Cult leader Reverend Jim Jones' (Boothe) life is chronicled from his days as an idealistic 1960's activist who runs scams and spends his nights as a womanizer to a self-prolaimed modern day Messiah. Jim Jones styled himself after 1930's religious leader Father Divine, played in flashbacks by James Earl Jones. The 1978 mass suicide of 913 followers at the settlement of Jonestown, Guyana, in South American is staged in a chilling documentary style of events. Powers Boothe's dynamic performance as the charismatic self-styled preacher won him the Emmy Award as outstanding actor.