Over the protests of friends riding in her BMW, African-American college student Marybeth Miles confronts police when they hassle a young white man running in a black neighborhood. No good deed goes unpunished, and for her gesture of justice, Marybeth and the jogger are handcuffed together by police, who call it “street justice” and say they will remove the handcuffs after 24 hours of good behavior. Marybeth must bring home the white fellow, DeMarcus Malone, to greet her irascible father, unflappable mother and diabolical little sister. Dad James Miles grills DeMarcus at the dinner table, revealing that DeMarcus is the reporter who broke a sensational, negative story about Miles’ business. James can’t get this white reporter devil unhinged from his daughter and out of his house fast enough. He cuts apart the handcuffs, then calls a cab for DeMarcus. While waiting for the cab to show up, James learns DeMarcus has one more good story in him — a story so good that James Miles suddenly blocks the door and won’t let DeMarcus leave the house.