Likable, soft-spoken history professor Coleman Justice (portrayed by the director) is resolutely anchored in the past, immersing himself in an endless stream of classic western movies. He incessantly quotes lines from Shane and Red River to his class, and regularly invites his students out to cowboy screenings at the local repertory theater. But his cinematic obsession is only a distraction from torturous memories of his youth, when his fiancee was brutally attacked and slain by a gang of hot-rodding rogues. These greazy no-goodniks were quickly eradicated by a car explosion, and Cole was somehow never legally implicated. 36 years later, the wounds are still raw but kept hidden below the surface, until...