A man who has struggled personally has conflicts with his upwardly mobile lawyer brother and his brother's well to-do fiancée and is reluctant to be the best man at their wedding.

Pierce Mundy, a thirty year old black man, is drifting aimlessly through life. Unable to find work in his trade of heavy equipment operation, he works at his parents' dry cleaners in a poor, crime-ridden section of Inglewood in South Central Los Angeles. Despite being aimless, he is not averse to expressing his disdain for his lawyer brother, Wendell Mundy, for turning his back against their social class. That disdain is only exacerbated by the fact that Wendell is engaged to fellow lawyer Sonia Dubois, who Pierce has openly shown his dislike in believing that she is stuck-up, always bragging about what privilege she has had in life. Regardless, Pierce has vowed to his mother that he will act as best man at the wedding. Another vow Pierce has made is to Mrs. Richards, the mother of his best friend, Soldier Richards, who has been in and out of prison his entire adult life and who is imminently to be released from his latest stint behind bars. That vow is to look out for Soldier upon his release, as while most see the Mundy brothers as basically good people, not the same can be said about Soldier, although Pierce believes that Soldier has never done anything knowingly criminal. Things get complicated for Pierce when shortly after being released, Soldier is killed in an accident, his funeral which is scheduled for the exact same time as Wendell and Sonia's wedding. This conflict will show where Pierce's allegiances lie.—Huggo