Los Angeles vice detectives Bill Holt (Chris Penn) and Nin (Jeffrey Wright) have entered the gangster and drug scenes and have allied with drug kingpin Truman Rickhardt (Henry Czerny).
As he tries to stop Holt, Nin narrates the events that led Holt to torture Truman’s brother Sean (Anthony DeSando) by chaining him inside an iron box that’s slowly filling with cement.
Cops on the take, missing money, Holt’s tempting wife Lyndel (Sherilyn Fenn), dead police officers are implicated in the events.