When Jack and Josie elope, Jorge (Francisco Rabal), her Basque immigrant father, tracks them down and abducts his daughter in order to dominate her with his "old-world" notions of marriage.

However, when Jorge Larraneta drowns in a lake after an auto accident, Martin (the black-sheep of the family) returns home and learns of his father's death.

[2][3] Filming locations included: Istria Peninsula, Croatia; País Vasco, Spain; and San Diego, California.

Its passions are so large that they are a challenge to actors trained in a realistic tradition, but Hurt, who has the most difficult passages, rises to the occasion with one of the strangest and most effective performances he has given.

He wrote in his review for The New York Times, "The movie includes some big, unimpressive battle scenes, a number of orangey sunsets, a lot of comic-strip dialogue ('I'm going to get revenge!'

Film critic Rita Kempley said, "Hurt's role as a vengeful psycho churns up this laughable purple potboiler, but even the perennial Oscar nominee can't save it from itself.