(There are Spoilers) Set in the crime and drug infested slums of Washington D.C just blocks away from the center of power of the United States Government, the Capital and the White House. "Short Fuse" or "Good to Go" takes place in the mid-1980's at the beginning of the then much heralded "War on Drugs". The war initiated by the Reagan/Bush Administration that's still with us after twenty years and still going strong as well as being frustrating,for the local police and Federal DEA and FBI fighting it, as ever.
A gang of homeboys, high on crack and angel dust, go on a wild rampage one Friday evening. The destruction ends with the vicious and deadly rape and murder of a nurse going home from her job on the night-shift at the local hospital. Washington Tribune reporter S.D Bass, Art Garfunkel,needing a story for his papers morning edition calls D.C Police homicide Chief Harrigan, Harris Yulin,for some breaking crime news. Harrigan gives Bass the inside scoop about the nurse's rape and murder. Bass is also told that the rape/murder happened at a local music and dance club called the Go-Go.
Making all the headlines the next day the Go-Go manager Max, Robert DoQui, is outraged at Bass for reporting that the rape/murder happened at his nightclub when it actually happened in an empty alley blocks away. Bass who took Harrigan's story about the murdered nurse at face value begins to realize that he's using him to implicate the night club and those who work and go there.This on Harrington's part is to give the public the impression that those living in the almost all-black US capital city of Washngton D.C are for the most part not law abiding but mostly a bunch of drug addicts and criminals. Later Bass' suspicions are confirmed when a couple of white teenagers high on pot drive their car into a congested inner city intersection killing themselves and their both reported to be, by Harrigan's and the D.C police official's, black.
Bass is later at the police station as an impartial observer where Harrigan is interrogating young Beats Daughtry, Reginald Daughtry,about the whereabouts of his big brother Tony Daughtry's,Richard Brooks, known on the street as "Chemist". Harrington wants to know what role Tony had in the nurse's murder which in fact he had nothing to do with. Befriending the young and scared Beats Harrington tells him and later his mother, Hattie Winston, that if Tony turns himself over to him he'll see to it that no harm comes to him and he won't end up on a cold slab at the city morgue.
Tony not wanting to turn himself in is later caught up in a shoot-out with the same gang of homeboys, who raped and murdered the nurse, with the police. When the dust clears five of the "gansters" and two D.C policemen are killed. Hungry and on the run for days with nowhere to go or hide Tony end up in his mothers apartment. Tony feels that he'll be killed by the vengeful police and Chief Harrigan for the deaths of their two comrades, which he had nothing to do with. Taking up reporter Bass' offer to give himself up to him Tony is in for a big and deadly surprise later in the movie. Bass with Chief Harrigan coming along to peacefully take Tony into custody has Harrigan, instead of arresting Tony, shooting him dead in front of his shocked and terrified mother and younger brother as well as Bass. Feeling that he let Tony and his family down and is responsible for the innocent mans murder Bass is now more determined then ever to go public with what happened.
The city is now about to explode, since the newspaper Bass works for refuses to print his story, over Harrigan's killing of Tony, thats been reported as a justifiable act of self-defense which nobody in D.C proper for a minute believes. It's now up to Bass to get the truth about Tony's death out to the public before Harrigan has the same thing happen to him that happened to Tony before he can tell it!
The film "Short Fuse", slow moving at first, really picks up in the last fifteen minutes or so as Bass is on the run from the murderous Harrigan who's trying to prevent him from telling the truth, about his cold-blooded murder of Tony. At the same time Brass trying to prevent a major race-riot from erupting in the streets of D.C, over Tony's death, fights and claws his way to the stage at a coast-to-coast televised Go-Go music concert as he leaves Harrigan who's chasing him behind stuck in the crowd. Bass making it to the stage ends up telling the millions of viewers the truth about Tony's death and Harrigan's role in it. Thus both vindicating himself as well as seeing to it that justice is done to the wild cheers of thousands of Go-Go music fans at the concert.
