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When a truck transporting chain gang convicts back to
prison crashes on a rain swept Southern road, two of the prisoners
escape: Noah Cullen, a black man who reacts violently to racial
insults, and John "Joker" Jackson, a Southern white bigot. While
the two try unsuccessfully to break the three-foot chain that binds them
together, Sheriff Max Muller, under pressure from the governor,
organizes a posse of state troopers and civilian volunteers.
Muller reminds the well-armed troopers and local hunters that the
convicts are men, "not rabbits," and his refusal to allow one
volunteer's brutal Dobermans off the leash angers police captain Frank
Gibbons, who would just as willingly capture the men dead as alive.
Meanwhile, Joker and Cullen argue about which direction
they should take. Cullen, who realizes he has little chance of
attaining freedom in the South, finally convinces his reluctant partner
to proceed around the swamp and then try to jump a train to Ohio.
While attempting to cross a rushing river, Cullen loses his footing, and
the two are carried away by the rapids. Joker eventually grabs
onto a branch, but when Cullen thanks him for pulling him out of the
river, the white man snarls a cutting response. The convicts
manage to kill a frog and, as they devour it, Joker advises Cullen to be
less sensitive about racial epithets. Countering the white man's
claim that "I didn't make the rules," Cullen answers that Joker breathed
in his racism at birth and has been spitting it out ever since. In
order to avoid the detection of a passing farmer, Cullen and Joker leap
into a clay pit, and only by coordinating their efforts are they able to
climb back out.
That evening, as the men wait for the cover of darkness
before sneaking into a small settlement, they begin to discuss their
past experiences and future hopes. Their attempt to break into the
general store for food, however, produces disastrous results:
Joker seriously injures his wrist, and the townspeople capture them.
The locals are about to lynch the escaped convicts when Big Sam, who had
been a convict himself, rescues and later frees the men.
At the same time, Gibbons, exasperated with what he
considers the slow pace of the pursuit, threatens that Muller will lose
his job if the posse fails to recapture the prisoners. A portable
radio carried by one of the civilians endlessly blares rock and roll,
which further erodes the tempers of the pursuers.
The next day, Cullen and Joker are surprised when a young
boy named Billy aims a shotgun at them, but they easily overcome the
youngster, who leads them to his farm. There they hungrily devour
a meal and hammer the chain from their wrists. Billy's mother,
whose husband had abandoned her eight months before, is attracted to
Joker and, as she tends to his injury, she confesses that she is deeply
lonely. While Cullen sleeps, the couple makes love. In the
morning, the woman announces that she wants to escape in her car with
Joker. Reluctant to abandon Cullen at first, Joker finally agrees
to the plan just as Cullen appears. The woman advises Cullen to
take the shortcut through the swamp to the railroad tracks; but after he
leaves, she admits that the swamp is impenetrable bog and quicksand.
Furious at his own inadvertent betrayal of Cullen, Joker pushes the
woman away and starts to go after his cohort. The boy shoots Joker
in the shoulder and, when the injured man finally locates Cullen in the
swamp, he protests that he is too weak to go on.
The posse has now reached the woman's farm.
Proceeding through the swamp, Muller threatens to shoot the Dobermans if
Gibbons removes their muzzles. Cullen and Joker, hearing the train
whistle, stumble up the hill as the train crosses a trestle.
Cullen leaps on, but cannot hold onto Joker, and both men tumble to the
ground. Cradling Joker's head against his chest, Cullen muses, "We
gave 'em a hell of a run for it, didn't we?" As Muller, who wants
to confront the prisoners alone, approaches the men, Cullen sings his
blues anthem, "Long Gone," and then laughs. |
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