‘SPOILER ALERT’

A limousine drives through different roads until it gets to a skyscraper. Four men step out of it and walk to an elevator that leads to the MD’s office. They settle in for a meeting where the MD, Mr Bolt, asks how their development in Brazil is going. Mr Richard tells him they’re faced by a problem of cutting down thousands of acres of natural rainforest for the project. Mr Bolt is unconcerned, even when Richard explains to him the rare Indian race that lives in the forests. He asks about their progress in Florida. For Florida, Richard explains that they’d need to tear down a nursing home for the aged if they were to build that massive Bolt Shopping mall. Like the Brazil situation, Bolt is unconcerned. He tells Richard to carry out the operation late at night if he’s worried about the news. He then shows the men a prototype version of a notorious portion of Los Angeles.

Mr Bolt says he currently owns half of the two and a half square meters land while the government owns the other half. However, he says he’ll own all of it by noon the next day. He asks his colleagues if they wonder why he’s getting such piece of trash and he presses down a bottom that lets down another prototype but it is of a grand building. Mr Bolt calls it the Bolt Center and that it has been the vision of his life. His meeting is interrupted by the voice of a woman who tells him he has a visitor. The visitor is Vance and he announces that he has bought the other half of the land that Bolt just discussed about. He offers to buy Bolt’s house and Bolt returns the offer. They decide to discuss the business somewhere other than the office.  Vance takes Bolt to the neighborhood they intend to buy.

He says he lived in the area before so it’s only right he bought it. Bolt doesn’t agree so they make a bet. Vance says he’ll let Bolt buy his half of the property if he can survive in the slum for thirty days without using any of his riches or name. Mr Bolt agrees to the bet. His partners try to convince him to revoke his agreement and think about it. Bolt assures them that he would be able to do it but they don’t believe him. Bolt is tapped with an alarm system that will go off if he steps out of the poor neighborhood. Vance drops Bolt off on the streets and rips his breast pocket so that Bolt looks the part. It is night and Bolt walks into a hotel to book a room. What they actually have is a hall with many beds. Bolt tries to convince the attendant to let him stay without paying but he gets kicked out. He finds an open drum and decides to stay there but runs away when he sees mice running out. He goes to the church for shelter but they are closed for the day.

Bolt finds a spot to sleep in but the doors are thrown wide open and he is swept into a large bin. The next morning, Bolt wakes up to find someone called Sailor peeing on him. He gives the man his handkerchief to blow his nose in and walks away. He goes around looking for what to eat but shop owners won’t let him eat even leftovers. He keeps trying to make money by cleaning windshields, dancing in the streets, but nothing works. He is walking down the street when two men stop him and Rob him of his shoes. That’s when Molly comes out and chases them away. She gives him another pair of shoes and takes him to the mission where he can eat. He meets Sailor there. Bolt follows her around asking where he can make money. He tells her he’s tried begging and she tells him her story.

Molly was married in the past. She stopped her career as a dancer to be with her husband but he still abandoned her and left. She now lives on the streets alone. Remember, when Sailor realized he peed on Bolt, he apologized and called him Pepto. It became Bolt’s name in the streets. On their way back, they discover that the shoe robbers have set Molly’s hideout on fire. Molly comes up with a plan to get them but Bolt suggests that they sue them. The rest think he’s stupid. The plan is for Bolt to get the robbers to pursue him so that the rest can pour a hot pot of cabbage on their heads. We’re shown a Chinese restaurant’s kitchen. A man chops cabbage and dumps them in a boiling pot. Suddenly, the pot disappears. Bolt goes to the thieves hideout and provokes them by kicking up their table. He runs away towards the direction of the plan and locks himself inside a room as Molly suggested but he is easily dragged out by the robbers.

Molly orders the guys to hold on with the pot until the robbers are right under them. The robbers punch him so he falls on the road and his alarm goes off. Bolt knows that he must return to the robber’s position unless Vance will think he left the neighborhood. He keeps coming back and they keep punching him. Finally Molly and the guys are able to get the position they want so they empty the pot on the robbers heads. Sailor uses gin to treat his wounds, saying it kills germs. They ask him why he stayed there for the robbers to beat him up so badly but Bolt cannot answer. Bolt is given a large carton to share with Molly. She puts a knife between them and says Bolt must not cross even when he says he has no interest in her. She apologizes for being harsh but says she must.

Meanwhile, Vance is told that Bolt stepped out of the boundary because he was beaten up badly. Vance doesn’t believe them but is shocked when he finds out that Bolt nearly died. Out in the cold streets, the rains have increased. Bolt and Molly are cuddling when the raindrops wake them up. They have to abandon their shelter and head to the mission. However, that place is locked. They find some other junkyard to sleep in. In the middle of the night, Sailor starts coughing and asks Phillip if he is eleven? He leaves the shed and heads to the clinic for medications. The next morning, Phillip wakes up to no Sailor beside him. They go out looking for him and Bolt finds him dead on the road. They get his ashes and pour it in a leak that heads to the ocean as Sailor wanted. It is now twenty eight days since the bet and scared Vance goes to the lawyers and convinces them to betray Bolt.

It’s D-day and Bolt takes Molly back to his house. Before that they celebrated with a bottle of champagne that Bolt stole, danced around heaps of clothes, and shared an intimate moment. At his house, he finds a party there and he thinks it’s in his name. He finds Vance and announces that he won the bet. Vance says he remembers no bet. Bolt talks to Richard and the other lawyers and they all play dumb. He accuses them of betraying him and Richard says that they’re lawyers. Bolt gets angry and starts taking things out of the house. The security intercepts him and drags him and Molly out of the house. Molly tries to placate him but he runs off saying that he isn’t Pepto. Some days later, Bolt has really gone mad. He is talking to himself about getting his riches back when another street man says he’s the richest man alive. This causes a fight between them and it takes the police to stop Bolt from hurting him. However, the police cannot hold him off for too long so the paramedics step in.

Bolt is taken to a hospital. He mistakes the white doctor coats for wedding dresses. He keeps babbling nonsense and is dumped at a corner when the nurses say there’s no more space in the ward. This is when Bolt cries out that Life Stinks. He gets the other patients started so a doctor orders for him to be injected with medicine for a delirious person. The doctor walks away and returns to Bolt’s chair. He orders another nurse to inject him with the same medicine. Another doctor sees him and has him transferred to a bed because he needs the wheelchair. The first doctor sees Bolt on the bed and orders that he be injected with the same medicine again because he’s delirious. Just as he leaves, a nurse notices Bolt fading away and calls the same doctor’s attention to it. The doctor orders that Bolt be taken to the hospital and wonders who overdosed him.

Molly comes to see Bolt and begs him not to die. She tells him she loves him and that brings him back to life. Bolt leaves the hospital and is happy to be alive again. Meanwhile, Vance brought a party to the slums to mark the beginning of the demolition. Bolt sees the people scampering and says he won’t run away again. Phillip says there is a party happening in their neighbourhood and they’re not even invited. Instead, their homes are being crushed. He says he won’t let them take the slum from him after they take his riches. He gets a megaphone and tells the people to fight and not give in. He tells them to fight for their home and follow him. As soon as he turns, the people carry on like he wasn’t talking to them. It takes Molly and Phillip to convince them to stay. Molly tells them there’s free food and wine at the party and they’re all invited since it’s held in their neighbourhood. She says they can’t keep running forever and that they have to do something at least. The people listen to her and follow Bolt to the venue.

They storm the party and eat as much food as they want. They even drink the wine available. Bolt tells a man without legs to pretend like one of the bulldozers crushed his legs so that they’d be distracted. Richard, the lawyer, tries to talk them away but they don’t budge. He gets angry and goes to tell Vance, who is having a press time, what was happening at the party. Vance and Richard watch as a bulldozer breaks up the header of the party. Vance sees that it is Bolt and goes to get another bulldozer. They begin to fight with the bulldozers. Vance makes the first hit but Bolt strikes back. Bolt makes another hit and Vance strikes back, but Bolt gets the thong of Vance’s bulldozer and turns the vehicle to the side. He picks Vance into the air with his thong and makes him admit, in front of the press and the people, that Bolt had won the bet.

Vance admits to his defeat. Some weeks later, a lawsuit between Vance and Bolt ends in Bolt’s favour. He gets all his riches and businesses back. Unlike his initial plan, Bolt builds a park and improves the counselling and health care in the slums. He lets the place be and forgoes his plan to ruin it. He gets married to Molly in the local church in the slums unlike people’s expectations of him. Bolt allows Molly to carry her cans with her. She claims they’re a lot of money. They drive off with the others cheering for them. As they move, the man Bolt argued with concerning who’s the richest man goes after the car saying it’s his own. Bolt gets angry and gets down from the car. He starts pursuing the man and the movie ends.

Life Stinks.