Byron and Nina, a young African American couple, are driving from Chicago to Los Angeles, where Nina plans to start college, when they are forced to stop in a small, desert place just this side of a ghost town. Unaccustomed to confronting racism and bigotry on the scale preserved in this rural anachronism, Byron's confrontational response to slurs, epithets and threats quickly leads to a fight for survival -- and the Chicago couple is alone and outnumbered.
Acting
Howard's volcanic restraint before the inevitable eruption.
Direction
Williams traps you in the desert with nowhere to run.
Director
Garret Williams
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Shot in 18 days on $2 million; Terrence Howard's first leading role after Hustle & Flow made him famous years later.
Released the same year as American History X, part of a brutal 1998 dialogue on American racism rarely discussed together.
US
