Reporter Steve Everett (Clint Eastwood, who also directed) is on the ropes. Thanks to his bouts with the bottle and philandering ways, he's pretty much flushed away a promising journalism career. When he's assignedthe human interest story of death row inmate Franck Beechum (Isaiah Washington) Everett doesn't think much of the idea. Then he begins looking at all the shaky evidence piled up against Beechum. Could the state send an innocent man to his death? With the clock ticking, Everett races to uncoverthe truth and free a man unjustly convicted.