A boy who loses his parents in a plane crash, is taken in by his uncle, who then leaves him for ten years in the care of his Hispanic ranch hand and his wife. Once in high school, Eddie reconnects with a girl from his past, and their growing interracial relationship teaches the sometimes-sullen Eddie to think of others before himself.

With a heavy infatuation with modern cinema, Jon Andrews and his friends, Scott and Randy, devise a plot to film a horrific event in a bad part of town and enter it into a local film festival.