SHORT SYNOPSIS (click here for full synopsis)

Old Man Riley is happily typing away on his laptop, as he does every day. His Twitter account has over 600,000 followers. He is a widower with two adult sons who have disappointed him. We see scenes of Riley in a nearby park, shopping and in his apartment tweeting on his laptop.

In one morning scene, we show Old Man Riley walk into a doctor’s office, then leave, slumped. We fade to him in front of his computer: he has a terminal illness. His tweets remain positive, but are mixed with regret for the things he wishes he could have done, acts of gifting or sharing.

Old Man Riley sends out a tweet that shocks everyone. He has recently amassed a fortune of over ten million dollars, and tweets his intention to give his followers a chance to become the beneficiary of his entire fortune.

To get it they must perform a series of tasks – so he can choose the follower he believes will do the right thing with his money. He asks them to videotape each task and post them on YouTube.

Old Man Riley’s greedy sons find out about their father’s fortune. We show them discussing their plan to visit their father to convince him to discontinue this Twitter nonsense, and transfer his fortune to them.

Old Man Riley begins tweeting contest tasks out over Twitter, and reviewing submitted videos, all of them acts of generosity and helpfulness. The contest continues.

Riley’s sons arrive at his home, where they learn the improbable story of his fortune, from a Nigerian scam email that turned out not to be a scam.

Cut to followers of Old Man Riley, completing their tasks and uploading videos.

The next day the sons return to their father’s home with an attorney. Old Man Riley is nowhere to be found. We see him with his devoted home nurse as she dashes through a nearby park behind his wheelchair, Riley with a suitcase of money on his lap.
 
His sons finally locate him in the park. They wrestle the suitcase away from Riley’s nurse then make their getaway, only to find out the suitcase contains nothing but old family photos and a cheese sandwich.

Riley tweets his final challenge to the ten remaining contestants. The task is for each of them to face their greatest fear.

Riley’s follower count continues to increase, not only because of this amazing multi-million-dollar contest, but also because everyone loves his caring and hilarious tweets. He breaks 1,000,000 followers. His story gets featured in news reports nationally, and he’s in high demand for interviews – but does not even realize it

His sons bribe one of Riley’s Twitter followers to trick Riley into saying where he is.

Riley asks his nurse to videotape a message for him. He reveals the winner.

The sons discover Riley’s location. Old Man Riley tweets on his iPhone an urgent message to his followers. He lets it be known that he and his dear nurse are in danger.

Riley sees a series of tweets online about himself, relating to a live news story. He is trending – to the very top! On TV he sees a group of people forming in the parking lot of the hotel, demanding to save Riley and the nurse. They chant, “We love you Old Man Riley!”

The police arrive at the hotel and arrest the bad sons.
 
We cut to a scene filmed in the old man’s apartment. Old Man Riley has died. The nurse sees a letter on the nightstand and reads it. Riley instructs her to go to the person who won his fortune. That person hands her a check for five million dollars.

RILEY’S MESSAGE IS REVEALED THROUGH HIS VIDEO AT END OF MOVIE WITH SONG IN BACKGROUND SOFTLY PLAYING – AN INSPIRATIONAL SONG WHICH STANDS FOR EVERYTHING TWITTER COULD BE.

Riley speaks of his greatest lifelong fear: to love deeply. He reveals that ‘The Quest for Riley’s Fortune’ was Riley’s search for his own inner treasure, the only gold he could take with him into death.

The movie closes with a montage of many loving tributes for Old Man Riley. All for the old man who wasted his time loving people on Twitter.

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FULL SYNOPSIS

The movie begins with a scene of Old Man Riley happily typing away on his laptop, as he does every day. His Twitter account has over 600,000 avid followers who enjoy his entertaining and heartfelt stream of tweets about life. Through the years he has grown close to many of those followers, and feels as though they are his only real family.

Old Man Riley is a widower with two adult sons who have disappointed him. They are greedy, unkind, and nothing like the wholesome, genuine people he tweets with each day on Twitter. He has not spoken with either son in years. Through a series of his tweets, Old Man Riley reveals his anguish over the rift in his family, though he is consoled by memories of his recently departed and beloved second wife. It is his genuine and open nature which endears his followers to him.

We see scenes of Old Man Riley walking through a park, shopping and moving about his little apartment. Mostly, we see him in front of his laptop, happily tweeting. We are given the impression that Old Man Riley lives humbly, is lonely and has limited financial resources.

Through his tweets, it becomes easy for us to understand why the old man is so loved by the Twitter community; how his account grew so huge. His tweets are engaging, funny, insightful, and always kind – commonly retweeted.

Through a montage of shots we see people receiving his tweets, scenes depicting his followers reading his tweets at various times and places:

One follower is shown pulling off the road on her way to work to respond to his tweets. Another is shown interrupting preparation of dinner for her family to send Old Man Riley a tweet, resulting in burning the meal. Another follower responds to an Old Man Riley tweet while on horseback, etc.

In one morning scene, we show Old Man Riley walk into a doctor’s office, then leave it, slumped. We fade to him in front of his computer:

He sends out a series of tweets which give his followers the impression he has little time remaining: he has a terminal illness.

His tweets remain positive, but are occasionally mixed with a lament for all the things he wishes he could have done in his life, almost all of them acts of gifting or sharing. He encourages his followers to make each day count and to make every person count even more. His twitter account is constantly flooded with mentions and touching messages by DM. He informs his followers they are his only true family and that he loves them all, the biggest family in the whole wide world.

Old Man Riley then sends out a tweet that shocks everyone. He informs his followers he has quietly amassed a fortune of over $5,000,000 dollars. He informs them that his final wish in life will be tweeted at midnight in his time zone, and that it may change the life of any of his followers who read it, anywhere on the planet.

Near midnight we see a montage of eager followers awaiting the arrival of Old Man Riley’s life-changing tweet. We focus on these followers as they receive the tweet. Their expressions are of shock and amazement. What is tweeted is an announcement by Old Man Riley that his intention is to give each of them a chance to become the beneficiary of his entire fortune.

In order to get it they must perform a series of tasks – so that he will be able to choose the lucky follower he most believes will do the right thing with his fortune. He informs his followers how he will judge the authenticity of each task and asks them to perform and videotape each one and post them on YouTube, with a direct message to him with the link.

Old Man Riley’s two greedy sons find out about their father’s fortune – a fortune they had no idea existed. In their minds that money belongs to them, since they are his own sons after all, not some stranger on a computer! We show them discussing their plan to visit their father to convince him to discontinue his “insane Twitter nonsense,” and transfer his fortune to them.

The next day, a tweet announcing the first task is tweeted by Old Man Riley:

The task instruction is that each participating follower must be videotaped as they assist an elderly person across a busy street. We then show various scenes from different followers performing the assigned task. We show some elderly people being resistant to help. We show some being suspicious of the kindness shown; even threatening to call the police. Others are shown as shocked to receive the help, but grateful, nonetheless.

In one tweet, Old Man Riley asks that each follower go to a homeless person and sit and talk to them for a while, to treat them as a friend and worthwhile human being. Also that they must ask them for their name, and remember it.

In another they are told to track down a tweeter in their stream who sounded sad or lonely to them, and to send them 3 friendly and uplifting tweets, including one inspirational quote they found specifically for that person.

In another they are told to find a neglected young boy or boys and play catch or kickball or any game with them and go get ice cream afterward, or a cheese sandwich.

Old Man Riley informs his followers that with each task assigned, there is a time limit – that only those who complete the task within the deadline can move forward to the next task or challenge. We show scenes of Old Man Riley reviewing various videotaped tasks and responding to them. A scene of him taking people off his list as they fail to upload.

Old Man Riley’s two greedy sons finally arrive at his home. They confront him with their knowledge of his new fortune and demand to know how he managed to amass so much money. Old Man Riley innocently tells them his story, beginning with the tale of how he obtained his first computer four years prior, and how he learned from his homeless friend Joe how to create and use his very own email account.

We then cut to Nigeria (a dimly lit room with the subtitle Nigeria). We show a character of Nigerian descent, Mohammed, sitting at his desk with a newspaper. Another Nigerian character, named Babki, is sitting next to him. We see the headline of the newspaper which reads: Nigerian Government to Seize all Resident Assets!

Mohammed receives a call. We hear Mohammed telling his caller he doesn’t know how he is going to secure his trust account which holds millions of dollars. The person on the other end provides him his answer.

Mohammed hangs up and turns to his friend Babki:

“There is only one way I can secure my fortune. I have to transfer the money to America.”

His friend is puzzled and questions Mohammed:

“How can that be done? We cannot even touch the money. You’ve seen the news, you know what happens now in our country!”

Mohammed responds by explaining the idea presented to him by the person to whom he just spoke. The explanation that ensues is designed to make the moviegoer remember those old e-mails that often rode the spam waves and still do (the Nigerian scams). Ultimately they devise a final plan which includes sharing a portion of the money with an American who agrees to assist them.

We cut back to Old Man Riley’s followers trying to complete his next assigned task which is a bit tougher. The next task involves greeting and getting to know an assigned number of unknown neighbors and doing a favor for each one. We see doors being slammed in faces, people being chased by dogs, people caught in water sprinklers – even one person is shotgunned by an irate shy neighbor and must be deleted from the list by a tearful Riley.

(Remember, this is not just a couple of hundred people going on Riley’s Quest, but tens of thousands of followers – many very short clips in all cultures across the world.)

Back to Nigerian story. We show a scene in which the Nigerians are still working on their devious plan to transfer their fortune in bribed funds to America. Babki is slumped back in his chair, exhausted. Mohammed reads to him an e-mail they have written as part of their plan to solicit an American to assist them.

Greetings dear Frend:

First, I must solisit your striktest confidence in this confidental transaction. I have the striktest confidence in your multiple ability to exepute this transaction which is of the utmost severe confidentiality please. We are of high-level government officials who have many millions of our U.S. dollars traped in Nigeria. Due to over-invoicing in sume setors, the Nigerian government is cezing all bisiness-related acounts.

We are seeking $10,000 American dollars for the exception of receipt. Upon receipt of muney we will commence the official severe transaction with 7 banking days. We have the utmost urgent confidence in your trusting ability to confide in no one please doring this confidental transaction. Very please, thank you.

Yours faithfully, Dr. M. Clement Oman

Note: Please use the following reverence number in our future emails: XXXXXXX

Mohammed looks at Babki and they both smile.

“I think this will work!” Babki shouts.

Mohammed inquires as to which American e-mail accounts they should send their e-mail. Babki informs Mohammed that his friend could send the e-mail to a large list of American e-mail accounts.

Fast forward in time:

We show several Americans receiving the Nigerian e-mail, and scenes in which the e-mail is referred to as a scam and deleted. Some tweet about “another crazy Nigerian scam spam.” The only person who does not delete the Nigerian e-mail is Old Man Riley.

He responds to it, in his own innocent way. Through a series of scenes the transaction is completed. Old Man Riley receives his share of the money, which he invests in a startup owned by that old homeless friend of his, and by pure luck it swiftly grows to an amount exceeding $5,000,000 dollars.

Cut back to prior scene: Old Man Riley is finishing his story of the fortune to his two greedy sons. They both stand dumbfounded, one drooling.

Cut back to Twitter followers of Old Man Riley, completing their tasks: We see them uploading their videos to Old Man Riley’s website per instructions. Some followers are uploading their videos as their new-found friends (neighbors they met on their tweet-quest) proudly stand behind them.

The two sons are now playing hardball with their father, bouncing insults off his ailing head:

Old Man Riley is lying back on his bed, in a weakened state of health, laptop on his weary tummy, as his two sons strive angrily to convince him to transfer his fortune to them – his flesh and blood. In fact, one son gets so irate he reaches over and yanks the laptop cord from the wall.

“How do you like that, pops? No more Twitter for you, you crazy old man!”

The other son continues with his own angry outburst. “We give you until tomorrow to come to your senses, Dad. If not, we’ll get a court order and have you committed to State Mental, along with your precious computer and those stupid greedy followers! Tweet that, Dad!”

At this point a new character, the home nurse, an engaging and attractive woman, enters the room. The two sons tone down the insults and promptly leave, but not before they give their father a pair of furious, if not especially intelligent, stares.

The home nurse is loving and kind. She and Old Man Riley immediately connect at a heart level. We show a scene in which they discuss family and life in a heart-to-heart chat, some of Riley’s regrets, what he’s learned.

The next day the two sons return to their father’s home with a corrupt attorney. Old Man Riley is nowhere to be found.

We see him with the nurse as she dashes through a nearby park behind his wheelchair, chase music hot on their heels. They stop long enough for Riley to view on her iPhone the latest videos from the challenge.

From the park, Old Man Riley tweets out his next challenge:

His followers must wash cars for charity. The task is to spend four hours washing cars. All the money raised must go to a local charity. We then show a series of videos of his followers washing cars, getting wet, angering people, making friends, having fun, etc..

Cut to Old Man Riley on the bus. He is watching videos that have been uploaded by his followers.

Next, we fast forward to Old Man Riley in a hotel room. He is removing from his list the names of those who did not upload in time, or only uploaded a joke or an insult.

Meanwhile, his incompetent sons are shown blundering after their father. After searching his house they discover a bank account receipt which confirms that Old Man Riley has emptied his account and taken it in cash.

The next task becomes a bit more involved. The followers are asked to select one of their prized possessions at home and donate it to a local charity. They must videotape the entire process: deciding on which item in their home, and delivering it to the charity they choose themselves, with the reason why.

Old Man Riley and his nurse are staying just a few steps ahead of his avaricious and pin-headed sons. The list of followers that have completed tasks and challenges is growing shorter and shorter. Old Man Riley remains confident he will find the right person to receive his fortune.

In his next task, Riley tells his followers they must apologize to someone they either lied to, hurt, or took advantage of at some point in their lives. It is after this task, Old Man Riley announces, that he will select the final ten people who will qualify to receive his fortune.

He tweets the final ten, along with a brief mention as to why they were chosen.

Getting closer to the final challenge:

We show clips in which Old Man Riley’s Twitter followers are making their apologies to those they have hurt in the past. Reactions vary wildly. Some people react poorly, with bitterness or anger or even violence. Others hug, laugh, and even cry.

Back to Old Man Riley:

His two greedy sons finally locate him in the park. They wrestle a suitcase containing the money away from Riley’s nurse and destroy their father’s laptop in a clumsy yet funny set piece. They make their getaway in a beat up old car, flinging curses at their broken-hearted father.

Old Man Riley, in a very weakened physical condition, comments to his nurse that he feels defeated, and believes his dreams were unrealistic, too idealistic, even childish in his old age. His nurse reminds him of his Twitter family, and the reason he began this quest to find just the right person to receive his fortune. She reminds him of some of those videos he had loved so much, of the ways he had reacted so joyously to the sincere nature of his followers and the generous deeds they had done. Old Man Riley regains his energy, and together he and the nurse spring into action.

His nurse surprises Old Man Riley with an iPhone from her purse. She quickly explains to him how he can tweet from it. We show Riley tweeting happily away, with a smile on his face.

Next we cut to a scene in which Riley’s sons are driving along a bumpy country road, proud of having stolen their father’s fortune, which they truly feel is owed to them.

“Blood is thicker than tweets!” gloats the meaner one evilly.

They open the suitcase – which turns out to contain nothing but family photos and a cheese sandwich. No money. The nicer mean brother thinks back to the time he told his daddy that cheese sandwiches were his favorite.

Old Man Riley and his nurse are shown in a coffee shop. Riley is using his iPhone to review more videos submissions. Old Man Riley comments to his nurse that he is now prepared to tweet his final challenge to the last ten. The last challenge is for each of them to face their greatest and most terrible fear, head on. They must videotape this challenge – no matter the outcome of that facedown – to submit to Old Man Riley. From his notes and the final videos, Riley will select the person who will receive his entire fortune.

Riley is shown lying in bed in the same hotel room from before:

His nurse attempts to feed him. She comments he has not eaten enough that day and must maintain his energy. Old Man Riley comments that he knows he has little time remaining and must reach a decision by the next day – in hopes he will live long enough afterward to see how his the winner decides to use the money. His nurse attempts to remain strong for the man who now is her hero and closest friend, the kind and tender-hearted Old Man Riley.

The follower count continues to increase dramatically for his account, not only because of this amazing multi-million-dollar contest, but also because everybody loves his caring, truthful, and sometimes hilariously non-PC tweets. He breaks 1,000,000 followers. He is so determined to choose the right person that he barely notices what is occurring in the outside world beyond Twitter.

His story gets featured in many news reports nationally, and he is in high demand for interviews – but since he is in hiding, does not even realize it. The caring and perceptive nurse knows not to tell him.

His greedy sons continue to search for him in their quest to steal his fortune. They get the idea to bribe one of Old Man Riley’s Twitter followers to trick Riley into saying where he is. One of them read that trick in a Pokemon comic book once.

Riley’s nurse suggests to him they must have someone who knows his location, in case something happened and he did require assistance. Unfortunately, Old Man Riley chooses the person bribed by his sons and reveals the hotel where he and his nurse are staying.

We show a scene in which Riley watches the ten videos submitted for the final challenge – facing your deadliest fear. We focus on Riley’s reactions to various parts of some of these videos. Occasionally we see his nurse sitting with him, and build upon the poignant nature of her connection with Old Man Riley. They communicate without speech, feeling together, not talking. They react similarly to the same things in the videos. Never has a daughter been more closely in tune with her very own father.

Riley asks his dear nurse to videotape a message for him. In this message, he reveals the Twitter follower he has chosen to receive his fortune.

He gasps for air and coughs frequently. He struggles to hold back tears as he speaks hoarsely about the reasons he chose this specific follower to receive his fortune. His message is very moving, and we see the nurse struggle to keep from crying as she tapes it.

Old Man Riley tells the nurse he will upload and tweet a link to his announcement the next morning.

Just as the nurse is preparing to say goodnight to Old Man Riley, after much time is spent watching the final videos, the telephone in their hotel room rings. There is a man on the line confirming the room number, claiming someone dropped off a package for Riley Johnson and he needs to deliver it. Old Man Riley and the nurse immediately realize something is wrong, likely the greedy sons have found them.

In a panic, Old Man Riley tweets on his iPhone an urgent message to his followers. He lets it be known that he and his dear friend are in danger. He reveals the name and address of the hotel they are hiding in and asks for people to pray for their safety.

We show a scene in which the nurse frantically tries to pack the fortune (hidden in a vent in the hotel room), as we see Old Man Riley having difficulty breathing. The nurse sits with him for a brief moment and encourages him to breath deeply and focus on reading tweets from his Twitter Family. We sense fear and panic in the young nurse.

Riley sees a whole series of tweets about himself, relating to a news story that is live. He is trending – to the very top! He tells the nurse to quickly turn on the television and tune to CNN. There is live coverage of a large group of people forming in the parking lot of the hotel, some coming into the lobby, all demanding the opportunity to save Riley and the nurse. Some carry signs of hope for Riley. Others chant, “We love you Old Man Riley!”

The police arrive and arrest the greedy sons on the wall of the hotel, just as the smart one is about to swing through the wrong window on his brother’s tie. As the bad sons are led out blubbering, we see an ambulance arrive and a gurney carried in. The crowd grows quiet when they hear something has happened to Riley.

We cut to a scene filmed in the old man’s apartment. We see only the nurse, who is devastated. She walks around the apartment, tears streaming from her cheeks, touching things, fond memories of her greatest and finest friend, the father she never knew. We know now Old Man Riley has died.

The nurse sits at the edge of his squeaky mainspring bed, head in hands. She glances over and sees an envelope on the nightstand. She takes it up and reads aloud his letter inside.

It is brief and meaningful, words on how he felt about his last and closest friend, his nurse and helper, like a daughter she was to him – poetic and heartfelt, just as he knew she would like them to be. At the end, in a P.S., he instructs her to go to the person who won his fortune; that they would be expecting her.

We cut to a scene of the bewildered grieving nurse arriving on a doorstep. She rings the doorbell and the door opens to reveal the person who won the ‘Quest for Riley’s Fortune.’ She is invited in and we immediately know one reason why Riley chose this person: honesty. The person hands to the nurse a large envelope with her name on it and tells her it is from Riley and that he was instructed to give it to her upon her arrival. In it is a check for five million dollars.

Also included are some cherished mementos, and a note that reads: “Because you’ll know what to do with it. With love through eternity – Riley”

Next we see the winner of the fortune push play on a DVD Player. The person and the nurse together watch a video, Old Man Riley’s final words, a message for all his followers.

HIS MESSAGE IS REVEALED THROUGH VIDEO AT END OF MOVIE WITH SONG IN BACKGROUND SOFTLY PLAYING – AN INSPIRATIONAL SOARING SONG WHICH STANDS FOR EVERYTHING TWITTER COULD BE.

We learn from the video that Old Man Riley taped it right before he tweeted his dream – the quest for his fortune – and the reasons he did it. He laments how he was not always the person he thought himself to be when he was younger. He discusses many of his failures painfully and poignantly, including his failure as a father to his sons. He talks about how he hoarded possessions for most of his life and wishes he would have given things to people who needed them when he did not.

Then he speaks of his greatest lifelong fear: to love deeply from the deepest core of his heart, for it meant he was open to keen wounding. He tells us how he learned about trust, friendship, charity, pride, faith, and mostly love – all from his Twitter family, since his own family had been so broken, mostly by his own youthful failures.

The day he had that revelation was the day he decided to embark upon ‘The Quest for Riley’s Fortune.’ By the end of the video, the moviegoer understands why he chose the challenges he did. He reveals to us that in ‘The Quest for Riley’s Fortune’, the winner would be the one who realized that, ultimately, the true quest was Riley’s own search for his inner treasure, the only one he could take with him into death.

This journey was Riley’s gift to others, but also to himself. He could give his fortune away because it meant nothing compared to the deep soul-cleansing love and acceptance he had found in his Twitter family, who lived not on his laptop but in his heart. He knew everything he ever dreamed about could actually occur as a result of this quest.

He could go back in time and vicariously help that elderly woman across the street who stumbled and was run over before his youthful eyes, he could help her many times over. He might go back in time and wash cars for charity, so that people could eat while he had feasted. He could treat homeless people as fellow travelers on the human road, instead of worthless trash taking up space in his way. He could go back in time and meet many neighbors he had always ignored as nothing but an annoying bother, but who had helped him more than once. He could go back in time and conquer his greatest fear before it had the chance to ruin his life, and that of his sons.

He could LOVE from every corner of his heart, because his Twitter family taught him how. In the process, his cyber-family had learned many lessons themselves. A double quest it was, and the result turns out to be much bigger than anybody could possibly have imagined!

During end credits we flash montages of various scenes. We see all the Twitter Charities honor Old Man Riley in some way. We see an entire wing of a hospital dedicated: “In memory of Riley Johnson – the man who loved people.” We see many things named in his honor and in memory of all he stood for. Parks, trails, travel adventures, ships, memorial websites and thank you offerings. All for the old man who wasted his time loving people on Twitter.