The fast-paced city life of two sisters is turned upside down when they are sent to live in the country with their father after their mother is killed.

Perfectly respectable youngster Ben refuses to stand by when his girl-friend, provocatively impish drug addict Sophie, is shipped off by her airhead ma and brutally domineering stepfather to dodgy Dr. Norman Hail's completely isolated Fiji 'boot camp'. Ben fakes drug problems to get enrolled in the 'serenity' rehabilitation program from wayward teenagers according to their often irresponsible parents. Under ex-military guards captain Logan's ruthless sway, Ben saves an exhausted boy's life before attempting an escape with Sophie.

Manipulative police lieutenant Phoebe McNamara is a success as hostage negotiator, but drove ex-husband Roy squires away, so she and their toddler daughter Carly live with her devoted ma Essie. Systematic self-righteous verbal abuse of uniformed cops leads to a grim feud with one of them, cocky Arnie Meeks. Captain David McVee and businessman-philanthropist Duncan Swift, her patient lover, side with her and the assumption Meeks is behind a violence wave targeting her, but that proves dead-wrong.