Out on a rural highway on a freezing night, Patrolman Ronny Forbert sits in his ten-year-old Crown Victoria cruiser trying to keep warm and make time pass until his shift ends. Then a familiar beater Jeep Cherokee comes speeding over a hill, forcing the rookie cop to chase after it. The driver is his old-friend-turned-nemesis, Matt Laferiere, the rogue son of a man as beaten down as the town itself. Within minutes, what begins as a clear-cut arrest for drunk driving spirals into a heated struggle between two young men with a troubled past and ends in a fatal hit and run on an icy stretch of blacktop.