Samuel L Jackson plays a plainclothes cop with the colourful name of Lorenzo Council. He's trying to keep the peace at a point where white and black neighbourhoods abut each other in a decaying New Jersey town. A white woman (Julianne Moore) claims that a black thief has stolen her car with her four-year-old child in the back seat. Jackson is dubious about this ex-junkie's story, racial tensions mount (exacerbated by Moore's racist brother-inlaw, also a cop), and riots loom. Moore, no stranger to neurotic roles, gets away with a five-minute monologue delivered under interrogation.