When a promising businessman (Dylan McDermott) is murdered during an office rampage, his widow hires Louisiana lawyer Wendell Rohr (Dustin Hoffman, with little to do) to take on the gun manufacturer who supplied the weapon in the first place. Looking to buy their way out of a huge settlement, the gun corporation hires a shady character named Rakin Fitch (Gene Hackman) to sway the verdict their way by manipulating the jury. When Nicholas Easter (John Cusack) is selected to serve on the jury, Fitch and Rohr soon learn that Easter is engaged in his own jury tampering, with the help of a mysterious outside source (Rachel Weisz).
