Plot
Tom (Stephen Rea) is having a particularly bad day; not only has his unemployment run out, but he has also been evicted from his apartment. Retirement-home caregiver Brandi Boski (Mena Suvari) is potentially up for a promotion at work, and celebrates with a night of drinking and Ecstasy before driving home. On the way, she hits Tom with her car and he becomes trapped in her car's windshield. Afraid of being arrested, Brandi continues to drive home with the promise that she will get him help. But as she begins to debate the issue, Brandi feels the accident will destroy her life and opts to take a taxi to work, leaving him to die slowly in her garage. When Tom realizes this, he painfully tries to escape.
Brandi enlists the help of her boyfriend, Rashid (Russell Hornsby), in an attempt to kill and dispose of Tom. Meanwhile, Tom is able to pull himself free from the windshield, but before he is able to escape the garage, Rashid and Brandi restrain him. They go back into Brandi's house and decide to kill Tom, and hide the evidence by burning both Tom and the car.
Rashid returns to the garage, and prepares to shoot the apparently unconscious Tom with a revolver. Tom, secretly awake, manages to attack Rashid, before stabbing him through the eye with a concealed pen, killing him. During the brawl, a shot is discharged from the gun, prompting Brandi to investigate. Tom tries to start the car, but Brandi enters the garage before he is able to do so. Tom knocks Brandi over and limps out of the garage towards the street, taking Rashid's gun with him.
Brandi pursues Tom, wielding a hammer from the garage. Tom pleads with Brandi to stay back, not wanting to fire on her, but she subdues him with the hammer. She drags Tom back to the garage and begins dousing the room with gasoline, panicking. She hopes that the police will conclude that Tom broke in, attacked Rashid, and accidentally became engulfed in flames while trying to burn the garage down. However, Tom is able to sneak back into the car, start it, and drive forwards, pinning Brandi against the back of the garage.
Brandi begs for help, while Tom steps out of the car and lights a match. He asks why she didn't help him, and Brandi says she doesn't know, and continues to plead for her life. Tom decides to spare Brandi and extinguishes the match. Brandi suddenly produces Rashid's revolver and fires on Tom. He ducks behind the car, and a stray bullet ignites the gasoline, setting Brandi alight. As she screams in pain, burning to death, Tom struggles to the front of the garage and is able to open the door. He stumbles out onto the driveway and collapses, as neighbours surround him, alerted by the fire. Tom is helped away, and turns to look at the burning garage, where Brandi's screaming has subsided.
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Famous quotes containing the word plot:
“We have defined a story as a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence. A plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality. “The king died and then the queen died” is a story. “The king died, and then the queen died of grief” is a plot. The time sequence is preserved, but the sense of causality overshadows it.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)
“If you need a certain vitality you can only supply it yourself, or there comes a point, anyway, when no one’s actions but your own seem dramatically convincing and justifiable in the plot that the number of your days concocts.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“Trade and the streets ensnare us,
Our bodies are weak and worn;
We plot and corrupt each other,
And we despoil the unborn.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)