[4][5] The film is loosely based on the story of Mark Yavorsky, an actor at the University of San Diego who reenacted a scene from Orestes by murdering his mother with an antique saber.

Inside the house, the detectives find the body of Mrs. McCullam, Brad's mother, who has just been stabbed with an antique sword.

Brad becomes disruptive and is eventually kicked out of the production, but still travels to Calgary with Lee and his mother to attend a performance.

A SWAT team arrives to take command of the hostage situation, and the detective talks further with Ingrid and Lee.

We see a flashback to Brad and Ingrid's trip to Tijuana, after which they go to Bob Wilson Naval Hospital to "visit the sick in general".

The final shot is in Balboa Park, where a young boy resembling Brad[8] picks up the basketball.

Golder heard about Yavorsky's case and began a relationship with him that would last several years, conducting a series of taped interviews which would be used to write a screenplay.

[4] Yavorsky, living in a trailer, had erected a shrine to Herzog's film Aguirre, the Wrath of God.

"[8][9] Golder and Herzog decided immediately that their film would deviate significantly from Yavorsky's true story.

Herzog decided that they "should not connect much to the real man",[9] and that they would focus on Yavorsky's mental state rather than the clinical facts of his case.

"[10] The film's development stagnated for many years after its writing, when Herzog and Golder were unable to find anyone willing to produce it.

[8] Actors Shannon and Zabriskie appreciated filming so close to the story's actual setting, while producer Eric Bassett said that the choice of location was for financial reasons, and Herzog says that it was simply "a matter of convenience".

[8] Other scenes were shot on the Urubamba River in Peru, a favorite location of Herzog's which appeared in his earlier films Aguirre, the Wrath of God and Fitzcarraldo.

Herzog originally set the scenes at the Braldu River in the western Himalayas, where the real life Yavorsky had had a life-changing trip,[9] but for safety reasons did not wish to film in Northern Pakistan.

They brought a small digital video camera which they used to film Shannon wandering around in a crowded outdoor market, in a scene with no narrative ties to the rest of the story.

The website's critics consensus reads: "Enigmatic and digressive, this mystical potboiler possesses director Werner Herzog's penchant for offbeat atmosphere, but lacks the absurdist humor and profundity that makes his previous trips into madness compelling.

[14] Jeff Shannon of the Seattle Times called the film "One of Herzog's quirky misfires,"[15] while Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times said the film "Confounds all convention and denies all expected pleasures, providing instead the delight of watching Herzog feed the police hostage formula into the Mixmaster of his imagination.