Flatliners is about five medical students in Chicago who are curious about what occurs to people who "flatline" (when heart and brain activity cease) and then are resuscitated. These would-be doctors decide to induce their own near-death experiences by ingesting an anesthetic and stopping their hearts with electrical paddles.

Sneaking into a vacant building to keep this illegal activity from being discovered, they take turns "flatlining." After being technically dead for three or four minutes, they attempt to bring each other back. In the process of "dying" and returning, each of the students is sensitized to the unconfessed sins of their past. In each case, they describe nightmarish visions while unconscious that convince them the afterlife is not a figment of the imagination.

In Nelson's (Kiefer Sutherland) brush with death, he traveled back 20 years to a meadow where he and his dog chased a boy up a tree and taunted him. The limb broke, and the child fell to his death.

Having relived the tragedy, Nelson is somber as he walks aimlessly in downtown Chicago in the rainy pre-dawn darkness. Nelson's mind plays tricks on him. His guilt causes what is real and what is imaginary to blur.

The sound of cyclists riding by him startles him like a swarm of bees. He walks into a dark alley and sees faces of street people who look up at him with searing glances. One of the people is a homeless woman who is warming herself by a fire and talking to herself. Her words are disconnected and do not make sense. But when Nelson walks past her, she looks directly at him and mysteriously calls him by name. Then, with obvious sarcasm, she speaks words he already feels in his heart: "'Cause in the end we all know what we've done."

This stranger's uninvited promise of judgment frightens Nelson, and he runs away into the dark.

Elapsed time: This scene begins at 00:39:00 and lasts about 1½ minutes

Content: Rated R for sexual situations and language