The World Made Straight is based on award-winning author Ron Rash's coming-of-age novel about Travis Shelton (Jeremy Irvine), a 17-year-old high school dropout living in a small Appalachian mountain town in the 1970s. Travis, who can't keep a job, finds more than he bargained for when he stumbles upon his town's marijuana crop, harvested by local drug-dealing thug Carlton Toomey (Steve Earle) and his violent son, Hubert (Marcus Hester). At first Travis doesn't encounter them, so he grabs some cannabis and enlists his friend (Haley Joel Osment) to help him unload it to Leonard, aka "The Professor" (Noah Wyle), a disgraced former teacher turned petty moonshiner and drug dealer. But after Travis goes back to steal more marijuana, he gets stuck in a bear trap set by the Toomeys. Once he's out of the hospital, Travis' father throws him out of the house, and he ends up asking Leonard whether he can stay at his place. Leonard reluctantly agrees and starts mentoring Travis and teaching him about how his ancestors were a group of Southern Unionists who were massacred during the Civil War. As Travis reflects on his past, he also starts making strides to be a better man than his father ... if only the Toomeys would leave him and Leonard alone.