Lara Brennan is wrongly convicted of murdering her boss and is sentenced to life in prison. Her young son Luke ceases to acknowledge her during prison visits. Following the failure of her appeal, her attorney balks at taking further action. Lara attempts suicide and her husband John becomes obsessed with breaking her out of prison.
John consults Damon Pennington, a former inmate who wrote a book on escaping from prison. Pennington tells John to ask himself if he can “be that guy” who knocks over an old lady or shoots a cop if it’s the difference between escape and a life in jail. Following Damon’s advice, John prepares to break his wife out. He studies escape routes and prison routines and buys a handgun. Struggling to obtain fake IDs, he loses much of his money. He sells his furniture and belongings. John is almost caught testing a bump key inside Lara’s current jail.
When John learns that Lara will be transferred in three days to a distant prison facility, he is forced to make an emergency plan. Unable to sell his house in time, he considers robbing a bank but hesitates at the last minute. Desperate at his wife’s failing mental health, John tails a local drug dealer to a meth lab and robs it of cash. After a firefight with the meth maker, both the dealer and manufacturer end up dead; the dealer is killed by his boss and John kills the manufacturer.
