In 1976, in South Africa during apartheid, Ben Du Toit (Donald Sutherland) is a South African school teacher at a school for whites only. One day the son of his gardener, Gordon Ngubene (Winston Ntshona), gets beaten by the white police and gets caught by the police during a peacefully demonstration for a better education policy for blacks in South Africa. Gordon asks Ben for help. After Ben refuses to help because of his trust in the police, Gordon gets caught by the police as well and is tortured. Against the will of his family, Ben tries to find out more about the disappearance of his gardener by himself. Seeing the weakness and helplessness of the blacks, he decides to bring this incident up before a court with Ian McKenzie (Marlon Brando) as lawyer but loses. Afterwards, he continues to act by himself and supports a small group of blacks to interview others to find out what happened to Gordon.