The story of Hank (Billy Bob Thornton), an embittered prison guard working on Death Row who begins an unlikely, but emotionally charged affair with Leticia (Halle Berry), the wife of a man under his watch on The Row. The movie also features Heath Ledger and Peter Boyle. Boyle plays Hank's bigoted, aging father, whose hatred seems to have poisoned his entire family as much as the family business, which working on the prison Death Squad. Ledger plays Hank's son, who is hell-bent on getting out.