Challenger Films president Jerry Glover and producer James Edmunds hire Alan Smithee, an acclaimed English editor, to direct Trio, a high-profile action film headlined by Sylvester Stallone, Whoopi Goldberg, and Jackie Chan. Although they hire him for his inexperience and believe that will make him easier to control, Smithee grows genuinely invested in the project and its tangled behind-the-scenes dynamics.
From the start, Edmunds keeps reshaping the film, bringing in a flurry of additional writers and peppering Smithee with frequent notes during production. The on-set interference from the film’s stars adds pressure, and Smithee begins to withdraw. In a bid to pressure him further, Edmunds hires a prostitute to seduce the drunken director to gather blackmail material. The woman, Michelle Rafferty, is drawn to Smithee’s kind nature and soon develops real feelings, complicating the scheme.
As the situation spirals, Smithee realizes he has lost control over the project. He is advised to sever ties with the film and use the DGA pseudonym, but he cannot do so because the name would still read as Alan Smithee. After Stallone requests that a line be cut from Chan, Smithee volunteers to handle the edit and drop the master at the lab, only to steal the master and flee instead.
Challenger Films’ security foreman Sam Rizzo is charged with locating Smithee, and the director phones into Larry King, where, amid a mental breakdown, he declares his intention to burn Trio so it cannot be released. At a gas station, he meets Stagger Lee, a member of the African American Guerilla Film Family, and the two strike an uneasy friendship. Smithee is then connected with the Brothers brothers, indie directors who sympathize with his plight and arrange a meeting with Glover and Edmunds to negotiate.
Glover counters with a three-picture deal if the master can be returned unchanged, but the Brothers refuse, insisting that Smithee be granted final cut on Trio. In a sequence of tense pursuit, Glover has Rizzo shadow the brothers’ home, prompting a police search for the master. Smithee slips away through a back window and drives to the La Brea Tar Pits, where he burns the film as promised. He later appears on Larry King again, in person, defending his actions with the admission that “they killed Trio, I ended its suffering.”
Attorney Robert Shapiro negotiates for Smithee to be sent to a psychiatric hospital in England in lieu of criminal charges, citing the King interview as a catalyst for public sympathy. Meanwhile, Glover and Edmunds engage in a bidding war with producer Robert Evans to secure Smithee’s life story for a film adaptation, which Smithee ultimately sells on the condition that the Brothers direct with final cut. The producers realize that Smithee, with his new notoriety, has become a valuable commodity and offer him a fresh film deal. At the hospital, Michelle reconciles with Smithee as he discusses plans for a new film, Duo.
