SYNOPSIS (with spoilers)

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In the opening scene, a 4-year old (MICHAEL) toddles into a kitchen to find a man slumped against the fridge across from a dead body with a knife in its back. Flash forward nine years. Now 13-year old Michael and his brother DAVY (11) live in constant fear of their abusive stepfather FRANK, so when their mother MARY tells them they will be staying with their father ETHAN for a summer, they should be happy, but they don’t know Ethan; he’s been in prison for 9 years for killing a home intruder. Ethan was the guy slumped against the fridge in the opening, a scene that Michael continues to have flashbacks about. 

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At Ethan’s, Michael and Davy discover he is kinder and gentler than Frank, so they beg their mother to stay through the school year, but she says no. When Ethan sees signs of Frank’s abuse on the boys’ bodies, he determines to go for custody, despite his prison record. 

 

At the custody hearing, the judge refuses to hear the boys’ testimony and orders them returned to Mary and Frank. Horrified and despairing, the boys concoct a hasty plan to run away and hide in the woods. Ethan helps by leaving the boys alone to give them time to make their escape. When Frank and Mary arrive to pick up the boys and find them gone, Frank beats Ethan into a coma, believing him to be hiding the boys himself. 

 

Hiding out in the forest with Davy, Michael remembers an additional detail about the night of the murder: someone else was in the house that night. He and Davy leave their hiding place to share the information with Ethan, but find him in the hospital. Outside the hospital, Frank catches them and forces them into his truck. As Frank drives them back toward their old life, Michael manages to secretly record Frank confessing to killing the intruder himself and framing Ethan—with the help of Mary. Not long after Frank returns home with the boys, the police show up to arrest both Frank and Mary. Ethan’s conviction gets set aside, and he’s awarded permanent custody of Michael and Davy.