Mr. Cox (ROBERT DUVALL) is a wildcat oilman -- a speculator who believes he can detect the site of a productive oil well just by examining the land around it. He's spent decades in the oil business, some better than others, but, although he's helped other oilmen make their fortunes, he's never had a strike of his own.
The year is 1935 and the Great Depression has etched its way across America. Mr. Cox has found himself moving from one Texas boomtown to another, living out of his suitcase, pursuing a relentless, elusive dream. His quest is for an oil strike so huge and so rich that he will find not only wealth, but validation for who he is and what he has always done.
The dream remains just out of reach. Now Mr. Cox has arrived at a crossroads near Henrietta. Texas, virtually destitute, with only his cat Matilda and the memories of his many near-misses to keep him company. He is a man to whom history has not been kind, acknowledged by his peers as an eccentric failure.
Driven by nothing more than complete faith in his instincts, Mr. Cox would be willing to risk everything for one real chance at success.
In contrast, Don and Cora Day (AIDAN QUINN and FRANCES FISHER) and their three little girls have a small cotton farm on the outskirts of Henrietta. Daily life has become an ongoing struggle and they are now facing the possibility of losing their land to the bank.
Into this situation comes a polite and eccentric gentleman whom Don Day has rescued from a blinding dust storm. The man, Mr. Cox, takes one look around the Days' property, sniffs the air, and experiences the kind of revelation that will change the course of his life. He has absolute certainty that there is black gold on their property. All he needs is five thousand dollars to rent a drilling rig, and the Day family's permission to turn their moribund cotton field into an oil field.
The Days are stunned -- both by the thought that they could be sitting on oil and by the outrageous idea that they'd have five thousand dollars to squander on anything, much less a stranger's quirky proposition. They ask their guest to leave immediately. But Mr. Cox, unfazed, departs for the nearby boomtown of Big Stone, determined to raise the cash himself, even if it means taking an extraordinary chance with the wealthy, arrogant and profiteering oil magnate Big Dave (BRIAN DENNEHY), who has nothing but contempt for Mr. Cox.
Meanwhile, Don Day has had the spark of an idea planted in his head. He soon undertakes his own serious risk, gambling the last of the family's meager income on a borrowed dream of oil. He suddenly finds himself willing to risk even the love and approval of his wife in order to take a chance on lifting his family from their hand-to- mouth life.
When Mr. Cox reappears, he discovers the Day family already hard at work on making a dream -- once his, now all of theirs -- into a reality. In the process, they each discover what is truly important to themselves -- and they learn that hope is not an emotion reserved only for the young.
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