Stingray 1978

Two small-time drug dealers, Al and Elmo, are on their way to a high-stakes sale when they uncover a dangerous twist: the buyers have planted a homing device inside the million-dollar briefcase. Panic erupts as the device signals trouble, and a sudden gunfight claims the lives of the two buyers, leaving the criminals scrambling to sew up their escape. The chaos draws police attention, and Lt. Herschel [/actor/richard-cosentino] pulls the pair in for questioning, though without solid proof he releases them and orders his partner, Sgt. Murphy, to tail them.

Buoyed by a confident plan, the trio—Abigail Bratowski, a wanted woman in disguise as a nun, and Roscoe, one of Abigail’s men—joins Murray and Tony, and the group quickly ditches the precinct to chase their loose ends. The money and drugs are hidden inside a gleaming Corvette Stingray parked at a used-car lot, a target that instantly draws the gang’s attention. A tense pursuit ensues as the criminals try to blend with the street, but [Al] and [Elmo] manage to shake their pursuers briefly when Al misreads the situation and is pulled over by patrol officers for speeding. Abigail wastes no time, opening fire and killing the officers, allowing the duo to slip away again.

Desperation grows as Lonigan, the gang’s boss, buys a tracker in a bid to geolocate the homed cargo. When they catch up to the Corvette and its new stand-ins, [Lt. Herschel] and [Sgt. Murphy] arrive in a police car, reigniting the chase. A ladder crashes into Herschel’s car, injuring it and offering a temporary edge to the criminals. Abigail decides to change out of her nun costume, forcing Lonigan to pull over to avoid drawing attention. Believing they’ve lost their pursuers, the criminals pull into a service station, where [Elmo] spots bags of heroin in the backseat and convinces [Al] that they should flip the heroin for cash.

Just as the duo weighs their next move, Abigail and Roscoe roll in. In a rapid escape, [Al] floors the gas, and Lonigan and Tony are dragged along in their pursuit. A new plan unfolds as they head toward a construction site to shake their tail. The chase rages on, with a bulldozer briefly disabling Lonigan’s car. In the woods, [Elmo] narrowly escapes Abigail, who accidentally shoots Rosco instead of him. A chase resumes as Abigail and Roscoe scramble for the remaining weapons; she steals a motorcycle and then crashes, losing Elmo again.

Night falls, and the pursuit pivots back to the city as Abigail, Lonigan, and Tony converge at a construction site. She frees the car from the bulldozer and the chase kicks up once more. A bar, Ronnie B’s, becomes a new fortress for the night, where a tense standoff erupts after Abigail rebuffs a patron and a brawl erupts. In the mayhem, [Al] and [Elmo] seize a machine gun from Abigail and slip away in the Corvette once more. The bar sits under the watchful eyes of the authorities, and soon Herschel and Murphy arrive with an APB on Abigail and her crew.

The next day, the city hums with the echo of their escape as [Al] and [Elmo] pick up a hitchhiking girl and plot a low-profile return. Abigail carjacks an Austin-Healey, shoots the driver, and tracks down Lonigan and Tony. Lonigan is stabbed, and Abigail makes a chilling bargain to share the money with Tony if he cooperates. A cosmetic misstep adds to their woes when the Corvette is driven into a car wash, where the new paint job is washed away. The pursuit rebuilt from Abigail, Lonigan, and Tony leads to a three-way gun battle at a dead end: Tony turns on Abigail and is shot dead, and Abigail herself is killed when her own gun, left in the door, discharges.

Herschel and Murphy arrive as the dust settles, and the girl manages to hide the drugs’ briefcase from authorities. In a final twist, the case itself goes missing—stolen by a bum—with [Al] and [Elmo] giving chase. The attempted pursuit ends with Al falling into the river, and Elmo realizing his greed played a fatal hand. He discovers that [Al] was not dead after all, surface-floating and alive. With the money still out there and the future uncertain, the two survivors decide to pull back from the crime scene and dream of a vacation in Bolivia.