Action star Steven Seagal plays Jack Taggart, an undercover Environmental Protection Agency operative sent to a crumbling Kentucky mining town to investigate the death of a fellow agent. Posing as a church carpenter, Taggart learns that slimy business magnate Orin Hanner (Kris Kristofferson) has been illicitly dumping toxic waste in abandoned mines. That information got Taggart's colleague murdered -- a scenario the mogul is prepared to repeat.