It’s 1927, and the most devastating flood in American history has swelled the Mississippi River to a width of 80 miles. In an attempt to save a family trapped by the rising water, four men in a tiny rowboat battle the treacherous flow. Three are convicts, on loan from the local prison and pressed into service. The fourth, the leader of the team, is driven by his own hidden motives. But to their surprise upon arrival at Ballymore, an ancestral home protected by a high, circular levee, not everyone in the family feels the need to be saved. As the threat from the flood increases and time ticks away, the crew and the family must decide on a course of action, and a desperate plan is hatched to save the weakening levee and all it was built to protect.