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Southland Tales
On July 4, 2005, El Paso and Abilene, Texas are destroyed and hundreds of thousands are killed by twin nuclear attacks, sending the United States into a state of a Third World War, with the government re-introducing the draft. The PATRIOT Act extends authority, due to the overwhelming victory of the Republican Party, to US-IDENT, a new agency which keeps constant surveillance on citizens. In response to the recent fuel shortage in the wake of global warfare, the German company Treer designs "Fluid Karma", a generator of inexhaustible energy, which is propelled by the perpetual motion of ocean currents. Treer scientist Baron Von Westphalen seeks world domination using the leverage of his energy machine.
In 2008 Los Angeles, Senator and GOP Vice-Presidential candidate Bobby Frost (who also seeks the presidency itself) presides over the opening of US-IDENT with his wife, Nana Mae Frost, installed as its director. Right-wing film star Boxer Santaros awakens on the beach with amnesia after a three-day disappearance. He does not remember his marriage to Senator Frost's daughter Madeline, and has instead begun an affair with former porn star turned-talk show host Krysta Now.
Meanwhile, a group of Neo-Marxist revolutionaries composed of Cyndi Pinziki, Zora Carmichaels and Ronald Taverner hatch a plan to turn the national spotlight against US-IDENT. They have kidnapped Ronald's twin brother, police officer Roland, and plan to outfit Ronald in his uniform and car in order to stage a racially motivated double-murder. They have Boxer bring a video camera as he goes with Ronald, under the guise of preparing for a police officer role for his screenplay. Ronald responds to a staged domestic disturbance call where Neo-Marxists Dream and Dion, disguised as newlyweds, fake an argument. Unexpectedly, another cop, Bart Bookman arrives on the scene, murders Dream and Dion, and takes the camera. Bookman is revealed to be in cahoots with Zora when she later attacks Ronald with fluid karma, leaving him unconscious in the street.
The next day, Krysta stops by Zora's apartment and takes the videotape of the double murder, mistaking it for her sex tape. At the Santa Monica beach, she puts it in a Neo-Marxist dropbox, leading to the contents later being made public, and Zora and Bookman are shot dead by police while attempting to steal back the tape. Boxer arrives at the beach and meets Starla, who called him earlier posing as a character from his screenplay, and threatens to kill herself if he does not allow her to perform oral sex on him. Iraq War veteran Private Pilot Abilene shoots her dead from his perch at the top of the pier and Boxer runs off, only to be confronted by supposed friend Fortunio, who knocks him unconscious and returns him to the Frosts.
Nearby, Ronald awakens and sets out to find his brother. He encounters a young man named Martin Kefauver in an SUV and stops him from killing himself to avoid the draft, and the two go out in search for Roland, who earlier escaped the Neo-Marxist headquarters during a US-IDENT raid, only to be captured by Walter Mung, an ice cream truck-based arms dealer.
The Frosts and the city prepare for an upper-class party on Von Westphalen's Mega- Zeppelin to celebrate its launch. Boxer leaves the main hall of the ship in search of answers, and finds a room with three of Westphalen's scientists, who explain that he was selected to travel through a time rift in the desert at the time of his disappearance, and is, in fact, his future self. The scientists show him the corpse of his past self, who they say killed himself. Boxer asserts that his suicide is impossible because he is a "pimp", and "pimps don't commit suicide." One of the scientists also states that dire consequences would unfold if two identical human souls were to make physical contact. Boxer presses Serpentine for details, revealing that Boxer was actually murdered in a car bomb and that Roland was the one who kidnapped Boxer and drove him through the rift. She also confirms that Roland and Ronald are the same person, with his past and present self coexisting.
Outside where the city is, as a firefight ensues between rioters and the police, both Taverners crash into each other. Roland is shot in the eye but survives. Inside the ice cream truck, the Taverners hold hands, causing the truck to rise into the air along with Kefauver, who stands on top with a shoulder-mounted heat-seeking ground-to-air missile. US-IDENT headquarters is raided by Fortunio and rioters who kill Nana Mae Frost. Inside the Zeppelin, Boxer returns to the main hall and takes the stage for a dance number involving Krysta and his wife, Madeline. He interrupts the number to order an evacuation, or else he will kill himself. Kefauver fires a rocket at the Zeppelin, destroying it, and jumps off the truck. As the Taverners continue to hold hands, a time rift begins to grow in the sky. Roland threatens Ronald with suicide if he does not let go and tells him to "remember Fallujah". Ronald replies that it was not their fault, with Roland conceding that it was friendly fire. Abilene narrates that a new age is beginning, with Roland as its Messiah, concluding that he is a "pimp" and that "pimps don't commit suicide."