The film tells the touching story of three protagonists' efforts to stop violence in order to defend the Chicago community where they once worked. The protagonists of the film, The Interrupters, serve an innovative agency called CeaseFire. The group was founded by epidemiologist Gary Slutkin, who argues that violence spreads like disease, and so treatments should trace the deepest contagion to the source and eliminate it. Because of The Interrupters' own experience, they have a very high level of credibility in the community, and their task is to step in and stop things before they turn into mass violence. But in the process of preventing violence, The Interrupters also have moral confusion and entanglement. The antagonists they intervene are familiar friends who can understand people's pain, but must stop their revolt because of it.
Filmed for a year, the film focuses on a time when Chicago became a national symbol of violence. At that time, violent crimes occurred frequently throughout the city. The most sensational case was the Derrion Albert case. A Chicago high school student was beaten to death, and the whole process of violence was recorded.
