When petty offender Luke Jackson has been sentenced to 2 yrs at a Florida prison plantation, he does not play with the rules of the sadistic warden or even the yard heavy, Dragline, who eventually ends up admiring the new guy's unbreakable will. Luke's bravado, in the face of recurrent stints from the prison's dreaded solitary confinement cell,"the box, then" make him a rebel hero to his fellow convicts and a thorn in the side of the prison officers.