In this coming of age action drama, Canadian film star Brendan Fletcher plays Jimmy Zip, an abused runaway with pyromaniac tendencies. Jimmy escapes an abusive foster father and heads for the big city where he gets a job working for a drug dealer/pimp named Rick (Chris Mulkey). One night he succumbs to peer pressure from fellow street punks and goes on a fireworks rampage, tossing an explosive into a junk yard car.

Horace (Robert Gossett), the grizzled transient sleeping inside the car, happens to be an extraordinary sculptor and recruits Jimmy to be his apprentice and partner. The two of them dive into their artistic endeavors funded with drug money stolen from Rick. In the process, Jimmy bonds deeply with his mentor and learns to channel his destructive energy into creative expression. However, an enraged Rick tracks down Jimmy and Horace and they are caught in a double life between the worlds of crime and art. Jimmy fights for survival aided by his streetwise girlfriend Sheila (Adrienne Frantz) and discovers that art and camaraderie have become a matter of life and death.