Seeking revenge on a white criminal gang, a black homeowner lures them into a home invasion to disguise murder as self defense. "Death Wish" meets "Straw Dogs".

SYNOPSIS:

IN SELF DEFENSE? by Michael Elliott

A rising tide of crime threatens to drown law and order. Daily random violence haunts the lives of ordinary people. Police forces are dwindling and demoralized. Wide-spread prosecutorial indifference leads to emboldened criminals.

Anton Gurley is the head of middle-class African American family, who has created a comfortable lifestyle for himself, his wife and teenage daughter. Jake Paxton is the head of a small-time criminal family consisting of his brother and two cousins.

The fortunes of the two families intersect one night at a fast-food restaurant when Nick Paxton, Jake’s younger brother, commits murder during a hold-up attempt. An event witnessed by Anton Gurley.

Anton identifies Nick in a line-up and agrees to testify. This brings him into contact with Jake and his cousins, Walter and Jerry. Thus begins a drumbeat of intimidation targeted at Anton and his family. The police and legal system provide no help to stop the intimidation. Yet Anton refuses to change his mind.

Jake realizes he’ll need to escalate his campaign of intimidation from words to action. It comes when his wife, Tamara and Megan, his daughter’s best friend, are kidnapped, psychologically and emotionally tormented. The kidnappers mistake Megan for Kiarra, the Gurley’s daughter. Megan struggles with her captor and inadvertently pulls off his ski mask. She sees his face. She disappears.

Anton blames himself. He verbally assaults the police and district attorney for their impotence. He gathers his family and moves them to his sister’s home in Florida but he’s not staying. He disappears into the Great Smoky Mountains, seeking his adopted brother Serge, an expert in asymmetrical combat. When Anton emerges months later, he is a man transformed who vows to turn the tables on his tormentors.

Instead of plunging into spontaneous acts of violence and revenge, Anton follows a careful plan of shadowing and analyzing the Paxton crime family. Then slowly and deliberately he creates, then elevates the threat level. The Paxton’s realize they are targeted but not by whom.

Anton reveals himself in a series of encounters that foreshadow his intention to kill them all. The Paxton clan is stunned with disbelief. They argue about how this possibly could have happened. They second-guess themselves on why they didn’t kill him early on. Now their path is clear. They must kill what Jake characterizes as, “the Frankenstein monster I’ve created.”

Anton retreats to his home, confident Jake’s rage will cause him to act rashly. The attack comes as he anticipated. They attack Anton’s home at night, unaware that he has rigged it to be a death trap. The battle rages, blood flows, bodies fall. Thanks to his careful planning, even though seriously injured, Anton prevails.

Yet the elimination of danger from the Paxtons is replaced by danger from an unlikely and totally unanticipated source.

The state’s Attorney General’s office launches an investigation into the incident. Since the Gurleys are African-American and the Paxtons were Caucasian, the stated goal is to uncover if the home invasion was a racist attack. If so, were the Paxtons members of or affiliated with any white nationalist groups or ideology.

The lead investigator, Deacon Caldwell, is renowned for his work interrogating terrorists at Guantanamo and in Iraq.

As he traces the conflict from its origins to its outcome, he discovers Anton received and continues to receive help from unknown and unlikely allies dedicated to shaping and perpetuating the home invasion narrative

IN SELF DEFENSE?