Screenplay: Role Models

Premise
Role Models follows two immature energy drink salesmen whose reckless behavior lands them in legal trouble and forces a crash course in responsibility. Sentenced to community service with a Big Brothers-style mentoring program, they are paired with two very different troubled youths. The mandate to act as role models proves harder than they imagined and becomes the unexpected engine of their personal growth.

Main characters
Danny is the more level-headed of the pair, outwardly successful but emotionally guarded about commitments and relationships. Wheeler is loud, impulsive, and prone to self-sabotage, living on charm and bravado rather than long-term thinking. Their charges include Augie, a painfully earnest, socially awkward teenager who escapes into live-action role-playing fantasy, and a streetwise, antagonistic kid who forces the men to confront the limits of humor and irresponsibility.

Plot summary
After a public altercation stemming from their irresponsible antics, Danny and Wheeler are ordered into community service as an alternative to incarceration. Assigned to the mentoring program, they initially treat the assignment like a joke, ill-equipped to guide children whose problems run deeper than boredom or mischief. The mentors and mentees butt heads; Wheeler's crude humor alienates his charge and Danny's easier path of avoidance fails to reach Augie, whose fantasy-driven world appears impenetrable.
As the men flail, they are slowly drawn into the kids' lives and passions. Danny tries to meet Augie on the boy's terms, awkwardly entering the world of costumed battles and earnest role-play, while Wheeler is pushed to confront the consequences of his own absentee tendencies and to stand up for someone else. The program's structure, the kids' family dynamics, and a series of escalating mishaps force each man to examine what maturity and commitment actually require.
Their attempts at mentorship generate both comedy and confrontation, embarrassing missteps, a botched attempt at discipline, and an escalating chain of events that threatens the children's placements and the men's freedom. Through these trials, the men begin to adopt small habits of accountability: showing up, listening, and making sacrifices that once would have seemed impossible to them. The kids, in turn, reveal vulnerabilities that change the men's priorities and prompt honest, if clumsy, efforts at redemption.

Themes and tone
Role Models balances broad, often raunchy comedy with sincere beats about friendship, identity, and the messy work of growing up. The screenplay mines humor from character-based mismatches, adult immaturity confronted with youthful earnestness, while consistently underscoring the real stakes of mentorship. Beneath the jokes, the story asks what it means to be a role model: not perfection, but presence, acceptance, and the willingness to change.
The film's tone is irreverent and energetic, leaning into slapstick and sharp dialog but never abandoning emotional warmth. It lampoons traditional masculinity while showing how male friendships can be both a source of stagnation and a catalyst for change. The youthful characters are treated with respect and complexity, their eccentricities becoming doorways to human connection rather than mere punchlines.

Resolution
By the conclusion, both men have been reshaped by their relationships with the kids: failures and embarrassments give way to small triumphs of responsibility. The mentorship program's final tests reveal the depth of the bonds formed, and the men make choices that protect and empower their mentees rather than serve their own short-term comforts. Role Models ends on a note of earned, comedic redemption, affirming that growth often comes through unlikely relationships and the willingness to act like the adults one otherwise avoids being.