Set in 1994, the film opens in Las Vegas Valley with Pilot Kelson (Jake Gyllenhaal), a drug dealer, who poses as a valet and takes a customer's Rolls-Royce car to give his girlfriend a ride to work. His best friend Jack Hayes (Jared Leto) is a self-employed pool cleaner, who gets caught having sex with the wife of Burt Miranda (Mark Rolston), an organized crime figure. While Jack escapes the initial confrontation with Miranda unharmed, Miranda sends a trio of goons (referred to throughout the remainder of the film as "Miranda's Pandas") to break Jack's feet. Jack convinces Pilot to flee and Pilot proposes they go to Seattle without telling him they're going there to see an old fling of Pilot's.