Dance With the One

A small-time pot dealer (Gabriel Luna) takes on a dangerous job in order to escape from his broken home., A young man walking on the wrong side of the law stumbles into a deal that could cost him his life in this independent drama. Seventeen-year-old Nate (Gabriel Luna) has been the unofficial head of his household for some time — his mother is dead, his father Owen (Gary McCleery) is an emotionally broken former drug dealer with a serious drinking problem, and his little brother Sitter (Mike Davis) is too young to look after himself. Nate is in love with Nikki (Xochitl Romero), a pretty girl he’s known since they were both children, and he helps support his family by working for her father Bobby (Paul Saucido) as a low-level marijuana dealer. Eager to make enough money to move away and start a new life, Nate is happy to help when Bobby asks for a favor — he has a large shipment of hashish he needs to hide for a few days, and he’ll cut Nate in for a share of its million dollar price tag if he can keep the dope out of harm’s way. Nate hides the drugs in the family’s storage shed, but what seemed like a great opportunity turns into a nightmare when the hash disappears and Bobby and his underlings are prepared to kill Nate if he can’t find the merchandise. Produced under the auspices of the non-profit University of Texas Film Institute, Dance With The One was the first directorial project for actor Michael Dolan.