William Foster is recently divorced, his ex-wife Beth has a restraining order against him, and he was recently laid off from his job. After the air conditioning fails in his car, he abandons it in a traffic jam and begins walking. At a convenience store, the Korean owner refuses to give change for a telephone call and Foster complains about the high prices. During the argument, the owner picks up a baseball bat, which Foster wrestles from him and uses to destroy merchandise. He then pays for a soda and leaves. Shortly thereafter, he is approached by two gang members, who taunt and harass him and demand his briefcase. One gangster pulls a knife and Foster fights them off with the baseball bat. Foster picks up the dropped knife. Meanwhile, Sergeant Martin Prendergast is on his last day of work before retirement. He takes a report from the Korean store owner, who describes the melee with Foster.
Foster calls Beth from a phone booth. Despite her restraining order, he insists he will come home for his daughter, Adele's, birthday. The gang members, now in a car with reinforcements, find Foster. They attempt a drive by shooting with machine pistols but miss him and hit several bystanders instead, before crashing the car. Foster approaches, shoots a trapped gangster in the leg and takes a duffel bag full of their weapons. In the meantime, Beth calls the police, but the officers don't believe that Foster is dangerous....
Directed by Joel Schumacher
Produced by
Timothy Harris
Arnold Kopelson
Herschel Weingrod
Written by Ebbe Roe Smith
Starring
Michael Douglas
Robert Duvall
Barbara Hershey
Rachel Ticotin
Frederic Forrest
Tuesday Weld
Music by James Newton Howard
Cinematography Andrzej Bartkowiak
Edited by Paul Hirsch