Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, a man whose dreams of winning the middleweight boxing title were destroyed when he was arrested along with another man for the murders of three people in a New Jersey bar. Wrongfully accused, Carter and John Artis were convicted and sentenced to three life terms in prison, where Carter decided to channel his frustration and despair by writing his own story from his cell.

Years later, an alienated American youth living in Canada (Vicellous Reon Shannon) found direction and purpose for the first time in his life. Convinced of Carter’s innocence, the teenager enlisted his social activist guardians: Terry Swinton (John Hannah), Lisa Peters (Deborah Kara Unger) and Sam Chaiton (Liev Schreiber), to mount a full-time campaign to get Carter released.