Retroactive

Karen Warren, a former criminal psychologist, is stranded when her car breaks down on a lonely Texan desert road. She accepts a ride from Frank Lloyd, who travels with his abusive wife Rayanne Lloyd on a plan to sell stolen computer chips. The ride is tense from the start, hinting at danger hidden beneath ordinary conversation.

A state trooper stops their car and issues Frank a speeding ticket, briefly interrupting their journey. The encounter introduces the looming possibility of consequences if they push too far. Karen senses that this trip is spiraling toward violence.

They stop at Sam's gas station, where Sam reveals evidence of Rayanne's cheating with tow truck driver Jesse. The revelation inflames Frank's trust issues and raises the stakes of their deal. Karen watches the cracks in their fragile alliance widen into a deadly trajectory.

Frank confronts Rayanne with lethal force and shoots her, then targets Karen but she escapes into the desert. Karen evades the violence, slipping away into the barren landscape. The moment marks the beginning of Karen's entrapment in a mystery that will redefine reality.

Karen stumbles into a hidden laboratory in the desert where Brian tests a time machine on mice. The device activates and unexpectedly sends Karen back twenty minutes in time. This first time loop sets the stage for a drastic shift in the sequence of events.

Returned to the car just after the time jump, Karen asks a state trooper for help. The request escalates the situation, and Frank kills Rayanne, the state trooper, and Jesse. The moment confirms that attempting to alter fate only intensifies the danger.

Karen escapes to Brian's laboratory and explains what she knows. Brian and Karen decide to travel back in time together so he can call the police on Frank. They prepare to navigate the looping timeline to stop the murderous plan.

During the next loop, Karen wakes into a ten-minute earlier moment and joins Paul in the fight against Frank. Paul helps Karen, but Frank kills Rayanne, Jesse, and even the vacationing parents of a boy named Paul. The scene demonstrates that even seemingly small changes can have deadly consequences.

Brian arrives and suggests another jump, and they return to the laboratory chased by Frank. They overload the time machine and are sent back sixty minutes, loading the stakes with the possibility of a different outcome. The crew braces for a potentially decisive reset.

Karen awakens in her car sixty minutes earlier and refuses the lift from Frank. She warns the state trooper about Frank, and Brian arrives to pick her up. They converge on the gas station, hoping to end the cycle with a different present.

At the gas station, Sam and Jesse are dead, Frank has been shot dead by Rayanne, and Rayanne is arrested by the state trooper. The altered present resolves with Karen surviving and the danger contained, though the consequences of the loops linger. Brian joins Karen as they step into a calmer, but altered, finale.