Nicolas Cage stars as Will Gerard, a happily married family man whose quiet life is turned upside-down when his wife (January Jones) is brutally attacked one night while leaving work. As he waits at the hospital, Will is approached by a man (played by Guy Pearce) who proposes an intriguing offer: he can arrange to have a stranger exact vengeance on his wife's attacker, in exchange for a favor from Will himself, to be performed in the near future. Grief-stricken and still full of rage, Will consents to the deal, unwittingly pulling himself into a dangerous underground vigilante operation. Before long, he begins to discover that his quest for justice is leading him down a road to frightening and potentially deadly consequences.