[2] It shares themes with a number of movies from the mid-1990s, most notably Natural Born Killers by Oliver Stone and Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs by Quentin Tarantino.

He says that there has always been violence but humans are not like robots; seeing something on the screen does not necessarily make us want to do it ourselves (p. 13 "people get up from the movie theatre or the TV and do what they just saw").

Unfortunately for Bruce, Wayne and Scout (a pair of psychopaths known in the media as the "Mall Murderers") have formulated a plan to hold him hostage and have him publicly announce that his movies are responsible for their crimes so they can avoid the death penalty (Wayne has a lengthy speech giving examples of how in America it is possible to be guilty and innocent at the same time.)

As the novel progresses, Bruce and a critically injured Brooke Daniels are joined inside his house by his wife and daughter and a TV camera crew.

Many of the characters die in the ensuing violence and the epilogue of the story reveals grim details as to how all the survivors have found a way of escaping responsibility for the tragedy using varying routes from lawsuits and finding religion to making documentaries which explicitly blame everyone else.