Ebiere (the filmmaker's wife, Mbong Amata, delivering an impressive turn) returns home to her Nigerian village after working in America for the same oil company and after a devastating gas pipe explosion is swept up in a violent campaign protesting the corruption of the local government in sway to big business interests.

Although the veteran Nollywood filmmaker displays a sure hand in the Nigerian-set sequences, which convey an arresting verisimilitude, he's far less effective in his awkward interweaving of the American principals who have very little to actually do. Besides Rourke and Basinger, they include Sarah Wayne Callies (The Walking Dead) as a television news reporter who baldly states her sympathy for the Nigerians; Vivica A. Fox as a stressed-out State Department official; Anne Heche in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo; and music stars Wyclef Jean and Akon, the latter also serving as an executive producer.