Plot: Karen McCann lives in Santa Monica, California, and her husband Mack McCann is the owner of the McCann construction company. Karen works in a museum, and she has two daughters. They are 5-year-old Megan and 17-year-old Julie. Mack is Megan's biological father, and Julie was born from Karen's previous marriage. Mack still loves Julie like she's his own daughter. Karen is on her way home from work one day, when she calls home on her cell phone, and Julie answers. Julie is preparing for Megan's 6th birthday at the time of the call, and Karen is still talking to Julie...when a man suddenly breaks into the house and rapes and kills Julie. Karen rushes home as fast as she can, and is devastated by what she sees. Detective Sergeant Joe Denillo is put on the case. Days later, Joe calls Karen and tells Karen that Julie's killer is Robert Doob, a supermarket deliveryman who has been in and out of jail for most of his life. In court, Karen is understandably enraged when Robert is released on a technicality, and Mack is restrained when he lunges at Robert. Robert later starts harassing Megan, and when Karen starts checking out the neighborhood Robert lives in, Robert threatens to go after Megan unless Karen stays away from Robert's neighborhood. When Karen joins a support group for parents of violence victims, she discovers that within this support group, there is a secret society of parents, led by bereaved parent Sidney Hughes, who kill killers that the extremely flawed system has failed to adequately deal with. Karen joins this group and is soon undergoing training at a local firing range. After Robert rapes and kills a woman named Maria, Robert is once again arrested, but he is again released on a technicality. This is when Karen sends Mack and Megan to visit some relatives, and forms a plan to do what the courts can't do...stop Robert once and for all. In matters like these, the system has a habit of giving people like Karen absolutely no choice but to solve these kinds of problems themselves.
Alternative Plot: Harried working mom Karen McCann (Sally Field) is stuck in traffic, talking on the phone to her teenage daughter at home, when she hears an intruder break into the house and murder her child. Although the killer (Kiefer Sutherland) is arrested, a legal technicality leads to his release. Despite the best efforts of her patient husband (Ed Harris), a sympathetic police detective (Joe Mantegna) and a victims'-rights counselor (Charlayne Woodard), Karen becomes obsessed with taking revenge.
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