Pura Vida Movie

Synopsis

For the last seven years Jack Buckner has been the number one broker in South Florida. With the financial crisis in full meltdown in the United States, this week will change that distinction and Jack's job will come to an end on a fateful Friday. When he finds himself without a job, his model/actress girlfriend leaves him, but not before emptying his bank account and maxing out all of his credit cards.

Just when Jack thinks that nothing else bad can happen to him he gets a phone call from Texas and finds out that both his parents have been killed in a car crash. Jack goes back to Texas for the funeral. In the moments after arriving at the funeral home his sister informs him that his parents' will has been rewritten to exclude him from everything but his old college golf clubs.

Jack, in his grief, cares not for any riches but is grieving mainly for the loss of his mother. His relationship with his father had always been strained and was the main reason for his flight to Florida to pursue financial success.

At the funeral a lawyer, an old family friend, insists that Jack meet with him the next day at his office to talk about Jack's father. After resisting at first, Jack relents and comes the next day to the lawyer's office. He finds out that the man he had always thought was his dad, who perished with his mother, was not his real father. Jack's biological father was an old college golf teammate of the deceased man he has just buried. Jack finds out that his real father has left him an inheritance of several properties in Costa Rica.

With nothing to lose, since he has already lost everything, Jack departs for Costa Rica to find out about his real father and to see what life now has in store for him. Upon his arrival Jack is greeted by a teenager, Miguel, who had become a surrogate son to Jack's father. Jack is greeted with open arms by Miguel and his whole family including the only girl in the family, Leticia. The first of many surprises that Jack encounters is that Miguel is a golf phenom who introduces Jack to playing golf Costa Rican style, using horses instead of using golf carts, on Jack's new property.

Jack's father had created a Robinson Crusoe lifestyle, and with every day that passes Jack comes closer to the father he never knew. Jack encounters a new lifestyle in a foreign land and sets out to find out who he is to become because he suddenly has been given a second chance at life. Miguel's sister is Leticia, whose beauty is rivaled only by her intelligence and concern for the well being of her family and her musical students, whom she works tirelessly to help in their pursuit of a better life. Leticia steals Jack's heart, it is love at first sight. Not only has life thrown Jack a curve, but so has love.

Jack's father's Costa Rican lawyer informs him that his inheritance consists of several magnificent large tracts of land throughout the province of Guanacaste in Costa Rica. The only caveat is that Jack cannot sell them until he has lived in Costa Rica for nine months. Jack, with not a cent to his name, has nothing to lose but time and time is something he has plenty of.

Jack settles in and besides playing golf with Miguel and learning about Costa Rica and its culture, he continues to fall in love with Leticia and she with him.

Meanwhile, a developer who was Jack's father's 50/50 partner in a magnificent beach property becomes Jack's adversary, and he will do anything to make the property his latest possession. The developer, Rick Shaw, is a prodigious golfer whose oversized ego is put to the test in trying to bend Jack to his will and to keep his title as Mr. Costa Rica Golf.

Once Jack is aware of Shaw's evil intentions he sets his sights on preparing the young timid teenager Miguel to take the biggest Costa Rican golf tournament title away from Rick Shaw's grip. All Miguel wants to do is win the prize money to build a new house for his mother. Jack, on the other hand, wants Miguel to realize his destiny and to use his God-given golf skills to mirror his triumphs in everyday life.

What ensues is a test of wills. The story is set primarily in the culture of one of the most beautiful countries on Earth, Costa Rica. What the end result brings will keep movie viewers enthralled as they learn about what makes a man's true worth, his fortune, or his fortunes in life.