Billy Bob Thornton directs and stars in this drama set in 1960s Alabama featuring an ensemble cast that includes Robert Duvall, John Hurt, Kevin Bacon, Robert Patrick, Frances O'Connor and Ray Stevenson. Jim Caldwell (Duvall), an ageing World War I veteran, is the head of a family that includes two sons who fought in World War II, Skip (Thornton) and Carroll (Bacon). Almost 30 years ago the family was torn in two when Jim's wife left him and moved overseas to marry Brit Kingsley Bedford (Hurt). When Mrs Bedford passes away her will indicates that she'd like to buried back home in Alabama, setting the Caldwells and the Bedfords on collision course. How will the two families change each other?

Wall Street Journal -- "Mr Epperson, a veteran screenwriter as well as a novelist, keeps readers guessing until the very last." Roberto, a young left-wing South American journalist, receives an ominous phone call: leave the country in ten days, or die. Roberto is being targeted because of a series of articles he's written exposing government corruption and violence at the highest levels. Roberto believes the voice on the other end of the phone and has every intention of leaving, as soon as he follows a lead on a major story developing in the jungle: thousands of innocent lives are at stake. The book follows him on his perilous journey into the heart of darkness in pursuit of his story. Unknowingly, Roberto is headed toward a confrontation with an evil darker than he could possibly have imagined.