Written and directed by John Lee Hancock, this police drama thriller is about how an older and rather burned out deputy sheriff from Kern County named Joe Deacon (Denzel Washington) teams up with the younger Sergeant Jim Baxter (Rami Malek) from the Los Angeles Sheriff Department to work together in reeling in a cunning serial killer (Jared Leto) with a knack for evading capture. The two work out their differences and try to wrestle with their respective personal struggles to prevent the killer from taking another life.