It's 1992 and three lives are about to collide against the flaming backdrop of the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles. Vietnam veteran Harry Hudson is a journalist fleeing his past: the war, a failed marriage and a fear-ridden childhood. Rootless, he stutters, wrestles with depression and is aware that he's passed the point at which victim becomes victimiser. He explores the city's lowest dives, the only places where he feels at home, meeting a prostitute and a struggling bar owner who eventually lead him to the insight he needs to change his fate.