In Sunchaser, "Blue" (Jon Seda) is a 16-year-old half-Navajo gang member from East L.A. who is serving time in prison for murdering his abusive stepfather. He is convinced that he can heal his stomach cancer if he can only get to a medicine man in Arizona he knew when he was eight years old.
In order to carry out his desperate plan, Blue kidnaps Dr. Michael Reynolds (Woody Harrelson), a UCLA physician who is reluctantly treating him. They are separated by education, class, race, and two very different world views. Dr. Reynolds is a selfish and arrogant physician who believes that modern medicine has all the answers to whatever ails human beings. Blue believes in Native American spirituality which honors the spirit world, sacred places, and herbal medicine.
While the police unsuccessfully try to track them on their eastward journey to Arizona, the two men clash with each other. Their bickering is interrupted only by a rattlesnake and a vicious group of bikers. This unusual film is directed by Michael Cimino (The Deerslayer) and written by Charles Leavitt. A New Age devotee (Anne Bancroft) hits the nail on the head when she advises Dr. Reynolds, "to forgive yourself for whatever has closed your heart." A dark secret from his past is revealed as the avid secularist eventually begins to treat Blue as a human being and as a lost pilgrim.
Sunchaser mirrors the cultural walls that still separate spiritual believers and spiritual naysayers.