"Officer Sharon Pogue is an excellent cop. "She´s tough and she doesn´t compromise," explains director Luis Mandoki, "She will do whatever it takes to do the right thing, regardless of personal cost to herself."

"Assigned to a high-crime district in the South Side of Chicago, her job puts her into danger on a daily basis - arresting drug dealers, confronting armed criminals, breaking up fights. The intense anger that often shows through her professional exterior in the face of such volatile situations leads her partner and friend Robby (Terrence Howard) to suspect she was well-acquainted with violence long before she ever put on a uniform. But it´s not something she chooses to talk about.

"Sharon´s dedication to her job does little to compensate for the fact that she has no personal life. She has been estranged from her family for many years. Disconnected from them and from life in general, Sharon fills her days with work and her nights with her private regrets.

"Somewhere in the same neighborhood a man who goes by the name of Catch is living his own half-life. A strange, haunted soul who sleeps in an empty apartment, he spends his days dispensing little gifts of goodwill to anyone in need. If it starts to rain and he notices a car window open, Catch will roll it up; if a stranger passes by, Catch will offer a smile. Twice a week he delivers groceries to a disabled woman named Elanora Davis (Shirley Knight). He and Elanora exchange the same light banter every time he stops by but she has learned not to ask him the kinds of questions he doesn´t want to answer.

"To most people who encounter him, Catch is an odd but harmless figure. To some, he appears dangerous, suspicious and they wonder what he is up to. But Catch is indifferent to the reactions he elicits. He moves through the landscape in a kind of existential daze, performing his services automatically as though this is the only thing he was meant to do. Yet he seems to derive no real pleasure from it.

"Like Sharon, Catch has no personal life.

"When Sharon learns that her parents, Josephine (Sonia Braga) and Carl (Victor Argo) are planning a big party to celebrate the renewal of their wedding vows and she has not been invited, she reaches a crisis. At the same time, Sharon´s investigations into her new lover´s background bring up issues for him that he would do anything to avoid - even if it means never seeing her again.