SYNOPSIS:

EARL WILSON is about to retire as sheriff of a small town when a cowboy straight out of the Old West robs the local bank and then vanishes into the mountains on a horse. Earl realizes he has one more case to solve before he can put down his badge. But this one is different. There is no license plate to trace, no fingerprints to run through a computer, and no good description of the robber. The bandit, LANCE WEBER, who mistakenly killed Earl’s wife years ago, has just been released from prison and is determined to avenge his time behind bars. He is strong, hardened, and exceptionally skilled in surviving like a 19th century outlaw. As Earl and FBI agent MATTHEW WILLOUGHBY track Weber, the sheriff teaches the federal agent, who had been a SWAT team sniper, a different style of police work in which rules and paperwork don’t exist and the law can sometimes be taken into their own hands if the goal is justice. The sheriff is forced to confront a secret of his past. Weber is after him because he failed to arrest the outlaw’s father who molested Weber’s sister. Matthew also has a stain on his record for accidentally killing a hostage when he was with the SWAT team. The town’s mayor thinks Earl isn’t doing enough to bring in Weber so he hires two bounty hunters to do the job. Weber runs into the hired guns on a mountain trail, kills them, and leaves their bodies hanging from a tree in town as a warning. Earl realizes that he and Matthew will have to hunt Weber deep in the wilderness, where there is no help if something goes wrong. In the final shootout, Weber captures Earl and is about to kill him when Matthew, whose leg is badly broken, takes aim and, despite the pain and his reluctance to shoot at another hostage, puts a bullet through the outlaw, saving the sheriff.