Late one night in a working class New Jersey suburb, bloodied Brenda Martin (Julianne Moore) staggers into an emergency room and later recounts to Dempsy police detective Lorenzo Council (Samuel L. Jackson) a horrific tale of being carjacked on the isolated strip of undeveloped land that divides Dempsy's urban housing projects from the blue-collar town of Gannon, where she lives. She claims she was forced out of her car by a black man, but after hours of questioning Brenda finally confesses that her 4-year-old son was asleep in the back seat of the stolen car. Led by activist Karen Collucci (Edie Falco), members of the communities of Dempsy and Gannon unite in a search for the missing child, but the criminal investigation soon ignites long-simmering racial tensions between the two towns.