Nicholas Styles (Denzel Washington) is a rookie officer of the Los Angeles Police Department and also a law student .One day while on patrol with his partner Larry Doyle (Pollack), he blocks the escape of Earl Talbot Blake (John Lithgow) who had just killed several drug dealers and then stolen their drugs. . Styles arrests Blake in a dramatic and highly publicized stand-off which is captured on camera. Blake is sent to prison and Styles becomes famous as a result of this incident, and then his career skyrockets.
Several years later Styles has had a very famous and eventful career in the police force, is now the Assistant District Attorney and gradually moving into politics. Blake, who nurses a psychotic ambition for revenge escapes from prison and swoops down on Styles with a plan to to destroy his career and make him to lose everything in his life.
And Blake nearly succeeds in this deadly and elaborate plan and it will take almost a miracle to stop him.
