Slow Burn
Ford Cole (Ray Liotta) is a big-city district attorney with his eye on the mayor's office and a big problem on his hands. His assistant district attorney, Nora Timmer (Jolene Blalock), confessed to killing a man in what she claims was self-defense. Things get worse when a stranger named Luther Pinks (LL Cool J) comes to the police station and contradicts her story. With his career and maybe his life on the line, Ford has a few hours until 5am August 17 to sort the truth from the lies. Danny (Taye Diggs) is a gang leader that has built an empire across eleven cities and is buying up all the land in a bad part of town that would be worth a fortune if the buildings were torn down and the area was rebuilt. Ford thinks he can cinch the election if he can catch
Danny. The problem is he has no idea what Danny looks like. He gets a break when he finds out Nora dropped charges against Jeffery Sykes (Taye Diggs), a known Danny associate, and Ford uses him to ID Danny. Sykes IDs Pinks
as Danny. Ford figures out Nora has set him up and she is working for Danny.
Ford also figures out that there will be a gas explosion that will level the neighborhood at 5am. Ford gets there in time but does not stop the explosion.
So with Danny now owning the neighborhood, Ford decides to force a
confrontation with Nora and Pinks who Sykes ID'ed as Danny. Ford tells
Nora he has Danny and drags her to the interrogation room where Pinks is.
In the hallway, Nora sees Sykes and calls him Danny and tells him she
didn't give the police anything to hold against him. Sykes, IDed as Danny,
shoots a cop and runs. Ford kills Sykes thinking it's Danny. Ford confronts Pinks who confesses he is undercover FBI. Pinks leaves with a reporter that was doing a story on Ford (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and as Pinks and the reporter congratulate themselves
on outsmarting everyone, they are being taped by the FBI. The reporter, the real Danny, is arrested leaving all of the neighborhood ownership to a Cayman Island corporation controlled by Jackie Longbough aka Nora Timmer. Jackie
insured that Ford, the Mayor, police chief and governor all had ownership in the corporation. This would all be revealed if there were a court case. Closing scene shows Jackie in the Cayman Islands.
murder, flashback