Mike Downey

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Jumpman

Jumpman

Dennis is a young man in modern-day Moscow who knows how to get by.

He has just left a psychiatric clinic, where he was treated, unsuccessfully, for a rare disease: a total numbness to pain. He lives with his mother, who tries to appear younger than her age. She is divorced, and Dennis seems to be the only man in her life.

At home, Dennis needs to find a way to support his mother’s rather lavish lifestyle. He becomes part of a scam operation with a group of friends who consist of a policeman, a doctor and a local judge. Dennis ’jumps’ on cars, faking accidents, before his partners make his victims pay in order to avoid prosecution. It all seems fun and harmless, as no one really goes to jail, and the friends can make a decent living.

But one day, Dennis falls in love with one of his victims, Anna. It is a passionate love affair, and not one accepted by Dennis’ mother who confronts the girl and kicks her out of the house. Dennis may not have the inner strength to protect Anna and their evolving relationship.
But with their encounter, he miraculously starts feeling not just love, but pain. This is a wake-up call for him. He starts to look around and acknowledge the corrupt scheme he - possibly inadvertently - has become a part of. He begins to take actions in order to stop the scam.

However, when their profitable actions are threatened to be compromised, the so-called friends turn their backs on Dennis.
Once he tries to rebel, they arrange for him to be locked back in the psychiatric clinic, falsely claiming that he is very dangerous. His infantile mother doesn’t have the strength to fight the situation. And tragically, Dennis will not survive in the clinic. With his eyes and feelings now open to society’s injustice and corruption, it is too painful for him to remain in this world.