Deputy sheriff Lou Ford (Casey Affleck) is a well-respected pillar in small-town Texas, working alongside sheriff Bob Maples (Tom Bower). Lou has a pretty schoolteacher girlfriend, Amy Stanton (Kate Hudson).

Jim Thompson’s noir novel from the 1950s becomes Winterbottom’s noir film set in the 1950s in a small Texas town … and in the head of Deputy Sheriff Lou Ford (a suitably creepy Affleck).