Q:Build a movie plot around this: What dismisses the threat? His conscience.
A:
Famed mystery writer, Mort Rainey (Johnny Depp) is confronted by a mysterious stranger outside his house. This stranger calls himself John Shooter (John Turturro) and claims that Mort has stolen an idea for a story from him. Mort says he can prove he wrote his first, but whilst Mort waits for the evidence to appear, Shooter starts to become more and more violent.At first, Mort regards Shooter as mentally ill and throws away the book. But his housekeeper (Joan Heney) takes it out of the garbage believing it was his and instead of throwing it away again he cannot stop thinking about it, and finally reads it. It is almost exactly alike, with different names and sentence arrangements. The movie follows Mort's struggles to prove conclusively to Shooter and to himself that he has not plagiarized the story. Shooter continually harasses Mort and later kills his dog, an Australian Cattle Dog named Chico. As the story progresses, Mort hires a private investigator (Charles S. Dutton) and asks the help of the local sheriff, Dave Newsome (Len Cariou), who doesn't believe him. The investigator asks if there are any witnesses, and Mort remembers a local man saw them together. But Shooter then murders both the investigator and the man and leaves them in a car. Mort then pushes the car into the river, since he thinks the murders will be pinned on him ("him" is Mort, [I point this out because the latest editor didn't use proper grammar]). Shooter also burns down the house of Mort's soon-to-be ex-wife. Mort is convinced that Ted is the culprit responsible for the burning.Mort eventually locates the magazine that proves he published "Secret Window" before Shooter wrote "Sowing Season." He goes to the post office, where he gets the story. But when he gets out of his car, the sheriff approaches him with a smirk asking him if he could ask a few questions. Mort then leaves. But when Mort gets the magazine, he finds that the story has been cut out. Mort's inner voice tells him that since the magazine was sent to him in a sealed UPS...