Beauty and the Least: The Misadventures of Ben Banks(2012)

One day, while Ben (Ben Banks) is staking out Ambers’ (David Sullivan) motorhome dealership as part of his investigation into the disappearance of environmentalist Melissa “Misty” Brady (Lara Wallace), he spots Erin (Katharine Towne) – his boss at his college’s newspaper, the Sundog Times – leaving the place with Ambers’ right-hand man, Timmons (Michael Hobert) (whom Ben is also suspicious about because he has recognized him as the anonymous tipster who called him at the Sundog’s tip hotline a few days ago and told him to interview Ambers and say “it’s getting ‘misty’ in here” to him), and he finds out that they are romantically involved when he follows them to a motel and watches them go into one of the rooms to have sex.

That night, Ben confronts Erin at the Sundog office, and after he lets her know that he saw her with Timmons, he tells her that he has come to believe that she and Timmons have been using Misty’s disappearance to commit blackmail against Ambers. He also informs her that he figured out that she and Timmons wanted him to say “it’s getting ‘misty’ in here” to Ambers during his interview with him because they knew that Ambers would interpret “misty” as a reference to “Melissa” and get unnerved by it. He then tells her that, though he doesn’t have the whole story, he does have enough information to take to the town’s newspaper, the Spectrum, and even to the police, and he also intends to point out in his story how the Sundog Times was used to blackmail Ambers. He then knocks Erin for letting him investigate this case because she thought that he was just a loser stoner with no ambition who wouldn’t be able to put the whole picture together.

Erin replies by begging him to not take his findings to anyone, so he tells her to give him the whole story on what happened to Misty. Through Erin’s story and other details given off-screen, Ben learns that Misty was giving Ambers headaches with the protests she was spearheading against the water pipeline that he and other prominent businessmen were pushing to get installed in St. George (because there would be a 40% decrease in wildlife refuge areas if it was constructed), so he told Timmons to take care of the problem, implying that he do something such as pay her off or scare her away. Sometime later, Timmons told Ambers that he had a confrontation with Misty, but it got out of control, and he wound up killing her and then buried her out in the desert. However, it was all a lie; Misty was alive and well, and she and Timmons had decided to team up and perform this blackmailing scheme on Ambers. After Timmons had lied to Ambers about Misty, Erin – who was already dating Timmons at this point and was not aware of his and Misty’s blackmailing scheme – was made aware of the scheme and decided to join in on it, and they all started to play various tricks on Ambers that contained subtle references to Misty and her “murder.” These tricks would cause Ambers to get freaked out, and he would then pay Timmons big sums of money to take whatever measures necessary to keep the “murder” under wraps, after which Timmons would split the cash with Erin and Misty. Ben tells Erin that he still wants to set this story up with the Spectrum, but she replies that that will ruin her. Ben informs her that she is going to have to leave her job and that she brought that upon herself, but he tells her that he will try to keep her out of it with the cops on the condition that she tell him where Misty is. She confesses (off-screen) that Misty is now in Salt Lake City and works at a restaurant there, so he goes to the restaurant the next day, finds her, and has her hold up a copy of that day’s Spectrum newspaper in front of her and takes a picture of her. He later talks to a woman who works at the Spectrum about getting his story published, and she informs him that the main thing he needs to get is a reaction from Ambers because they can’t run this story without them giving him a chance to respond. Ben promises that he will get Ambers’ reaction, and he is promised full credit as a reporter if the Spectrum runs the story.

As Ben deals with this investigation, his burgeoning relationship with Amy (Mischa Barton) falls apart because he has too much trouble dealing with the fact that she not only posed in risqué pictures in the past, but did porn movies as well. While chatting with his friends Gunner (Alex Beh), Hank (Sal Masekela), and Frank (John Dodart) about it one day, Gunner helps him to understand that he shouldn’t be so judgmental about her past because he has some skeletons in his closet as well, and he really ought to just let this news go. Hank then suggests that he find out who owns the pornographic material of Amy and get them to take it down, explaining that that might be easy to do because she wasn’t in the business for very long. To that end, Ben manages to get in touch with Mary Andrews (Melora Hardin), a former porn star now living in St. George who used to work for the Guilded Unicorn website that Amy’s material is featured on, and after he explains his mission to her, she gives him the Las Vegas address of the website’s owner, Phil Macy (Josh Ostrovsky). Ben decides to pay him a visit, but before he goes, he recruits his burly auto mechanic, Ezra (Cyle West), to serve as his backup in case the visit turns ugly. They drive up to Phil’s house and walk right inside while Phil is in the midst of having a party, and Ben tells Phil that he came here to get all of Amy’s content and even offers to buy it from him. When Phil more or less replies that he won’t hand any of it over, Ezra easily beats up his bodyguards and gets right in his face, warning him that, if he doesn’t give Ben everything he asked him for, he will come back here and inflict severe bodily harm on him. Ben and Ezra later return to St. George, and when Ben drops Ezra off at his auto garage, it is implied through a short conversation they have that Phil ended up agreeing to give Ben what he wanted.

The next morning, Ben goes to Ambers’ mansion to present his picture of Misty to Ambers and get his response. However, he is first confronted by Timmons in the front yard, and Timmons calls him an idiot before admitting to him that he was responsible for both cutting the brake lines on his vehicle and ransacking his home earlier in the film (which he had done on Ambers’ orders after the interview he had with Ben in order to try to intimidate Ben into not pursuing anything regarding Misty any further). He then gets right in Ben’s face and tries to act tough with him, but Ben quickly puts him down with a hard punch to the gut. Ben then meets with Ambers at his front door, and after giving him the photo of Misty, he informs him that Timmons had lied about her death and that she and Timmons have been blackmailing him all this time. Though Ambers is initially grateful to Ben for uncovering this scheme against him, his good mood fades fast when Ben reminds him that he is a reporter and that he is going to write a story about all of this, and he intends to include the fact that Ambers was more than willing to pay money to cover up the “murder.” He then asks Ambers if he wants to respond to anything that he has just told him, and after Ambers officially replies with “no comment,” he thanks him and leaves. Ben completes the story and submits it to the woman at the Spectrum that he had previously spoke with, and he also asks her for a job there. She tells him to come see her in a week or so and they will work out something.

Ben goes to the restaurant where Amy works to see if she is still working there, but he finds out from her boss that she has quit and moved out of town, and he had promised her that he would tell no one where she went. Sparked by the recent changes in his life, Ben goes to a hairdresser and gets both his long hair and his beard cut short. Sometime later, Amy – now living in Mesquite, Nevada – is paid a visit at the new restaurant she works at by one of Phil Macy’s bodyguards, and he demands a word with her in private. After having her follow him out to his car parked in the back of the restaurant, he takes a box out of the trunk and puts it down in front of her, then explains that it contains all of her Guilded Unicorn pictures, their negatives, her movies, and their master tapes, and he also informs her that her photos have been expunged from the company’s website. Before driving away, he tells her to let Ben Banks know that they did this for her. Later on, Amy returns home and checks the website, and to her delight, she discovers that what she was told is true.

Ben shows his mother, Fran (Kim Huffman), that his story got published in the Spectrum, and he tells her that he will be getting college credit for it, which means that he will graduate. He also adds that he is thinking about going back to church. When Fran asks him about Amy and if he loves her, he replies that he does, so she tells him to go find her. He drives up to the bluff outside town, where he usually goes to smoke marijuana, and he sits in his car and thinks about all the people he knows or has interacted with, but most of all, he reminisces about Amy. Just then, Ben spots Amy as she finishes climbing up the bluff to find him, and he gets out of his car and shares a kiss with her.