Big Nothing

Charlie, an ex-teacher, is fired on his first day at a call center, a stumble that nudges him toward a darker circle. The sudden job loss unsettles his moral bearings and opens a path to risky schemes. The quiet Oregon town becomes the stage where ordinary life starts to crack.

Gus, Charlie’s coworker, invites him to band together on a plan to blackmail a reverend. The prospect of money and danger entices Charlie, drawing him deeper into the plot. The idea plants a dangerous seed that will soon involve Josie.

Josie McBroom, a teenage pageant queen, overhears the discussion and insists on joining the plan. Her willingness adds ambition and risk to the trio's scheme. The group solidifies their unlikely partnership.

The trio hatches a scheme to summon the reverend and extract a hefty blackmail payment. Gus heads to the reverend's house while Charlie creates an alibi at a bar to cover their tracks. The plan tightens the tension as deceit edges toward violence.

Gus goes to the reverend's house to press for money, setting the plan in motion. The anticipation is thick as the other two monitor events from the shadows. The danger of their scheme becomes increasingly real.

Charlie slips into a bar to fashion an alibi, claiming Gus is at a gas station. The plan begins to falter as the bar's environment threatens to expose their ruse. The tension foreshadows a messy confrontation.

Charlie hurries to the reverend's house only to find the reverend's body already there and Gus missing. He makes a split-second decision to seal the reverend away in a septic tank to hide the scene. It later emerges that the reverend was alive when Charlie sealed him, having been shot and knocked out by Gus.

The trio discovers videos showing the reverend torturing and killing a young woman, escalating the fear and urgency. Ambition and fear twist together as the consequences of their actions become clearer. They realize they could be in far over their heads.

A deputy sheriff visits the house in search of the reverend and finds him dead with three gunshot wounds, with drag marks leading toward the septic tank. The deputy questions the trio but departs, unaware of the deeper peril surrounding them. He leaves a warning that the investigation isn’t over.

Gus attempts a getaway with the money, but a special agent shoots him dead during the pursuit. The money bag turns out to be Charlie's daughter's stuffed animals, a cruel reminder of what greed has cost. The loss deepens Charlie's peril and complicates the trio's fate.

In a waiting-room confrontation, the special agent reveals that Josie is the Wyoming Widow, a killer who poisons men with thallium-laced whiskey. To prove her innocence, Josie drinks from a flask, but the agent's vigilance upends the ruse. The truth fractures their already fragile alliance.

The pursuit continues toward a tar pit for final disposal. Josie confronts Charlie, offering him a grim choice between a bullet or poisoned whiskey. Charlie jokes about money before drinking the poisoned whiskey and collapsing, the film's bleak inversion of greed.

The supposed bag of cash turns out to be Charlie's daughter's stuffed animals, a cruel symbol of what greed has cost. Charlie dies, leaving his daughter to face a shadowed future. The ending leaves the cycle of crime intact in the dusty landscape.

Josie hitchhikes with an old man, quietly poisoning him with a second flask and slipping away as he drives. A truck's Oregon plate appears in the final shot, suggesting that the cycle could begin again in the same unforgiving landscape.