Laura Harring

Nancy Drew is based on a fictional character, the titular teen detective, where Nancy (Emma Roberts) goes together with her father, Carson Drew (Tate Donovan) on one of his business trips to Los Angeles. She falters across evidence about a long standing crime involving a death of a beautiful movie star under strange circumstances. Nancys inventiveness and personal liabilities are tested when she finds herself amidst the fast living, self- indulgent world of Hollywood.

The film begins somewhere in Canada where a young woman is driving dangerously into oncoming traffic, as she attempts to pass a semi she is clipped by another semi, which causes her to spin and stalls, then right into the path of the first semi that slams into the side of her car killing her instantly. A few weeks earlier in Chicago, Illinois, John Quincy Archibald (Denzel Washington) and his wife Denise (Kimberly Elise) are getting behind with their payments. One day after witnessing their young son Michael (Daniel E. Smith) collapse at his baseball game. After a series of tests at the hospital, John is informed by Dr. Raymond Turner (James Woods) and Rebecca Payne (Anne Heche), a hospital administrator, that Michael has an enlarged heart and will need a transplant. Because the company he works for dropped John from full-time to part-time, his health insurance has been changed, and the new policy does not cover the surgery, leaving them to raise $250,000 to get their son's name on the donor list. The family tries to raise the money (they sell everything of value they have and even try and approach TV show hosts to run special interest pieces for the family) but are only able to come up with a third of the necessary payment. The hospital uses the money to clear their current dues and demands the full $250K for the transplant procedure. The hospital tires of waiting and releases Michael; Denise shouts at John to do something, or else Michael dies. Unwilling to let his child die, John walks into the hospital ER with a handgun, gathers hostages, and sets demands: his son's name on the recipient list as soon as possible. The hostage negotiator, Lt. Frank Grimes (Robert Duvall), stands down to let John cool off. Meanwhile, John and the eleven hostages learn more about each other. They begin to understand John's situation and support him a little as he ensures each of them receives the treatment they came to the emergency room for. One of them, Miriam (Troy Byer as Troy Beyer), is pregnant, and her husband Steve (Troy Winbush) is hoping that their first child is healthy. A young hostage, Julie (Heather Wahlquist), has a broken arm, and she and her boyfriend Mitch (Shawn Hatosy) claim that a car crash caused it. Due to holes in their story, John and another hostage, Lester (Eddie Griffin), conclude that the two are lying and that Mitch beat up Julie. After a while, John agrees to release some hostages to have his son's name added to the list an hour afterward. He releases Steve, Miriam, and a hostage named Rosa (Martha Chaves) with her baby. Meanwhile, Frank and Rebeca talk to Denise and tell her that the hospital is putting Michael on the list of donors and will cover all expenses. Frank knows this is a lie and that the plan is to use Denise to misguide John into thinking that Michael is on the list when he is not. The Chicago Chief of Police, Gus Monroe (Ray Liotta) is a sadistic s.o.b. and doesn't agree with Frank's tactics (he wants to bring down the hostage taker ASAP for the TV audiences and his own personal ratings with the Mayor's office), gives a SWAT unit permission to insert a sniper into the building via an air shaft. John is shot while he is distracted talking to Denise, but he ends up receiving only a minor wound, which is treated right away. After taking the shot, the sniper's leg falls through the ceiling tiles. Outraged, John pulls him out of the air shaft and beats him up. Meanwhile, Rebecca is moved listening to John's conversation with his son and decides to put him on the list right away, which nobody else knows. Using the bound SWAT policeman as a human shield, he steps outside to the sight of dozens of policemen pointing weapons at him and a large, supportive crowd. John demands that his son be brought to the emergency room. The police agree to his demand in exchange for the SWAT sniper. Once his son arrives, John reveals to the hostages his intention to commit suicide so his heart can be used to save his son. He persuades Dr. Turner to perform the operation, and two of his hostages bear witness to a will stating his last request. John says his last goodbyes to Michael and enters the operating room. He loads a single bullet into the gun and pulls the trigger, but the safety is on. As he prepares to end his life a second time, his wife learns that an organ donor, the woman who died in a car accident, has been flown to the hospital for organ recovery. She runs to the emergency room and stops John from shooting himself, and John allows the hostages to go free. Michael is given the life-saving operation, and after watching the procedure with Denise, John is taken into police custody after the operation is a success. John became a nationwide hit. Three months later, at his trial, all of the witnesses speak on his behalf. He is later acquitted of charges of attempted murder and armed criminal action but is found guilty of kidnapping. It is never revealed what his sentence for the crime will be, but his lawyer is overheard saying that no judge will give him "more than three to five (years)" and that she will try to get it reduced to two.

Before the credits begin, a dreamlike jitterbugging scene is shown and ends with a girl (Naomi Watts), initially flanked by an elderly couple, stepping forward to take applause; a bed containing a sleeper is shown. A dark-haired woman (Laura Helena Harring) escapes her own murder, surviving a car accident on Mulholland Drive. Injured and in shock, she descends into Los Angeles. Detectives investigating the crash indicate they suspect a woman has made her way down to the city. At daybreak she sneaks into an apartment which an older, red-headed woman is just vacating. In a diner called Winkies, a man tells his companion about a nightmare in which he dreamed there was a horrible figure behind the diner. When they investigate, the figure appears, causing the man with the nightmare to collapse in fright. While the dark-haired woman sleeps, a series of mysterious and sinister phone calls are made concerning her whereabouts. An aspiring actress named Betty Elms (Naomi Watts) arrives at Los Angeles airport with two accidental traveling companions; they are the trio seen in the opening sequence. The elderly couple is seen leaving in a blacked-out limousine, smiling ominously at each other and staring ahead. Betty arrives at the apartment, her aunt's, that the dark-haired woman has entered and assumes she is there with her aunt's consent. Betty tells her how happy she is to be in "this dream place". The woman is confused, not knowing her own name and assumes the name "Rita" after seeing a poster for the film Gilda, starring Rita Hayworth. Later, a bungling hit man (Mark Pellegrino) steals a book full of phone numbers and leaves three people dead. A Hollywood director named Adam Kesher (Justin Theroux) has his film commandeered by apparent mobsters, who insist he cast an unknown actress named Camilla Rhodes (Melissa George) as the lead in his film. After he resists, he leaves the building and smashes the mobsters' car with a golf club and flees. While he is driving, he receives a call from his secretary informing him that Ray, his production manager, fired all of his staff. She implores him to drive to his office to sort out the situation, but he ultimately decides to go home. Later, he returns home to find his wife having an affair with a man named Gene (Billy Ray Cyrus). He destroys his wife's jewelry with pink paint out of impulse and pushes her against the wall after she starts hitting him. Gene intervenes and throws him out of his house. He later learns that his bank has closed his line of credit and he is broke. At his agent's advice, he agrees to meet a mysterious figure called The Cowboy, who urges him to cast Camilla Rhodes for his own good. To help Rita remember her identity, Betty urges Rita to look in her purse, and they find a large amount of money and an unusual blue key. Trying to learn more about Rita's accident, Betty and Rita go to Winkies and are served by a waitress named Diane, which causes Rita to remember the name "Diane Selwyn". They find Diane Selwyn in the phone book and call her, but she does not answer. Betty goes to an audition that Rita helped her prepare for, where her performance is highly praised. A casting agent takes her to the set of a film called The Sylvia North Story, directed by Adam, where Camilla Rhodes gives an audition and Adam declares, "This is the girl." After casting Camilla as the lead actress, he almost immediately turns around and looks straight at Betty. Betty flees before she can meet Adam, saying that she promised to meet a friend. Betty and Rita go to Diane Selwyn's apartment and break in through an unlocked window when no one answers the door. In the bedroom they find the body of a woman who has been dead for several days. Terrified, they return to their apartment, where Rita disguises herself with a blonde wig. The two women have sex that night; Betty tells Rita that she loves her. Later they awake at 2 a.m., when Rita insists they go to an eerie theater called Club Silencio. On stage, a man explains in both Spanish and English that everything is an illusion. He is followed by an ornately made-up woman who sings Roy Orbison's "Crying" a Capella; though she appears to be involved in a very passionate performance, she collapses and the vocals continue, revealing that she was lip-syncing. Betty finds a blue box in her purse that matches Rita's key. Upon returning to the apartment, Rita retrieves the key and finds that Betty has disappeared. Rita unlocks the box, and it falls to the floor. The older red-headed woman investigates the sound, but nothing is there. The Cowboy appears in the doorway of Diane Selwyn's bedroom saying, "Hey, pretty girl. Time to wake up." Diane Selwyn (played by Watts) wakes up in her bed. She looks exactly like Betty but is portrayed as a failed actress driven into a deep depression by her unrequited love for Camilla Rhodes (played by Harring). On Camilla's invitation, Diane attends a party at Adam's house on Mulholland Drive. Her limousine stops before they reach the house and Camilla escorts her using a shortcut. Adam appears to be in love with Camilla. Over dinner, Diane states that she came to Hollywood when her aunt died, and she met Camilla at an audition for The Sylvia North Story. Another woman (played by George) kisses Camilla and they turn and smile at Diane. Adam and Camilla prepare to make an important announcement, but they dissolve into laughter and kiss while Diane watches, crying. Diane meets with the hit man at Winkies, where she gives him Camilla's photo and a large amount of money, and they are served by a waitress named Betty. The hit man tells Diane that when the job is done, she will find a blue key. Diane asks what, if anything, the key opens, but the hit man just laughs. Diane looks up and sees the man who had the nightmare standing at the counter. The blue box is shown in possession of the homeless looking monster around the back of the diner. Back at her apartment, with the blue key on a table in front of her, Diane is terrorized by hallucinations of the elderly couple. She runs screaming to her bed, where she shoots herself. In the final scene, a woman previously seen at the club whispers "Silencio."

A Brazilian princess tries to save the rain forests by introducing the world to the electrifying exotic lambada. A princess in the Amazon rain forest tries to fight a conglomerate threatening the forests by going to Los Angeles. There she links up with a rich kid who tells her that she must get on TV to succeed with her mission. The two come up with the idea of winning a lambada dance contest that is getting TV attention.