doing something bad.
- Yeah, that's easy for you to say.
You don't have someone
that depends on you.
- Yeah, well tell me
something, and be honest.
When was the last time
you felt this alive,
this validated, this...
- Empowered?
- Yeah.
I mean the cops in this
town are overwhelmed.
They solve less than 20% of all crimes.
- Where did you get those stats?
- I fucked a narc once.
Look, the point is, if we stop now
we lose all momentum, okay?
We can do another hit in
another couple of months.
We have the same chances of
getting caught then as we do now,
practically nothing, alright.
So, why wait?
- I hate it when you make sense.
So, what do ya say? You down?
- [Troy Voiceover] I've known Darcy
for almost twelve years and this was
the most amount of passion
I had ever heard from her,
what would you do?
(energetic music)
Over the next few weeks...
(speaker drowned out by background music)
(speaker drowned out by background music)
(techno music)
(salsa music)
- [News Reporter] The
governor has pronounced
the perpetrators as savages with guns
who've caused widespread terror.
However, there are those
who support the group
and herald them as the
Robin Hoods of the 90's.
- That's now man.
- Look, there's what's his name,
that guy.
- Jerry? Is that Jerry?
- Yeah, yeah, he came to the meeting.
- Uh huh.
- He's cute.
- What the bandits have done,
is draw attention to
the outrageous policies
of the drug conglomerates who for
years have been putting a price on life.
Their profits determine price.
It's about time someone stood up to them.
- Tell it like it is.
- I applaud the bandits and the righteous
work that they do.
To the Robin Hoods of our time,
the heroes of our generation.
- You better work Jerry.
- The bandits are doing something,
we all should have such
control in our lives.
- They're nothing but criminals.
- You prick, fuck you.
- In an interesting aside,
what does this tell us?
The HIV buyers club has
reported a phenomenal
surge in donations.
- Yeah, that'd be right.
- Police are investigating as we speak.
It's Megan Scott reporting live.
(cheering)
- My priorities are in permutation rates.
If there's a law to protect you,
there's a law to protect
the drug companies
and if that law's broken,
it's not gonna protect
you or anybody else.
- Okay people.
Please.
- Where's the compassion
- I got compassion, what are you...
- The laws ... we're the victims.
- Come on guys, we all know we never
get anything accomplished when we all
talk at once.
(group chatter)
- Shut the fuck up!
- Darcy Lindross, the enforcer.
- Okay, let's take a seat.
I thought we could start tonight's meeting
by discussing the NIH's
latest recommendation on diet.
- Forget that. Let's talk
about the Red Bandits.
- That's the Red Ribbon Bandits
you Geraldine Paige Wannabe.
- Well.
- I hear they're ex-cons from upstate.
- Regardless of who they are.
How does everyone feel
about what they're doing?
- I think it's wonderful the way they've
touched people's lives.
- Well, I don't.
Frankly, I think it's
a shame that it's taken
a group of lawless anarchists to finally
put the drug companies' feet to the fire.
- Hey, whatever works.
- Until they get caught, and then what?
- Wait a minute.
I mean here look. Here we
are trying to lead our lives
as normally as possible, okay?
We're gradually being
accepted in the world.
Now these bozos come along
(belch)
and cast all positives as vigilantes.
All it does is reinforce people's fears.
- Well, what about the protest?
And all the media coverage?
- No, no, no. That's the wrong kind Duke.
It's based on crime and false heroics.
- But, the drug companies.
- Look, if we want lasting change,
we have to do it within the system.
- You're so full of shit James.
- Hey, you know something?
Coming from you, that means
absolutely nothing to me.
- You know, fuck you yuppie scum.
- Why don't you grow up.
- Come on guys, we're here to support
not attack.
- All I know is I got
two free bottles of D64.
- Me too, I got two from Higher Law.
- And my T-Cell count has stabilized.
- Alright.
(applause)
- Right on.
- Can't you read between the lines?
Don't you see where the clubs are getting
these pills from?
- It's easy for you to criticize James,
you've got insurance. But the rest of us.
- People who need D64 have it now
that's what's important.
- And there's more to come.
I hope.
- What about we make the joint resolution
either praising or condemning
the Red Ribbon Robberies?
- Again, with the giant resolutions.
- All in favor of the bandits?
- Ridiculous.
- All opposed?
- Yeah.
- Great, the motion carries.
The support group Defiance
officially affirms
the work of the Red
Ribbon Bandits by a vote
of seven to one.
(applause)
- We made a joint resolution that no one
will ever hear about.
When we already know who's
forming this god given work.
You know Craig Jantzen?
In fact, I think everybody
here knows Craig.
- Get outta here.
- Wake up and smell the latte Francis.
- He got a few drinks
in him the other night
at Saddle Bar and let it
slip that he's involved.
- Oh great. Gay bar gossip,
the ultimate in reliability.
- I don't know. He
sounded pretty convincing.
- Francis, darling I can assure you that
Craig Jantzen is not a Red Ribbon Bandit.
- Oh, how can you be so sure?
- Because the guys a complete idiot.
- I personally don't think Craig Jantzen
is a Red Ribbon Bandit.
But, if any of you guys
do, feel free to thank him.
- Troy.
- The lesbian action committee
are waiting for the room
so, I suppose we can finish for tonight.
See you all next week.
And, if you wanna ring me,
feel free you know my number.
Take time...
(slow music)
- Well if it isn't Craig Jantzen.
- Well, well, well. Is it the
Wicked Witch of the wasted
without her broom no less.
What are you doing here in these parts?
- Hear you're calling
yourself a Red Ribbon Bandit.
- So what if I am?
- You know you always
were a real asshole Craig.
- Thank you.
- Let me give you a little.
(thud)
Come on, come on, you don't
wanna fight me you fuck?
(Groans)
You don't have the balls?
(groans)
I guess you do have balls. Yes you do.
Stop taking credit for
other people's work.
- Fucking crazy bitch.
God, do I hate women. I
do, I do, I do, I really do
I hate 'em.
- So did you hear about what happened
with Craig Jantzen?
- No.
- Four neo-nazis cornered
him outside the Saddle Bar
beat him to a pulp, okay.
- You heard there were four of them?
- Apparently Craig put up quite a fight,
he put two of them in the hospital.
- You can't tell me Craig
didn't have it coming?
- This gay bashing thing never stops.
Harold and I even keep a gun in the house.
- You smart.
- Can we get back to work please?
- Hey Darcy, saved some
of my codeine for you.
- Harold, thank you.
Harold you are the better
half in this relationship.
I'm only kidding.
- Hey Harold, you're looking great today.
- He's had his best week in months.
- D64 really helps.
See, I even ironed this shirt myself.
(laughter)
- What?
- No, nothing, nothing, you look great.
- Come on, let's get down to business.
- Okay, the inside, is
pretty straightforward.
But, because it's our biggest store yet
the time is gonna be a little tricky.
- How so?
- Well, we have to hit
it right when they open
before any customers come in.
- What time we talking?
- Six am.
- I don't know about that,
I don't know if I can get up that early.
- Come on Darcy, I mean you don't go
to bed until four anyway, just stay up.
- Six am, that's harsh.
Can't we just hit it at closing time?
- No, there could be customers inside
and we don't have the man power to
control that situation.
- I'll go.
I mean I wanna go.
I wanna help.
- Harold, I...I don't know.
Are you sure you're up to it baby?
- Yeah, yeah I think I am.
- But if something goes wrong
then we have to get out of there fast.
- I don't know, I think we
should take Harold along.
I mean he's been hearing our
conversations the whole time,
he knows the ropes, I mean you know?
- I promise I won't get in the way.
(kiss)
- You never cease to amaze me baby.
- Okay, Harold's in.
But, I still think we
should go in at dawn.
- Duke, you help us get the drugs until
it's time to get the car.
Harold, Harold. You
hold down the front door
until Duke comes to get 'ya.
Darcy.
- Troy, look I've been over
this ten times already alright?
I know what I'm doin', let's just do it.
- Yeah, let's light this candle.
- Okay,
(gun cocks)
let's go.
(engine revs)
- Did you hear that?
- Come on, get your mask on, let's go.
Come on.
(suspenseful music)
- Just wait right here,
I'll be back to pick you
up in 90 seconds okay?
- Don't move and we won't hurt you.
Come on, get in the corner.
Move it.
What are you fucking deaf?
Let's go, over here. Put your hands down.
Cover me.
(gasps)
- Where do you keep the D64?
- What?
- The D64, where do you keep it?
- Thirty seconds.
- Oh my god. You're them,
you're the Red Ribbon Bandits.
- That's right and unless you want us
to become the Red Ribbon Murderers,
you better tell us where the D64 is now.
- It's alphabetical, it's
over there on the right.
In the front.
- Fuck.
- I read all about you guys.
- Is there any more?
- There's two more cases in the back.
- Come on then.
- What are you doing?
(suspenseful music)
(glass crack on floor)
(heavy breathing)
- Got 'em, I'm outta here.
- Let's go, come on.
(gun cocks)
(gun fires)
- What the hell was that?
- It sounded like a gun.
- This much I know.
- Harold, come on buddy.
- What the hell is he doing?
- Where'd he get a gun?
- I don't know, don't ask me.
- Where's the chickens?
- There's no chickens here,
just put the gun down okay?
- Shit.
- Put the gun down.
- You don't understand.
- Yes, I understand. I
love you baby it's me.
Put the gun down okay?
- No, I can't, I can't.
- Yes, you can, just lower your arm.
- Put the fucking gun down!
(shrieks)
(gun fires)
(glass shattering)
- I got it.
- Come on.
Go get the car, go get the car.
(shouting)
Turn around baby, turn around.
(tires screeching)
(tires screeching)
Shit!
Fuck! I can't believe this.
- Harold, I'm here, I'm here.
- What happened?
- He had an attack okay?
- No shit.
- But, I thought the dementia
wasn't hittin him anymore.
- Shit, goddammnit!
- The D64!
- There's a big difference between having
full blown AIDS and
being HIV positive Troy!
You know maybe the stress just got to him.
I don't know.
(police siren)
- Oh fuck!
- What?
- We got a cop on our tail, that's what.
- Oh my god, what are we gonna do?
- I don't know.
- We're gonna lose him
that's what we're gonna do.
- Are you crazy?
I've got a sick man back here.
- Man, I knew he wasn't
up to this, I knew it.
- Watch, turn it!
(tires screeching)
- Did we lose him?
(police siren)
- No, no. Maybe, we should just pull over?
- I'm not going down without a fight.
Forget it. Now just turn it.
- Where, where, right or left?
- I don't know, just turn it.
- This is no good, this is no good.
(police siren)
- Go
(car honking)
- Hold onto your balls boys.
- Oh on, we can't do this.
- Floor it.
(car engine revs)
- We're gonna die, we're gonna die.
(suspenseful music)
- Troy, car look out!
There's a fucking car!
(crash)
(tires screeching)
(shrieking)
That was fun huh?
- I think I wet myself.
- Man, I must be out of my mind.
- Are we home yet?
- It appears that the
bandits are getting violent.
The bandits fired their
guns for the first time
in the robbery to save more drugs.
Using their firearms in an
apparent attempt to intimidate
the staff, they shot out a
mirror and a display case.
The sales clerk was cut
by some broken glass
but was not seriously injured.
And the bandits got away.
(somber music)
- Here you go baby.
That'll make you feel nice and warm.
[Troy] Over the next few days,
things started getting
a little out of hand.
- [News reporter]
Authorities have announced
a $10,000 award for any information
leading to the arrest and
conviction of the bandits.
In a related development.
Apothecary industries,
the manufacturer of D64
has announced a 15% price hike
for the miracle AIDS drug.
- This temporary elevation of the
base retail acquisition quotient
is directly related to the terrorism
now being perpetrated
on this organization.
- A protest was immediately
launched following
the announcement.
That's it from here.
Back to you in the studio Ted.
(somber music)
Someone is good to see.
But if you think of me.
- Mom, please.
Always know that I love you.
- We've been over this before.
It's not a phase.
Always know, that I love you.
Mom.
I'll be home for you.
- [Troy] Even I had trouble
getting back to normal.
I'll be home for you.
Then things really started going wrong.
- Yeah, hello. Police?
Look, I think I've got some information
on the Red Ribbon Bandits.
(knocking)
- Hey.
- Hey.
- Can I come in?
- Yeah.
(kisses)
- How you doin?
- Good.
- What you up to?
- Cleanin.
- Clean house is good, I love your house.
- Thanks. You wanna soda?
- You got any beer?
- No. No beer.
- Alright, I'll have a soda. You got Coke?
- Yeah.
- Good.
Wanna have sex with me?
(slams door)
I'm only kidding.
Come on, if you're not
gonna have sex with me
have it with somebody at least,
you're so damn uptight.
Thanks.
- What's so funny?
- I don't know. I was just thinking about
the look on that pharmacist's face
when you pinned the ribbon on his lapel.
You know on our first hit?
- If you're gonna talk about the robberies
you may as well leave now.
- Come on Troy.
- Darcy, we have been over this.
We got out last time by
the skin of our teeth.
It's time to call it quits.
- No, no, no. We can't go out that way
that's too weak.
- Why? I mean why can't we?
What do you wanna do?
You wanna do another
robbery so they can blame
another price hike on us?
- We couldn't afford this shit anyway.
- Well that makes me feel so much better.
- Look, I was talking
to Duke the other day.
He's down.
- God knows why.
I mean he was freaked
out about the last time.
- I know, he sure was, man.
- Look, it's a gorgeous day.
You wanna just go for a ride?
Let's get some fresh air.
- No, no, no. I gotta clean up.
- Oh come on. You can
clean anytime, clean later.
Just get outside. It's sunny out.
- Okay.
- Yeah.
(keys jingling)
(engine speeding by)
- This is special.
When you said "let's go for a ride"
I thought we would go to a park,
take in the sights before we go to jail.
But this...
Apothecary Industries?
No.
- Look. There's a single
guard at the front gate.
There's enough D64 in
there for half the city.
- I'm not listening to you.
- Come on Troy.
- No, Darcy!
- Where ya going? I mean wait a minute.
(scuffle)
Are you okay?
- Jeez. Damnit.
Great, I'm bleeding.
Now I'm officially a public menace.
I hope you're happy.
- Let me see it.
- Don't touch me.
- You're cut.
You know, my life was miserable
before we started all this.
I spent all my time getting stoned
out of my face and
feeling sorry for myself.
- You're such a picture of sobriety now.
- Look I feel good about me.
I feel good about all we've done.
We've taken control of our lives.
- Took control Darcy, past tense.
- No, no, no, no. It's not over yet.
- Darcy please.
I'd rather take my chance
with the lottery again
than having cops chase me around.
- I know you feel bad about
what happened last time.
- It was only the Vietnam robberies.
- Yeah, well.
This one's beautiful.
- No, no, no it's too dangerous.
- Precisely my point.
You've been our leader
from the very beginning.
Ultimately, we've always
followed your plan Troy.
We can't let Apothecary get
away with raising their prices.
Somebody has got to send them a message.
- What good would it do?
I mean, yeah, okay I agree with you.
There's probably a lot of D64 in there
and we could have our
biggest giveaway yet.
- Yeah.
- But it's finite.
I mean pretty soon we run out of pills
for ourselves and the clubs.
And then what?
We do another robbery, we
get caught, we go to jail.
Where does it end?
- It ends here.
With the big score, we pull this one off
and we pack it in.
- Famous last words.
- Troy, you've started
an important journey.
I mean at first it was about ourselves,
but it's grown.
- We've got people talkin
about prices, about access.
I mean yeah, maybe robbery's
not the most subtle way
to handle things.
But it's working okay?
We need closure, baby
don't give out on me now.
Come on, we need the grand finale.
Then we go home.
- Well this is big.
You know, how could they
blame the price hike on us?
- Fuckin unbelievable isn't it?
- And no one stands up to 'em.
- Pricks.
- I think somebody should
teach 'em a lesson.
- So you're saying you'll do it?
- I'm saying I never
really had a choice did I?
- No you didn't.
- Ow.
- I'm sorry.
- I talked him into it.
- You're kidding?
- No.
(screams)
- [Troy voiceover] After
we broke the news to Duke,
we started a plan.
(loudspeaker)
We knew we were really gonna have to have
our act together to pull this one off.
So we spent a lot of time
casing the place checking everything out.
- You got that.
- Yeah.
- Okay. This is the guy
I think he's the boss.
- Kind of cute.
- Him? Cute?
- Yeah, he ain't bad.
- You wouldn't go out
with a guy like that.
- Honey, the guy runs a drug warehouse.
Yes, I'd go out with him.
- [Troy Voiceover] There
was one last thing to do
before robbing Apothecary.
To see if they were
gonna give me D64 anyway.
(cheering)
- Cool, hey listen man,
let's get together tomorrow.
- Okay, yes!
- James?
- Troy, shit what are you doing here?
- Hey, I'm here every six months right?
Are you okay?
- No.
Have a seat.
- What's goin on?
- I'm in big trouble Troy.
- Talk to me.
- I just lost my D64.
- How? You're an up and coming lawyer
you have money, insurance
- No. My law firm carries full coverage
but I don't get my D64 that way.
- But the whole point...
- The whole point is that
if I take the drug from them
my firm will find out I have HIV
and in a matter of minutes my career
will be dead.
- They can't do that. There are laws.
- Yeah sure there are laws.
They probably won't fire me.
But I'll never make partner either.
- So now you're in the lottery.
- Yeah, I'm in the lottery.
- I've been paying for this
stuff out of my own pocket
for almost two years now.
My finances were a House of Cards before.
- James I'm so sorry.
- I was so
cavalier about HIV
ever since I was diagnosed.
I always thought I could cheat it somehow.
And when they introduced the D64,
I hatched up this brilliant scheme
to beat the whole system.
And now...
- And all the time you were
criticizing the bandits.
- I know can you believe that shit?
I feel like such an asshole.
- Look, don't worry.
I'll get you some D64.
- You will?
- Yeah.
- How?
- I'll tell the bandits you need some.
- You know who they are?
- Is it Craig Jantzen?
- Craig Jantzen? In his dreams.
- Well who then?
- I can't tell ya that.
Let's just say they're
another group of people
who hatched a scheme to beat the system.
[Troy Voiceover] I felt sorry for James.
I truly did. When you're positive,
having D64 and losing it is much worse
than never having it at all.
(somber music)
- Craig
- Craig
- Craig Jantzen
- Who wants to know?
- Detective Bjorkin.
This is Detective Bones.
- We wanna talk to you about
the Red Ribbon Bandits.
- Look honey, I don't
even have time for this.
- This is really important Craig.
Just find the time, won't take long.
- I'll even give you a ride.
- Look, I really think
you're making a mistake here.
- If we are, we'll give
you a formal apology, okay?
Now watch your head. Easy now.
There we go, atta boy.
(door slams)
(fingers tapping)
- Can I have a cigarette?
I mean don't you guys give out cigarettes
in situations like these?
Thank you.
(coughs)
- You sure are smooth with that Craig.
- I think I'm gonna be sick.
(coughs)
- You gonna tell us the truth Craig?
- Look, I've told you.
I was just bragging in a bar.
- Bragging about the robberies?
- No, no, no. I was
just trying to get laid.
I had nothing to do with the red ribbons.
I wasn't even in town for most of them.
- Come on Craig, you
can do better than that,
that's what they all say.
I was in San Francisco on the sixteenth.
- You expect us to believe that?
Maybe we should rough him up a bit.
- No! I hate women.
Okay.
Look
I had nothing to do with them.
I'm not involved at all,
but, I think I know who did.
- Really now?
- Yes.
You see there's this girl who, well
she's this crazy, fucking bitch right
she beat the shit out of me one night.
And, I was drunk.
She took advantage of that fact.
- I bet that.
- I may be a queen,
but honey I can scratch
with the best of 'em.
- I could tell that.
- So anyway, this girl...
- So, what's her name?
- Darcy.
- Darcy? She have a last name?
- Trollop.
(suspenseful music)
- [Troy Voiceover] We decided to go in
on a Sunday morning when the place
would be at its least busy.
Strangely, none of us were nervous.
(clanging)
Maybe I should've taken that as a sign.
(car passing)
- Harold. What are you doing here?
- Harold's coming with us.
- Oh look, I don't know.
We tried this once before
and it didn't work out
if you recall.
You're not for nothing Harold but...
- Don't worry, I'll stay in the van okay?
- We're a package deal Darcy.
- Duke goes down I have
to be there with him.
- Troy?
- Well it is our last hit
and I searched him and
he doesn't have his gun.
- Don't worry, I'll be cool.
- Alright, let's do it.
- Help me!
Please help me.
- What the...
- Help me
(crying)
- Are you okay?
- No, help me.
- It's okay, we'll get you some help.
(thud)
(groans)
- You, just stay put and
I won't hurt you, okay?
(grunting)
- How'd it go?
- Alright.
Taking out men seems to
be a specialty of mine.
- That's my girl. Let's do it.
(typing)
- That's strange.
(suspenseful music)
(groans)
(thud)
- Okay guys, we're clear.
(groaning)
- How do you turn off security?
- I don't know.
(thud, groan)
- We could make this easy or
we could make this difficult
now what's it gonna be mother fucker?
- Over there. It's on the table.
- Alright, go.
- To the right, it's in there.
- Got it?
(suspenseful music)
- Where, is he?
(thud)
- You just be quiet, and
I won't hurt you okay?
I'm gonna go find the other guard alright?
- Okay go. Stay on the radio.
- Be right back.
- Duke, what's the story out back?
- No guard. Repeat, no guard.
(static)
- The other guard's not at his post.
- Oh man. Yeah, guard three's missing too.
- We got a problem.
- Stay put and keep out of sight.
- God, I think I'm getting a rash.
- Christ, Duke. We're together
and we're gonna be calm.
(slam)
(talking in background)
- You hear that?
- Yeah, what do you think it is?
- I don't know.
- Come on, let's go.
(noise in background)
(grunts)
(grunting)
- It's them.
- Okay.
- On three.
- Okay.
(door swinging open)
- Freeze!
- Who the hell are you guys?
- Put your hands up.
Hell, keep 'em where they are.
- Now I've seen it all. Come on.
- We got 'em guys, bring the van around.
- Where were they?
- You would not believe it.
- Goddamnit Quinton,
you always take so long.
- Shut up Lawrence!
- Sorry boys, I really am.
Hope you were using your condoms.
Let's get out of here.
(grunting)
(clanging door opening)
(door slams shut)
- Damn.
(footsteps)
Wow.
- This is big.
- It's kinda like finding
a needle in a haystack.
There's a lot of drugs here.
- Come on. We gotta find Duke and Harold.
- Yeah.
(rattling)
Come back.
Cut it.
(thud)
- Hey, what was that all about?
- Later.
- Let's get to the phone.
(grunting)
- Let's go.
(heels walking)
- Hurry back.
(dramatic music)
(beeping)
- Hello? Hello?
We need help at Apothecary
Industries. Right now.
(engine slows)
- Is this the place?
- Two, two, six eight.
- [Police Radio] Attention all
units, attention all units.
Two eleven in progress,
Apothecary Industries.
Please respond.
- Isn't that a drug warehouse?
- Go, go, go, go!
(police siren)
Detective responding to two
eleven Apothecary Industries.
(music slows)
- Oh my god!
(ecstatic music)
You guys, we got it! We got it!
(screaming)
(music drowns out speaker)
(cheering)
- I've never seen so much D64.
- It's the motherload.
- Boxes, it's heavy.
- Okay.
- Man, the buyer's club's gonna bug out.
(laughter)
- Okay.
- You alright Troy?
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
(grunts)
(police sirens)
(thud)
- Say drugs.
- Hold on, hold on.
Drugs.
(camera click)
(suspenseful music)
- The last one.
- Alright, good work.
(hands clapping)
Well, if you don't mind.
I'm gonna go grab me a little
somethin in aisle seven.
I'll be quick.
(heels clicking)
- Hey Troy.
- Yeah?
- Thanks.
- Thank you.
Now, let's get this stuff in the van.
(door slamming open)
- Shit.
- Hey you guys, say Liza.
- Liza.
- We got trouble.
- What are we gonna do Troy?
- Duke, get in the van.
- Harold, start it up.
- Freeze.
Drop the gun now.
- Fuck you.
(tires screeching)
(thud)
(gun firing)
- Jesus Christ Troy,
they are shooting at us.
(suspenseful music)
(cocking gun)
- Damn.
(gasps)
- Driver of the van. Take
the keys out of the ignition
and put your hands where I can see them.
- Like the lady said. Fuck you.
(shots firing)
- Duke, I want you to get to the van.
I mean that cop is gonna figure out
that Harold is unarmed.
And then I want you to
get the hell out of here.
- But you and Darcy.
- No buts, just do as I say.
- I can't do that Troy, I can't.
- Duke, this is gonna end badly
no matter which way you look at it.
At least let's get the drugs out, okay?
(gun cocks)
- Troy, Troy.
- I know.
Come on, I'll cover ya.
(whispering)
(multiple gunshots fired)
(tires screeching)
(suspenseful music)
(thud)
- Hold it.
(panting)
- You're trapped, there's no way out.
Put the gun down.
Put your hands up where I can see them.
I just have one question for you.
Why?
- You don't know?
- I know what the media says,
I wanna here it from you.
- You see? That's the problem.
If you have to ask, you
just don't understand.
- You wanna be a hero right?
- I'm no hero.
- Drop the gun.
- Bones?
- Don't you fuck me.
I'm one seriously crazed bitch right now.
- What are you gonna do?
- What are you waiting
for a fucking invitation?
Drop the gun.
Drop the gun.
(clanging)
Use these.
Get down.
- This is crazy. Both of you.
You're not gonna get away with it.
You know that.
- Maybe.
But that doesn't scare me anymore.
Nothing does.
I got it.
- Come on.
- You alright?
- Shit.
(mellow music)
- [Troy Voiceover] We'd started
out with selfish reasons.
- Yeah, nothing in there. False alarm.
- No problem. Thank you.
- [Troy Voiceover] But quite accidentally,
we ended up helping hundreds of people.
It started a debate on
the whole issue of access.
Did the end justify the means?
(exhales)
I guess it depends on who you ask.
A month after the warehouse caper
Apothecary Industries
lowered the price of D64
and announced an expansion of their
indigent drug program.
They said it had nothing to do with us
but they were getting so
much heat from the press
they had no choice.
So, for the vast majority of positives.
The answer is yes.
(hopeful music)
Even James agrees with that now.
Duke and Harold wound up getting away
from the warehouse without any trouble.
- Is there somebody there now?
- [Troy Voiceover] They made anonymous
deliveries all over the city the next day.
They're still going strong.
And no, they never did
have to cash in their
life insurance policy.
- We did it again.
(laughter)
I love you.
- I love you too.
(laughter)
(distant conversation)
- Okay we're set.
(cheers)
- [Troy Voiceover] Darcy
had a little more trouble.
The cops knew who she was so
she couldn't stick around.
- Red Ribbon
- [Troy] She took to the open
road living a biker's life.
I think she actually preferred
it to living conventionally.
I still hear from her once in awhile.
She even went to an AA meeting once.
But got into a fight with the
chapter leader, that Darcy.
And me?
Well everyone knows what happened to me.
- Let's go, wrap it up.
- I can't say I was
surprised when they caught up
with me in San Francisco.
And the jury gave me a fair shake.
What I did was wrong.
With any luck, I should be
outta here in five years.
I'm paintin every day.
And because of all the media attention,
people actually wanna buy my art now.
I suppose the biggest irony of it all
is the state of California
mandates D64 for all its prisoners.
Can you believe it?
(exhales)
And after all that craziness.
Anything else?
- [Journalist] Yeah,
would you do it again?
- Would I do it again?
- Hi Troy.
Troy.
- Hey.
- Have you heard the news?
There's a new drug, A67.
They're saying it might be a cure.
(laughter)
- [Troy Voiceover] Would I do it again?
You bet.
(uplifting music)
We're all connected.
Part of each other right or wrong.
We're all a family.
Together weak, together strong.
Everybody needs some help.
We all need someone else.
When the day is blue,
it's just me and you.
I will stand beside you, hold you up.
Turn to me whenever times get tough.
I'm your helping hand.
We can lift each other, you and me.
Be the strength in ever need.
I'm your helping hand.
I'm your helping hand.
And when a tree falls.
Somebody's got to hear its sound.
If there's a shadow. Somewhere
glistening from the ground.
Well it's up to me and
you to make our destiny.
Destiny comes true. Everything we do.
I will stand beside you. Hold you up.
Turn to me whenever time gets tough.
I'm your helping hand.
We can lift each other you and me.
Be the strength you'll ever ever need.
I'm your helping hand.
I'm your helping hand.
Spinning, spinning,
spinning out of control.
Then one day, the ride just ends.
But when it all comes
down we will never know.
We just start it up again.
I'm your helping hand.
I will stand beside you hold you up
Turn to me whenever times get tough.
I'm your helping hand.
I'm your helping hand.
(Multicom jingle)