Dr. Amanda Tyler (Denise Richards) lectures on the cycle of violence in America. She is requested by the governor of the state of Texas to examine a case of a man on death row for an assessment for a possible stay of execution. Yea, Texas, sure.

The film is a flashback to the life of Jackson Shay, the man on death row. Jackson was an abused child and then once incarcerated became entrenched in crime. His story is remarkable, like everyone in prison they are either innocent or were justified in their actions...at least in their own mind. The film is apparently against the death penalty. Amanda wears red, the same color as Jackson's prison suit. We see them both through cage bars giving us the impression we are all in cages and violence sets us free.

2 stars because I am crushing on Denise Richards.

Guide: F-word. Sex. Prison rape. Make butt nudity.

It started well, promising, it got lost from the middle to the end, it could have continued in the drama, light reports, without filling in space with embarrassment, in the second half it became dragged, scenes that led nowhere ... The outcome was too fake, unnecessary, so forced, dramatic, Denise Richards' performance bothered me... Screenplay didn't help.... Regular...

This movie had potential, but takes itself way too seriously and it's cast of budget-friendly actors turn in uneven performances. Denise Richards is trying too hard to shed her bimbo persona in a highly intellectual role as a renowned criminal psychologist. Kaiwi Lyman is uneven, veering into melodramatic overstatement in his scenes with Richards, but is much better in flashback scenes of his life of crime, especially when paired with Micheal Pare as his former small time criminal partner. Bruce Dern phones one in for the paycheck and the rest of the cast is varying degrees of bad, from unwatchable to to just ok. The story is all over the place, trying in places to be a character study of small time criminals-which would have been interesting, then trying to be a slick action-y heist movie, then trying to be political with it's socially conscious anti-death penalty message. It never hits the mark with any of it and winds up just being a mess.