It is based on BBC Mini-Series that aired in 2003, the film is set in Washington, D.C. and tells of Stephen Collins (Affleck), a fast-rising United States Congressman with ambitions to become his party's presidential candidate. This goal is threatened after his mistress (Maria Thayer), a former research assistant, is found dead in suspicious circumstances, while right-wing opponents to Collins' campaign for social reform attempt to use the scandal to kill his political career. During a probe into a series of seemingly unrelated murders, Cal McAffrey (Crowe), an investigative journalist and Collins' former campaign manager, finds himself tasked with solving the case, becoming romantically involved with the Congressman's estranged wife (Wright Penn) in the process.
