Detour

Law student and all-around good guy Harper suspects that his scheming stepfather Vincent is responsible for the car crash that sent his mother into a coma. Drowning his sorrows one evening in a seedy L.A. whiskey bar, Harper is interrupted by tough-looking redneck Johnny Ray, who offers to "take care" of his stepfather for the cool sum of $20,000. Angry, intent on revenge, and fueled by alcohol, Harper agrees to the deal and spends the rest of his evening downing shots with Johnny Ray. The next morning, Harper awakens to the mother of all hangovers with hazy memory of the previous night's events. Answering a knock at the front door, he is surprised to find Johnny Ray and his beautiful but distant girlfriend Cherry, ready and waiting to drive to Vegas to kill Vincent. Harper's claims that he was drunk and didn't know what he was doing mean nothing to Johnny Ray, who is more threatening than ever in the cold light of day. Harper quickly realizes that there is no easy way out; if he wants to survive this, he has no choice but to go along with the plan. What follows is a tense and deftly-constructed noir thriller in which Harper's story takes an unexpected detour, presenting the audience with two alternate versions of events with two very different outcomes. Did Harper really want to kill his stepfather? Which road did he actually take?