Drop Back Ten

Writer Pete Barnes (James LeGros) has his job at the daily paper and his girlfriend. In a slump, he cashes in a favor and gets an assignment to do a puff piece for an upscale magazine on the hot new actor, Spanks Voley (Desmond Harrington). He travels on location to a small town in Delaware but is kept as bay by the producer and a swarm of wranglers, who are in full spin control over their star. When Spanks turns up bloodied from a supposed mishap behind a local restaurant, the tide of events begins to turn. Pete is a journalist with an uncanny ability to evoke confessions from interview subjects, and soon both Spanks and a mysterious young woman confide information that changes a simple assignment into a story that deeply affects Pete's life.

Stacy Cochran's comic, yet insightful, observations about human nature evolve from the characters who surprise us with their unexpected, yet authentic, courses of action. Structurally, she makes imaginative use of multiple narratives, each character unwittingly revealing another intriguing layer of deception. In particular, a beautiful woman holds the key to Spank's past and can make Pete do the one thing he knows he shouldn't - become personally involved with his subjects. Unfortunately for Spanks, skeletons which are not buried deep enough in the closet can come back to haunt you. Drop Back Ten is a fascinating study of what people will do when exposed to media attention.