When Toby loses her job and starts a nonprofit to rehabilitate abused rescue dogs at the local prison, she hatches a plan to break her lover out of prison by smuggling him out in one of the dog crates, sparking a federal manhunt.
Toby Young and John Maynard individually tell their joint story. Straight-laced in all aspects (boring to use her own term), Toby was at a crossroads of her life in being a recent empty nester, and having been laid off from her job, those two changes which only highlighted to her how stale her marriage to her firefighter husband Pat Young was, he the only man she had ever been with having known him since she was fifteen. She valuing a life with meaning in this crossroads was further punctuated with her father James Phalen's cancer diagnosis. John was in the only life he'd known as an adult, ten years into his life sentence for felony murder at Lansing Correctional Facility. They met as she, an animal lover, began working on a rescue dog rehabilitation program with inmates at Lansing, John her star trainer in the program. In spending time together, they fell in love and imagined a life together outside, leading to they devising a plan to break him out. While the escape plan worked, the question became whether they could overcome the inherent differences in their life together against what they knew, Toby as a fugitive versus her inherent need to do the right thing, and John in experiencing life as somewhat a free man, at least without the constraints of being an inmate.—Huggo
Catherine Bell, as Toby here, is in a high-speed car chase with a man named John. They are trying to outrun the police. The chase pauses, and voice over plays; Toby will tell us the story of how she got here.
Cut to Toby and John talking directly to the camera, saying they were in love.
Next, we see Toby in a stale, empty-nest marriage whose father is dying of cancer. Toby struggles to find joy in her life and focuses on doing SOMETHING with her life. So, she starts taking in stray dogs and training them as rescue dogs for a god prison program.
In the prison yard, Toby is approached by John, aka Hooligan. John turns out to be one of the best dog trainers.
The prisoners get attached to the dogs, and the program continues to grow. John casually flirts with Toby. He even comes to her rescue when an inmate gets angry and almost hits Toby. The prison doesn't have enough money to supply Toby with a guard, so John becomes her unofficial protector.
Toby's program is going so well that she is given free unsupervised reign of the place. She spends time in John's cell and looks at the pictures on his wall. He tells her his story. John is in prison for murder and was charged with life in prison when he was 17. Toby tells him that people make mistakes.
Toby opens up to John too. She shares that she is unhappy in her marriage. He tells her to watch porn and think of him. They start making out in the kitchen and pushing the boundaries.
John asks Toby to start smuggling stuff in for him. Like a tape player of her talking so he can fall asleep listening to her voice. She also brings in a cellphone, so they can start texting. The jailbreak lovers start planning a way to be together on the outside.
The plan was to run away for a couple of months together. Toby cleans out her and her husband's retirement savings and rents a storage locker. John pressures her to sneak him out as soon as possible. She puts John in a dog crate and just drives him out. They drop off the van at the storage unit and take a bag full of cash and guns to go on the run.
The prison goes on lockdown once they realize that John is missing. They didn't even suspect that Toby was capable of sneaking him out. It becomes a huge news story as the police search for them. Detective Blake interviews Toby's husband, who is clueless about his wife's affair.
John snaps at Toby on the road, and she sees a different side of him. The criminal side. He makes it up to her by playing the ukulele and then doing her in a motel room. They make it to a cabin in the woods and play house. Toby worries about getting caught, but John tells her not to worry because he will say he kidnapped her and forced her to go on the run with him.
John signs a song he wrote for Toby in falsetto. She is swept off her feet. They go out into the world. They spend time shopping for a new guitar, a bird at the pet store, and fighting over what to name it. John is subject to mood swings, and Toby puts up with them because she says it makes her feel alive.
Toby is not a criminal mastermind and leaves a paper trail. The police laugh at her ineptitude and track them down fairly easily. As they leave a book store, police surround them, leading to the high speed car chase where the movie started. The police surround them and apprehend Toby and John. As the lovers are being separated, they shout that they love one another.
Toby gets divorced, and her son cuts off communication. She has no idea how much trouble she is in and decides not to play the victim card. Toby says she wouldn't do it all again and is now remarried. (thanks to lifetimeuncorked)
