Sylvia, a novice schoolteacher, is hired to teach English in a high school, but she’s met with an apathetic faculty, a delinquent student body and an administration that drowns its staff in paperwork. The following days go from bad to worse as Sylvia struggles to reach her most troubled students.

When a twisted psychotic kidnaps a young girl, mistaking her for the daughter of a wealthy developer, her father, a hardened ex-cop, doggedly hunts them through New York's seamy streets.