Five Dollars a Day

Five Dollars a Day (also spelled as $5 a Day) is a 2008 American comedy-drama film directed by Nigel Cole, produced by Capitol Films and starring Christopher Walken, Alessandro Nivola, Amanda Peet, and Sharon Stone. Plot Richie Flynn Parker (Alessandro Nivola) is a seemingly successful man living in Los Angeles, California who has just broken up with his girlfriend Maggie (Amanda Peet). He has also just been fired from his job as a health inspector when he discovers his father Nat (Christopher Walken), a cheap con-man, has a terminal brain tumor and he wants to see Richie. Richie, believing it's another con, grudgingly goes to Atlantic City to see his father who explains he has been living on five dollars a day, going to extremes to do so, such as constantly calling various radio station contests with different aliases to win things, like concert tickets he can then scalp. Nat shows Ritchie an x-ray of his skull, and asks Ritchie to drive him to New Mexico to seek a potential cure. The father and son hit the road driving a Sweet'n Low car free of charge provided they get gas at Chevron stations along the way. Richie calls his girlfriend to tell her about his life and the trip, using one of Nat's many free cell-phones with promotional minutes. After their first stop to eat at an IHOP restaurant for free by Nat convincing them it's his birthday using a fake drivers license (which Nat continues to do at other IHOPs along the way), they stop at a vacant house that is for sale to spend the night, and narrowly avoid being found out by a realtor and some people looking at the home the following morning. The next day over a stolen room service meal from a motel, Richie finds out that Nat got him fired by telling his boss of an earlier jail sentence, which is later revealed that Richie took the fall for to keep Nat from going to jail for one of his crimes. This almost makes Richie abandon the trip. They proceed to drive to various cities, once staying at an open house for a retirement village. They then go to Amarillo, Texas, where they meet up with Richie's old babysitter, Dolores (Sharon Stone), who is now a professional model Nat has a thing for. They then head to New Mexico so that Nat can collect a small sum of money from an old rival, Kruger (Peter Coyote), whom Nat lent money to start a used car dealership many years back, and whom Richie's mother later ran off with when he was young.