On leaving prison James “Jimmy” Cullen retrieves his 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle, a gun, and a list of names before heading to an office in Bakersfield, California and killing a man. He then visits Roy Grone, who gave him the car and gun, and forces him to give him more names. Meanwhile, Cullen is tracked by detectives Cicero and Humphries; a hitman known as “Killer” is also hired to kill Cullen.
Cullen locates the second person on his list, Kenneth Tyson, who films his own personal snuff films. After finding and killing Tyson, Cullen gets into a gunfight with Killer in the hallway, but manages to escape. This affects Killer philosophically, and, after proposing to his girlfriend, begins to take the task personally. Humphries and Cicero investigate Cullen’s past and discover he was double-crossed during a robbery. Cicero remembers him from a video of his older half-brother Gary’s death filmed by Tyson, which depicts an unidentified man shooting Cullen in the head; he narrowly survives, and has a metal plate surgically implanted in his skull.
Cullen visits his former girlfriend, who knows he is killing those involved in the video. After revealing that she aborted their unborn child and has begun a new life, she wishes him well. At a strip club in Nevada Cullen stabs bouncer Hovis Nixon for his role in Gary’s death, but he manages to survive. Soon, both Humphries and Killer get word that Nixon is in the hospital. Knowing Cullen will go back to finish him off, they converge there.