A pair of writers inhabiting an abandoned New York tenement building become locked in an antagonistic battle of wills in director Danny Green's adaptation of novelist Bernard Malamud's studied exploration of faltering race relations. The time is the early '70s, and Jewish writer Harry Lesser (Dylan McDermott) is finally nearing completion on the novel that has taken him almost a decade to write. The last tenant in a crumbling inner-city apartment building, Harry soon discovers that he is no longer alone in the building when an illegal squatter named Willie (Snoop Dogg) claims a room down the hall and begins writing his own novel. When Harry attempts to offer writing advice to his new neighbor, his criticism of Willie's "immature" writing style ignites a heated confrontation between the pair that is quickly compounded by the growing relationship between Harry and Willie's white girlfriend Irene (Rose Byrne). As the situation quickly spins out of control and Willie sets fire to the only existing copy of Harry's treasured manuscript, the deep-rooted racial animosity explodes into rage and the two writers become locked in a life-or-death struggle to survive.