Mickey Rourke

After avenging the murder of his family, a former soldier is sprung from prison and recruited by a shadowy government agency.

Set against the vivid backdrop of the German capital, Berlin, I Love You weaves ten stories of compassion, redemption, and acceptance into a rich tapestry of life and love.

In this modern-day Romeo and Juliet, star-crossed lovers are torn apart by cultural tensions between the East and the West. Sarah takes her American boyfriend Frank to her home country in the Arab world. After an incident during a night stroll, Frank is imprisoned by corrupt police for Sarah's murder. His quest for justice turns into a spiritual journey led by Muslim inmates, from the moderate convert to terror-linked fundamentalists. A charming ladies' man, Frank has no intention of settling down. That's until he meets a beautiful and intelligent Arab woman, Sarah, one incandescent night. Their romance takes off and Frank decides to propose to Sarah during a journey in her home country. One night abroad, corrupt Arab police discover the couple in a compromising situation. They provoke an incident that snowballs. As the protagonists try to escape, the police open fire, accidentally killing Sarah. Fearful of an international backlash, the police frame Frank for murder, aided by a crooked American judge, with his own selfish business motives. The judge summons Frank back to the U.S. to serve his unjust sentence. Assaulted as soon as he arrives in prison, Frank is saved by his cellmate Ayman, a moderate Muslim convert who unwillingly enrolls him in the powerful gang of Muslim fundamentalists he uses for his own protection. Desperate to prove his innocence, Frank resorts to breaking out of prison to seek revenge on those who destroyed his life. —Helen Jennifer

Dwight McCarthy (Josh Brolin) is summoned by his former lover, Ava Lord (Eva Green), who wants his help to escape her abusive husband, billionaire Damien Lord (Marton Csokas). However, Dwight soon learns that Ava`s true intentions are more sinister than they appear.

A mysterious American teams with a Muslim cop to hunt down a dangerous international jewel thief who kidnaps a Sultan's daughter in a plot to steal the royal treasury: exotic intrigue amid ancient palaces, mosques, temples, subterranean labyrinths and stone pyramids in the heart of Java.

A CIA operative hires a team of mercenaries to eliminate a Latin dictator and a renegade CIA agent.

Beautiful Carmen Colson and her ironworker husband Wayne are placed in the Federal Witness Protection program after witnessing an "incident". Thinking they are at last safe, they are targeted by an experienced hit man and a psychopathic young upstart killer. The ensuing struggle will test Carmen to the limit. When the professional killer Armand 'Blackbird' Degas falls in disgrace with the Mafia, he flees to another city in Canada. He stumbles upon the psychopath Richie Nix, who lives with his girlfriend Donna. Armand teams up with him and moves to his house. Richie summons Armand to participate in a scheme to take money from a wealthy real estate agent, but he commits a mistake and the couple Wayne Colson and Carmen Colson witness their action. They are forced to join the Witness Protection Program by the FBI and they move to another town. But Armand and Ritchie are hunting them down since they are a threat. —Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Armand Degas (Mickey Rourke), a hit-man known as "Blackbird!," accidentally shoots his younger brother during a job. Years later, he is hired by a Mafia boss to assassinate the man's father-in-law at a hotel, but also kills a witness. Visiting Walpole Island, Blackbird crosses paths with Lionel, a fellow First Nations member, and notices Wayne Colson (Thomas Jane), a recently fired iron-worker. Separated from his wife Carmen (Diane Lane), Wayne collects some belongings from their house in Michigan. Unable to collect his payment for the hotel murder, Blackbird learns the Mafia boss wants him dead for needlessly killing the witness. He meets Richie Nix (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a volatile young criminal, and joins his scheme to extort Carmen's boss, Nelson Davies. Visiting Carmen's office to ask for a job, Wayne is mistaken for Davies by Richie and Blackbird. Richie demands the money at gunpoint, but Wayne fends them off, throwing Richie out a window. As Wayne and Carmen see Blackbird's face before he escapes with Richie, he vows to kill them. Blackbird recognizes Wayne from Walpole Island, where he and Richie press Lionel for Wayne's whereabouts before killing him. Staying at the home of Richie's girlfriend Donna (Rosario Dawson), Blackbird and Richie arrive at the Colsons' house just as Wayne drives off. Richie takes off after him, and Carmen confronts Blackbird with Wayne's shotgun before locking herself inside and calling the police. Richie shoots at Wayne inside a convenience store but he escapes, and Richie kills the clerk. In the morning, the Colsons learn about Blackbird from the FBI and are placed in Witness Protection. Richie tricks Carmen's mother into revealing the Colsons have moved to Missouri. Carmen suspects the FBI is using them as bait to find the killers, but reconnects with Wayne in their new life together. Blackbird coerces the Mafia boss into digging up his brother's body and burning it in a car with another corpse to fake Blackbird and Richie's deaths. DNA from the body is tested against Blackbird's other incarcerated brother, proving they are related. With the FBI convinced the killers are dead, Wayne and Carmen are allowed to return home. Jealous of Donna's advances toward Blackbird, Richie shoots her before they leave to kill the Colsons. After admitting to Wayne that she is not sure their marriage will survive, Carmen returns home alone, finding Richie and Blackbird waiting. Richie torments Carmen, spraying her with buck lure, forcing her to stay in her underwear, and putting a bullet in her mouth which she spits onto the floor. Losing his patience after Richie antagonizes him about Donna, Blackbird shoots Richie dead. Emptying Richie's pistol, he allows Carmen upstairs to get dressed. She finds another of Wayne's shotguns, but Blackbird disarms her. Wayne arrives, and realizes Carmen is being held hostage. He retrieves his shotgun from his truck as Blackbird bursts outside. They exchange fire and Wayne is hit, losing his gun. As Blackbird moves in for the kill-shot, he turns to see Carmen aiming Richie's gun, which he reminds her is empty, but remembers the bullet she spat out earlier. While Blackbird is distracted, Wayne crawls to his shotgun, and he and Carmen shoot Blackbird at the same time. Blackbird falls dead, as Carmen and Wayne embrace. Beautiful Carmen Colson and her ironworker husband Wayne are placed in the Federal Witness Protection program after witnessing an extortion scheme go wrong. Thinking they are at last safe, they are targeted by an experienced intimidating hit man and a psychopathic young upstart killer. The ensuing struggle will test Carmen to the limit. —McCormack

The Customer Is Always Right (Part 1) -- The Salesman (Josh Hartnett) walks onto a penthouse balcony where The Customer (Marley Shelton) looks out over Basin City. He offers her a cigarette and says that she looks like someone who is tired of running and that he will save her. The two share a kiss and he shoots her; she dies in his arms. He says he'll never know what she was running from but that he'll cash her check in the morning. That Yellow Bastard (Part 1) -- On the docks of Sin City, aging police officer John Hartigan (Bruce Willis) tries to stop serial child-killer Roark Junior (Nick Stahl) from sexually assaulting and killing eleven-year-old Nancy Callahan (Makenzie Vega). Junior is the son of Senator Roark (Powers Boothe), who has bribed the police to cover up his son's crimes. Hartigan's partner, Bob (Michael Madsen) tries to convince Hartigan to walk away. Hartigan knocks him out. Hartigan heads into the warehouse where Junior is holding Nancy, fighting off the pain caused by his bad heart, as well as several henchmen. Junior shoots Hartigan in the shoulder and tries to escape. Hartigan catches up and shoots off Junior's ear, hand, and genitals. Bob, now recovered, shoots Hartigan in the back; he has been paid off by Roark Sr. As the sirens approach, Bob leaves and Nancy lies down in Hartigan's lap. Hartigan passes out, reasoning his death is a fair trade for the girl's life. The Hard Goodbye -- After a one-night stand, Marv (Mickey Rourke) awakens to find Goldie (Jaime King) has been killed while he slept. He flees the frame-up as the police arrive, vowing to avenge her death. His parole officer, Lucille (Carla Gugino), warns him to give up on this mission. Marv interrogates several informants, working up to a corrupt priest (Frank Miller), who reveals that the Roark family was behind the murder. Marv kills the priest after he insults Goldie but is attacked by a woman who looks like Goldie, which he dismisses as a hallucination. Marv goes to the Roark family farm and is subdued by the silent stalker who killed Goldie. He awakens in the basement to find Lucille has been captured after looking into his story. She tells Marv that the killer is a cannibal, and that Goldie was a prostitute. He learns that the killer's name is Kevin (Elijah Wood) and escapes. Lucille is gunned down by the leader of an arriving squad of cops, who, after the squad is killed, is interrogated by Marv. Marv finds out that Cardinal Patrick Henry Roark (Rutger Hauer) arranged for Goldie's murder. Marv goes to Old Town, Sin City's prostitute-run red-light district, to learn more about Goldie and is captured by her twin sister, Wendy, who had been stalking him and was the attacker Marv previously dismissed as a hallucination. He eventually convinces her that he is not the killer. She and Marv return to the farm where Marv kills Kevin. He confronts Cardinal Roark, who confesses his part in the murders. Kevin was the cardinal's ward; the two men ate the prostitutes to 'consume their souls'. Marv kills the cardinal but is then shot and captured by his guards. Marv is taken to a hospital where cops threaten to kill his mother to get him to confess to killing Roark, Kevin, and their victims. He is sentenced to death in the electric chair. Wendy visits him on death row and thanks him for avenging her sister. Marv is executed the next day. The Big Fat Kill -- Shellie (Brittany Murphy) is being harassed by her abusive ex-boyfriend Jackie Boy (Benicio Del Toro). Her current boyfriend, Dwight (Clive Owen) violently warns him to leave Shellie alone. Jackie Boy flees to Old Town. Dwight follows and sees them harass Becky (Alexis Bledel), a young prostitute. Gail (Rosario Dawson), the prostitutes' leader and Dwight's on-and-off lover, also witnesses the scene. When Jackie Boy threatens Becky with a gun, Miho (Devon Aoki), a martial arts expert, kills Jackie Boy and his friends. They realize Jackie Boy is actually Detective Lieutenant Jonathan "Iron Jack" Rafferty of the Basin City police, considered a "hero cop" by the press. If the cops learn how he died, their truce with the prostitutes would end and the mob would be free to wage war on Old Town. Dwight takes the bodies to a tar pit, where he is attacked by an ex-IRA mercenary hired by mob boss Wallenquist. He nearly drowns in the tar before Miho saves him. The mercenary runs away in the sewer with Jackie Boy's severed head, but Dwight and Miho are able to retrieve it and return to Old Town. Meanwhile, the head mercenary, Manute (Michael Clarke Duncan), kidnaps Gail. Becky has been threatened with the death of her mother by the mob and has betrayed the prostitutes. The mob is moving to invade with Manute leading. Dwight trades Jackie Boy's head in exchange for Gail but activates an explosive he placed inside the head, destroying it before it can be taken to the cops for evidence. The other prostitutes gun down the mercenaries while an injured Becky escapes. That Yellow Bastard (Part 2) -- Hartigan is recovering in a hospital when Senator Roark informs him that Junior is in a coma and the Roark legacy is in serious jeopardy. Hartigan will be framed for Junior's crimes; if he tells anyone the truth, they will die. A grateful Nancy promises to write letters every week while he is in prison. Hartigan goes to jail, though he refuses to confess. He receives a weekly letter from Nancy, as promised. After eight years, the letters stop, and he receives a severed finger instead. Hartigan confesses to all charges leading to his parole and searches for an adult Nancy (Jessica Alba), not knowing he is being followed by a deformed, yellow man. He eventually finds her at Kadie's Bar, where she has become an erotic dancer. He realizes he was set up to lead the yellow man to Nancy and the two escape in Nancy's car. Hiding at a hotel, the deformed man returns, revealing himself as Junior Roark, disfigured by years of surgery to regenerate his body parts. Junior attacks Hartigan and takes Nancy to the Roark farm to finish what he started eight years before. Hartigan follows and fakes a heart attack, giving him a chance to kill Junior. Knowing that Senator Roark will never stop hunting them, Hartigan commits suicide to ensure Nancy's safety. Again, he justifies his life for Nancy's as a fair trade. The Customer Is Always Right (Part 2) -- An injured Becky departs from a hospital, talking on a cell phone with her mother. In the elevator, she encounters The Salesman, dressed as a doctor. He offers her a cigarette, calling her by name, as she abruptly ends the call with her mother. Her fate is never revealed.

The mythic guitar-slinging hero, El Mariachi, is forced out of hiding when a CIA agent recruits him to sabotage an assassination plot against the president of Mexico.

The movie opens in a convenience store one late night, with a smalltime drug dealer named Nick (Aaron Eckhart) is trying to decide what coffee brand to buy. His ex-lover Dallas (Paulina Porizkova) and fellow hitman Billy Hill (James LeGros) are getting impatient and tell him to hurry up. Nick finally choose Chocolate Macadamia, but the dispenser is empty. He complains to the cashier. The next morning, Nick shows up on the doorstep of Casey Wells (Thomas Jane), an old partner from his days as a drug dealer in Los Angeles. Casey has cleaned up his life. He is now a married architect and is looking to adopt a child with his wife. Nick leaves a couple of suitcases in Casey's guest room before leaving to run some errands. After Nick leaves, Casey becomes suspicious of one of the suitcases and eventually opens it to find it filled with heroin. After calling Nick to yell at him for bringing drugs into his home, he disposes of all of it in the kitchen sink. Ice (Glenn Plummer), a Jamaican Rasta hitman, enters Casey's house and is about to kill him, but Casey manages to persuade him to have a last smoke of marijuana. After having smoked, Ice is about to kill Casey when Ice's cell phone rings. Ice begins to rap over the phone in an effort to clinch a record deal, and Casey seizes the moment and knocks him out. Casey then ties him up and leaves him in his garage. A representative from the adoption agency comes to interview Casey about his fitness to be a father. The representative is particularly curious to know what Casey did for several years when he lived in L.A. as there is no account of his time there. Casey tries his best to cover up his past as well as his recent encounter with the hitman. During the interview, Dallas, who wants the money that she believes Nick left with Casey along with the heroin, shows up. She scares away the representative from the adoption agency by telling a story about Casey's drug-dealing and murdering past. When left alone with Casey, Dallas questions him about the money's whereabouts. Angry that he cannot help her, she decides to kill him. But not before she ties him up to a chair, fellates him to force an erection, gets naked and proceeds to mount and rape him. She tells him she will not kill him until he orgasms and she plans to go on until she makes him get an orgasm. Delivering on her word, she reaches multiple orgasms, but gets no results from him. While Dallas reaches a third orgasm, Hill breaks in and shoots her, splattering her blood all over Casey, his walls and his floor. Billy believes Casey when told that he does not have the heroin, but plans on torturing him with a saw and a blow torch anyhow, while he brags about his prowess and technique of cauterization as he sets to work. Hill is interrupted by cops ironically raiding the house next door. As Billy checks on it Casey is able to loosen the tape around his wrists and grabs a frying pan and sits back down. Billy returns and tells Casey the cops got the wrong house. As he is about to proceed, he notices something is wrong. But catching Billy off guard, Casey overpowers him, and leaves him in the garage. Nick calls Casey from a pay phone, apologizes for everything and admits he had stolen the heroin and money from the police. After he hangs up, it is revealed to us that Nick has been shot, and is bleeding severely, seemingly about to die. Finally, a corrupt cop (Mickey Rourke) arrives with a bag which contains Nick's head. He gives Casey until 7 p.m. to find the money but tells him that he does not care about the heroin. The cop then sees the garage with Ice and Billy tied up and Dallas dead and unloads a magazine into Ice and Billy. He then tells Casey to throw them out as it is garbage day. In the end, Casey calls Ice's boss and tells him that the heroin is being auctioned off at 7 p.m. at his house. He recalls Nick's earlier words which promptly lead him to find the money and a wedding present in the spare tire of his car. He takes them, puts them in Dallas' Lamborghini Diablo car and goes to pick his wife up at the airport to presumably escape the country. The movie ends as we see the cops and the Jamaicans, both armed, about to meet each other at the house.

Having just served five years in prison for a crime he did not commit, Billy Brown (Gallo)'s first desperate post-incarceration action is to search for somewhere to relieve himself. Oddly enough, the first thing he does is try to go back into the prison he was released from and denied. Then, to impress his dunceish, thoroughly neglectful parents (Ben Gazzara & Anjelica Huston), Billy kidnaps a dance class student named Layla (Ricci) and forces her to pretend to be his wife. Layla allows herself to be kidnapped and it is clear she is romantically attracted to Billy from the start, but Billy all the while is compelled to deal with his own demons, his loneliness and his depression, and it is only at the end that he allows Layla to give him the love and comfort he has been needing all his life. The subplot of Billy seeking revenge on the man indirectly responsible for his imprisonment, Scott Wood, is a reference to a former Buffalo Bills kicker, Scott Norwood, who missed the game-winning field goal in Super Bowl XXV against the New York Giants in 1991.

Having successfully completed his final mission three years prior, which was to retrieve a truck load of plutonium stolen from a US military base in Croatia by freelance international terrorist Stavros (Mickey Rourke), government anti-terrorist agent Jack Paul Quinn (Jean-Claude Van Damme) is relaxing by his pool in Southern France with Kathryn (Natacha Lindinger), his pregnant wife. Quinn is approached by a government representative who tells him that Stavros, Quinn's nemesis, has become active again and tries to convince Quinn to come out of retirement telling Quinn that he 'can't retire until he [Stavros] does'. Quinn is reluctant to return to duty but agrees after the same representative is killed by Stavros shortly after the meeting with Quinn. Acting on intelligence received, Quinn travels to Antwerp, Belgium where he meets up with quirky arms dealer Yaz (Dennis Rodman), who equips Quinn with weaponry and then proceeds to meet the Delta team put together to capture Stavros. Stavros has been tracked to an amusement park, but Quinn hesitates to give the order to shoot Stavros when it becomes apparent that Stavros is meeting with his six-year-old son. Stavros exploits Quinn's hesitation and a shootout ensues in which Stavros' son is killed and Stavros is able to escape into a hospital, pursued by Quinn. Stavros and Quinn fight in the hospital's maternity ward with Stavros getting away after knocking Quinn unconscious in an explosion (Quinn was trying to save the babies, which allowed Stavros to get away). Quinn wakes up on 'The Colony', an inescapable, invisible penal institution island for secret agents. Quinn learns that he has been sent to the Colony due to his failure to capture Stavros, that his family has been told he was killed and that only agents considered "too valuable to kill but too dangerous to set free" are committed to the institution. The occupants of the Colony are expected to help analyze terrorist threats and have to register themselves present every day using a fingerprint scanner. Meanwhile, Kathryn receives a call from an art gallery in Rome telling her that they would like to display her sculptures and that they will fly her out immediately. When she arrives, Stavros kidnaps her. Whilst analyzing information received from a terrorist bombing, Quinn picks up a message from Stavros telling him that Stavros has captured Kathryn and so Quinn realizes he must escape the Colony if he is to save her. Quinn trains for weeks, learning to stay underwater, and monitors the movements of the plane that arrives at the island, delivering and picking up cargo. He devises a system to fool the fingerprint scanner and is able to leave the island by attaching himself to cargo due to be extracted from the island from the air. Quinn takes control of the cargo plane after getting on-board. Quinn goes to Yaz, the only man who can help him, pleading for assistance in return for access to CIA bank accounts. Yaz agrees to help and the two go to Quinn's house where they are ambushed by Stavros' men. After fighting the men off, Quinn receives a message (A tape in the player inside his car) from Stavros telling him that he must go to Rome for his baby's sake. When they arrive in Rome, Yaz learns that Quinn's wife is pregnant after Stavros delivers a sonogram of the baby to the given rendezvous. Quinn emails Stavros encouraging him to meet in a town square, knowing that Stavros will have to take the bait. At the meeting point, Quinn catches sight of Kathryn in a car but is intercepted by Stavros before he can reach her, and a shootout occurs as Kathryn is driven away. Quinn tracks Stavros' henchmen & his sharpshooter down to the hotel suite where Kathryn was being held and finds a clue to her whereabouts - a prescription bottle label. Meanwhile, Kathryn is transported to hospital where she gives birth. Quinn gets a helping hand from the Island's analysis team who tracks down the doctor who prescribed the bottle and point Quinn in the direction of the hospital where Kathryn was taken. Using the prescription bottle and with Yaz's help, Quinn is able to track down the hospital where he finds Kathryn but discovers that Stavros has taken his son. Thanks to assistance from a nurse, Quinn locates Stavros and the baby in an explosives-rigged Roman amphitheater. Stavros leaves Quinn in the middle of a minefield with his son and then unleashes a tiger. Yaz arrives on a motorbike and is able to snatch the baby, leaving Quinn to escape from the tiger and go after Stavros. Quinn and Stavros fight in the minefield until Stavros steps on a mine (after Yaz moved the markers) and is left stranded. Quinn, his son and Yaz run as Stavros is charged by the tiger and takes his foot off the mine, a chain reaction rips the amphitheater apart and Yaz is able to shield his friends from the ensuing blast by sheltering under a vending machine. Stavros and the tiger are killed in the blast. Jack's friends at the colony help him to erase his files & make him "invisible".

Rudy Baylor (Matt Damon) is a graduate of the University of Memphis Law School. Unlike most of his fellow grads who get high paying jobs due to their family connections, he has no high-paying employment lined up and is forced to apply for part-time positions while serving drinks at a Memphis bar. There were just too many lawyers in Memphis. Desperate for a job, he reluctantly goes to an interview with J. Lyman "Bruiser" Stone (Mickey Rourke), a ruthless but successful personal injury lawyer, who makes him an associate. To earn his fee, Rudy is turned into a veritable ambulance chaser, required to hunt for potential clients at a local hospital. Bruiser's associates only get paid by finding cases and working them up for trial. Rudy will be paid $1000 per month, and the firm gets to keep 33% of all the awards from the cases, and Rudy gets a percentage of that. Soon he meets Deck Shifflet (Danny DeVito), a less-than-ethical former insurance assessor turned paralegal who has failed the bar exam six times. Deck is resourceful in gathering information and practically an expert on insurance lawsuits. Rudy is taking his bar exam in 3 weeks. Rudy manages to get just one case, concerning insurance bad faith against a company called Great Benefit. It could be worth several million dollars in damages, which appeals to him as he is about to declare himself bankrupt. He rents a room in the home of elderly Miss Birdsong (Teresa Wright), who in return could use some advice on what to do about greedy relatives eager to inherit when she dies. Deck finds out that Birdsong did inherit a couple of million dollars from her 2nd husband, but after lawyers and IRS, she is left with about $40,000. When Birdsong's son comes to visit, Rudy tells him that his mother got a large inheritance, and this gets him to take better care of his mother. Deck asks Rudy to sign the Great Benefit clients and Rudy visits the family of Dot, Buddy and their son Buddy. Dot shares all the correspondence from Great Benefit with Rudy, in which they deny Buddy's claim for Leukemia. Great Benefit claimed that Leukemia was not covered in the policy as it was a Pre-existing condition, even though they had taken all the premiums. In one of the letters, they call Dot stupid. Rudy passes the Tennessee bar exam but is not yet properly licensed to stand as an attorney. When Bruiser fails to show up for court for the Great Benefit case, Rudy attempts to argue the case, but Judge Harvey Hale (Dean Stockwell) scolds Rudy and tells him to first get his license. Defense attorney Leo F. Drummond (Jon Voight) offers to stand for Rudy as Rudy is sworn in before the judge. Drummond is a showman attorney who uses unscrupulous tactics to win his cases and heads a group of experienced and devious lawyers from a large firm. Drummond offers Rudy $75,000 to settle the case out of court. Bruiser's offices are raided by the police and FBI on suspicion of racketeering. Rudy finds that Bruiser has disappeared. Before fleeing, Bruiser gave Rudy and Deck $5000 each. Not knowing what else to do, Rudy and Deck set up a two-man practice themselves, without so much as a secretary for help. They file a bad faith suit on behalf of a middle-aged couple, Dot (Mary Kay Place) and Buddy Black (Red West ), whose 22-year-old son Donny Ray (Johnny Whitworth) is dying of leukemia but could have been saved with a bone marrow transplant, denied by their insurance carrier Great Benefit. The original judge assigned to Rudy's case, Harvey Hale (Dean Stockwell), is set to dismiss it because he sees it as one of many so-called "lottery" cases that slow the judicial process. But a far more sympathetic judge, Tyrone Kipler (Danny Glover), takes over when Hale suffers a fatal heart attack. Kipler, a former civil rights attorney, immediately denies the insurance company's petition for dismissal. While preparing his case, Rudy gets to know a young woman he met at the hospital, Kelly Riker (Claire Danes), a battered wife whose husband, Cliff (Andrew Shue), has beaten her so savagely with a baseball bat that she was hospitalized. Bruiser had sent Rudy to the hospital to sign her up as a client, but he got attracted to her instead. Cliff only spent one night in jail for his violent assault in Kelly. Kelly got pregnant at 18, got married to Cliff, and had a miscarriage probably because Cliff beat her. Rudy knew she was a loser, but wanted to protect her. Kelly still wasn't able to leave Cliff. After a particularly violent attack, Rudy persuades Kelly, to whom he is attracted, to file for divorce. Going to Kelly's home to pack her belongings, Rudy and Kelly are confronted by Cliff. After Cliff is injured in the fight, Kelly insists Rudy leave. From outside, Rudy can hear Cliff being hit with his own baseball bat. To protect Rudy from being implicated in Cliff's death, Kelly tells the police she killed her husband in self-defense. Rudy promises to defend Kelly if the case goes to trial, but the district attorney declines to prosecute, knowing Kelly would never be convicted. Donny Ray dies, but not before giving a video deposition. The case goes to trial, where Drummond preys on Rudy's inexperience. He gets Rudy's key witness, Jackie Lemanczyk's (Virginia Madsen), vital testimony stricken from the record, and attempts to discredit Donny Ray's mother (Mary Kay Place). With help from now Caribbean-based fugitive Bruiser (with whom Deck is connected by intermediaries), Jackie's testimony and the Great Benefit Employee Manual are finally admitted into evidence, to Drummond's dismay. Due to Rudy's single-minded determination and skillful cross-examination of Great Benefit's unctuous president, Wilfred Keeley (Roy Scheider), the jury finds for the plaintiff with a monetary award far exceeding all expectations. It is a great triumph for Rudy and Deck, at least until Keeley attempts to flee the country and Great Benefit declares itself bankrupt, thus allowing it to avoid paying punitive damages to the Blacks, as well as any future judgments in class-action lawsuits. There is no payout for the grieving parents and no fee for Rudy or Deck. Dot Black expresses satisfaction that at least they put Great Benefit out of business and is now unable to hurt other families like hers. Convinced his success will create unrealistic expectations for future clients, Rudy abandons his practice to instead teach law with a focus on ethical behavior instead. He leaves town with Kelly, wanting to retain a low profile and protect Kelly from any possible retribution by Cliff's vengeful relatives. He leaves the legal profession after just one successful case.

Two lone riders hold up a bank's armoured car to save their friend's bar from imminent foreclosure. Soon, the mission goes awry when they discover the vehicle's unexpected cargo. With their favourite hangout facing foreclosure, Harley Davidson and Marlboro, two lone riders and childhood friends, reunite to right a wrong. But the bank always wins. As the greedy financial institution demands an impossible new contract, Harley and Marlboro embark on a mission to win back the bar by holding up the bank's armoured car. However, there is no such thing as a foolproof plan. And soon, the mission goes awry when they discover the vehicle's unexpected cargo. Now, the bank wants it back, and nothing can stop them. Is all hope lost? —Nick Riganas The tough biker Harley and his no less tough cowboy friend Marlboro learn that an old friend of theirs will lose his bar, because a bank wants to build a new complex there and demands 2.5 million dollars for a new contract in advance. Harley and Marlboro decide to help him by robbing the corrupt bank. They rob the Bank transport and are targeted by criminal bankers. —Tom Zoerner <Tom.Zoerner@informatik.uni-erlangen.de>

An escaped con, on the run from the law, moves into a married couple's house and takes over their lives. Psychotic criminal, Michael Bosworth's about to go on trial. But prior to doing so, he cons his lawyer into helping him escape. As the pair try to make their getaway, she's left behind. He decides to wait for her to come to him. He hides out at the house of the Cornells. Now it appears the Cornells have problems of their own. The husband and wife are separated, and there's an FBI agent after them who's using the lawyer to lead them to Bosworth. —<rcs0411@yahoo.com>

The life of St. Francis of Assisi from rich man's son to religious humanitarian. The life of St. Francis of Assisi (1181-1226) as related by followers who gather after his death to tell stories so that Leone can record them: a privileged and virile youth, a prisoner of war, an heir who turns away from his father and gives all to the poor, a beggar for others, and an inspiration to friends who accept the Gospels' life of poverty. He seeks the Pope's blessing, and he endures persecution at the hands of the family of Chiara Offreduccio (1194-1253), who becomes St. Clare. Many join the order he has established and then rebel at his expectations. In near despair - and ill - he writes a Rule to take to the Pope; then, the Lord sends him a message. He dies smiling. —<jhailey@hotmail.com>

Angel Heart (1987) An ominous, slushy street, midnight, in the winter a dark figure walks down an alley, past the sounds of anguish and moaning. An alley cat looks down from the fire escape, a street dog wanders the alley scrounging for food. The dog spots the cat and barks, giving chase only to stop briefly to lap up fresh blood pouring from the split chest of a homeless man. New York City, January 3, 1955, a sloppy, unshaved man in a trench coat walks a street in Brooklyn, he smokes and greets various neighbors to the constant sound of a phone ringing. Harold Angel (Mickey Rourke) enters his shabby office and answers the phone. He is a private investigator and writes down details of the caller. An attorney, Mr. Winesap, introduces himself and wants to set up a meeting with a man named Louis Cyphre in Harlem. Angel arrives and walks through an African-American neighborhood passing a group of mourners and enters a building where a strange Pentecostal-style service is being held with the preacher motivating the congregation to donate generously with the clear intention to upgrade his car. Harold watches fascinated from the gallery above and is joined by Herman Winesap, who introduces himself, and leads him to meet the client. Angel follows him past a room where a maid in a hooded black veil is scrubbing a massive blood stain from the wall with a ceramic bowl full of bloody water. Winesap casually mentions "One of Pastor John's flock took a gun to his head", while Angel looks on with a hypnotic look on his face. Winesap takes Angel to a separate closed room and introduces Angel to the client, Mr. Louis Cyphre (Robert De Niro). Cyphre is a rather strange and creepy man with a black beard, long hair tied up in a ponytail, long fingernails, a pentagram ring, walking stick, and very calm demeanor. He does not rise up from his chair to shake hands with Angel. He asks for identification. Angel seems uncomfortable with this man and the spinning fans around him and Cyphre takes his time checking the ID, but is satisfied. Angel inquires how they found him, but Cyphre does not give him an answer and Cyphre interrupts with a question "Do you know Johnny Favorite?" Angel explains he is a small time detective, Cyphre pays no attention, and continues to say Favorite's real name was Johnny Liebling and he was a singer and crooner. Winesap explains that Cyphre had a contract with him and that he was involved in an accident with a bombing in North Africa during the war and got amnesia. Cyphre cuts in and asks if Angel was in the war. Angel tells his story that he was, but came back prematurely "a bit fucked up". Apparently, Cyphre just wants to know if his client is alive or dead, and believes that they were deceived at the hospital outside Poughkeepsie, and so they want Angel to "check it out". Cyphre thinks they have met before. Angel acts a little nervous, but is certain they haven't. Angel drives away remembering the conversation points, whistling as he drives, he arrives at the hospital where the singer was supposed to have been. He presents a fake ID card as with the National Institute of Health, and enters to charm the receptionist, and despite her resistance, she shows him the records regarding Jonathan Liebling. He chats casually with the receptionist, and discovers that he was transferred on December 31, 1943. He inspects the report, to notice that signature is in ballpoint, a Dr. Albert Fowler. He observes that in 1943 they did not have ballpoint, and deduces it is a forgery. He asks about the doctor, only to be told that Dr. Fowler only works part-time there. Angel leaves the hospital, drives to a diner, and looks up the address of the doctor; goes to the house and breaks in through the back door. It's a very shabby home unkept and with clothes all over the living room. Inside the house, he finds syringes, a revolver, a Bible in a drawer, and morphine in the fridge. He waits in the dark, as the doctor arrives. The doc makes a bee-line for the fridge, and Angel interrupts him. They chat and the doc does not call the police because of the narcotics in his house. Angel asks about Liebling and the doctor reveals very little, making excuses, and Angel exposes him. Angel gets rough. The doc says that some southern man named Edward Kelly and a young lady took Liebling away. Angel gets pissed off; he wants more details. He finds out that the people that took him went down south and paid Fowler to maintain the pretense he was still at the hospital. Doc says his face was damaged and bandaged up and that he did not know what he looked like. Angel decides that cold turkey would refresh his memory. He locks him in his room. A ventilator fan in the window squeaks. Angel is wondering on the streets in sort of a trance and passes a church as he walks through the snow. A strange voice whispers "Johnny" and "Harry" and he is lured into the church. Two nuns reading the Bible with the door opening and closing look up. He imagines blood dripping in a bowl, similar to what he saw earlier at his meeting with Cyphre, and a trellis elevator doors open. Angel spends his time in a diner chain- smoking; the diner is empty. A piano plays an old song slowly and ominously the same song he was whistling in his car. He finishes his coffee, returns to Dr. Fowler's apartment, and takes some morphine up to the doctor's room, unlocks the door to find the doctor violently murdered, shot in the eye. He lights a match on his shoe, sees the gun from the drawer, and that the Bible concealed bullets. He wipes the flat of prints, and leaves like a thief. The next day, Angel is in the hood and meets Ellie, leaving in a car. He flirts a little and goes to a classy small restaurant to meet with Cyphre. The restaurant is empty. Cyphre does not look amused, he asks about Johnny, and he tells Cyphre that he walked out of the hospital with a man named Edward Kelly and a girl, and the rest of the story as related by the doctor. They chat as Cyphre eats an egg. Cyphre insists Angel find Johnny. Angel tells Cyphre about the doctor and his death, and tries to leave the case since now he is likely a murder suspect, he wants out. Cyphre ups the payment considerably to $5,000 and Angel is interested. Cyphre eats the egg in an almost violent manner staring strangely at Angel, telling him in some cultures the egg is the symbol of the soul. Angel returns to the first church and finds the blood-smeared room clean, and also discovers a strange occult shrine in the same office he and Cyphre had their first meeting at. There is a street procession march, the preacher carried along surrounded by his congregation. Angel observes the shrine, concluding it is obviously occult and deeply disturbing and it's made obvious the church is an evil cult. When he goes into the sanctuary, a hooded, black-veiled woman like he saw earlier cleaning the blood stain off the wall catches his attention. He cautiously approaches her, but is attacked from behind by two goons apparently working for Pastor John. He runs off and is chased into the back alley. He escapes by joining the street procession. The preacher is knocked from his suspended chair and crashes to the ground. Angel arrives at a bar to meet Connie, a young woman who works at the New York Times, who has some photos he needs to collect of Johnny. Later, she tells him what she found. As they undress, she tells him where to find some key people: a rich woman, a jazz player and says that they were all involved in magic. She tells him that Johnny was engaged to a woman known as Margaret Krusemark, who was known in college as "the witch of Wellesley". Angel sarcastically summarizes the case and has a flash memory of soldiers returning from war, a trellis elevator door open, a spiral staircase with someone ascending; feet of a woman who sits down, and a window fan spinning in a hotel room. Angel in his office, at night listens to tape-recorded facts and adds more data about the doctor and about how he tracked down Spider Simpson, and more info about the jazz player, Toots Sweet. Apparently, Johnny had a "secret love", a black woman down south named Evangeline Proudfoot, who ran a "spooky store" in Harlem, and details about Madam Zorra, another person that Johnny saw regularly. On the beach at Coney Island, angel talks to a single man in a deck chair named Izzy, who gives him a nose shield and asks after Madam Zorra, a friend of his wife. Angel asks about Johnny and is directed to Izzy's wife standing in the sea, but gives some more info about the crooner. Angel goes off to talk to the wife, who tells him more about Madam Zorra, that she ran a booth across from hers. She tells Angel that Johnny and she were very close, and that Madame Zorra was actually Margaret Krusemark, and when Margaret closed her booth, she went back home down south. Angel asks if she knows where he can find Johnny, and answers "Nope. Maybe a cemetery." She sings a tune of Favorite. Angel leaves her singing and thanks the man for the nose shield telling him he is headed for Louisiana. Angel arrives in New Orleans, and is hot and sweaty. Street boys tap dance to a brass band, Angel has only a single suitcase, and in a hotel room, changes his shirt. The boys dance outside, as he walks around. Life is calm and Angel takes a tram after spotting a woman board it. He watches her from behind, fascinated with the piano tune he's been whistling playing. She alights and he follows at a distance. He rings the bell to her apartment. Margaret Krusemark (Charlotte Rampling) greets him by name, he enters, early for his appointment. Her apartment is strangely, but beautifully decorated. She takes his details for a horoscope reading, he plays with a curious artifact - a strange knife. Margaret asks if he would like some tea, and asks the maid to prepare it. Angel fiddles around as she questions him. He makes idle chit-chat. The woman relieves the maid. He starts to light a cigarette, but she tells him she'd prefer he didn't smoke. She asks for specific birth details. Angel gives her a birth date, she notices that it is the same as a boy she knew and he approaches the subject directly. He mentions Johnny Favourite, tells her he is investigating, and she tells him he is dead and if he isn't dead, he's dead to her, and tells him to leave. He persists. She throws him out. She reads his palm at the door, he notices her necklace, an inverted pentacle, the same symbol Louis Cyphre has on his ring. Angel visits Mammy Carter's Herb Store and tries to get information about Evangeline Proudfoot, Johnny's secret love. The saleswoman is evasive, but he learns that she knew Evangeline, but she is now dead. Angel leaves with little more than the two High John The Conqueror roots he bought. Angel hires a car for a week, and drives through an outback landscape, this is the home of a poor community. Here he finds Proudfoot's grave. Behind the graveyard, a baby cries, and a woman with a child arrives. Angel recedes into the shadows to watch the woman and changes offerings on the grave, then leaves with her young son. Angel follows her home and watches from a distance. She washes her hair. She is a very beautiful young African-American woman. Angel approaches her and her child starts crying. Angel introduces himself, he wants to talk to the young woman's mother, the young woman's name being Epiphany Proudfoot (Lisa Bonet). She tells him her mother is dead. He asks about Favorite and she knows nothing. Some chickens approach, and Angel is disturbed by them. He then asks about the musician, and Epiphany doesn't say anything. As Angel is about to leave, he gives Epiphany his number. He compliments her. There is chemistry. Angel leaves. Johnny visits a sleazy and sweaty jazz bar in Algiers. The bar is packed, interracial, and the patrons are enjoying the act. Toots Sweets (Brownie McGhee) is the musician. Angel enjoys the gig and at the break follows the singer to the bar. He schmoozes with him, and asks about Favorite. Toots cuts to the chase, he refuses to engage or talk about Johnny. Angel follows him to the men's room. Toots is not impressed, another man leaves and Toots is shocked by a chicken foot left on the sink, Angel grabs the claw and harasses him until a bouncer enters, seeing Angel intimidating Toots and throws him out the back door of the bar, into the trash. Angel waits in his car until Toots leaves, at the end of the night, and follows him into the countryside. It is very late at night. He then watches Toots join ritual dancing, as Angel watches from the bushes. He sees Epiphany dance, slit a chicken's throat, and pour blood over herself, she is in a trance, and even drinks its blood. Angel hurries off. A fan spins slowly in a dark stairwell, Toots ascends the stairs, and at his doorway Angel grabs him but Toots fights back with a razor, and cuts Angel's hand. It gets rough until Angel dominates the old man. He threatens him and tells him he saw the ritual, Toots tells him Epiphany is a priestess. Angel asks what the chicken foot meant. It means Toots has a big mouth. Angel relaxes as he writes his telephone number on paper, which he stuffs in Toot's mouth before he leaves. Angel drops the razor as he descends the stairs and a ventilator fan is spinning slowly in the window with a soft jazz soundtrack of Toots singing. Abruptly, a large trellis elevator opens. Harry enters a dark room in a trance at the foot of the elevator with a hooded, black-veiled woman he's already seen twice in the Harlem church sitting on a church bench, her back to him. He sees the razor on the floor, his cut hand bleeds profusely, his shirt is covered in blood, he approaches the woman, and as he nervously touches her shoulder, he's coming out of a nightmare woken up by two local cops entering his hotel room. They search his stuff, ask him questions, and give him a handwritten note that they found in the hand of Toots Sweet. They tell him that his dick was cut off and stuffed in his mouth and chocked to death on it. They interrogate Angel. He refuses to give them the name of a missing person he's searching for, and tells them to call Winesap. They tell him not to go away until they talk to the lawyer. It is Wednesday, "Anything Can Happen Day." Angel goes to a bar. A musician finishes playing and passes his hat for tips. Angel goes to a phone booth and calls Margaret Krusemark. In the booth mirror he sees scenes of himself in an elevator going down endless floors, a New Year's Eve 1943 with servicemen celebrating, a block of flats, more celebrating, a fan in an apartment block in his flashback earlier, approaching a soldier, and just as a soldier is about to turn around the jazz man interrupts asking if he'd like a tune. There is no answer to the phone call, Angel hangs up. He returns to Margaret's house, kids tap dance outside, a piano repeats a familiar tune that's been heard many times throughout the movie. The door is unlocked, he enters and she is on the floor, with her chest cut wide open. He is revolted, and finds the knife he was fingering earlier. He searches through her stuff, and finds a mummified hand in a cardboard box on the dresser amongst other vials and strange jewelry. The kid outside tap dances. He leaves that room to continue his search. The kid dances. Angel finds her severed heart, he gags. The kid stops dancing. Angel walks past a church and into the bar shaken up and feeling hopeless. A fan spins slowly, a piano plays a familiar tune. Local hillbilly people rejoice in a river at a baptism, they look inbred. Overhead Angel drives across the river, behind him a pickup truck follows. He notices and stops his car on the side of the road, the truck stops too. He approaches some fishermen. The men in the truck follow and unleash a dog, it attacks his leg. He fights it off, the men then attack him with a baseball bat, and tell him to leave immediately, by the order of Ethan Krusemark, Margaret's father. An old school bus stops on a dusty road, people alight, one being Epiphany, she finds Angel sitting on a box by the roadside and asks and he tells her that he got bitten. He tells her he watched her ritual, it doesn't phase her. He tells her about Toots, she knows. He thinks she set him up. Turns out it was she who sent the chicken foot. She denies the setup and murder. She asks about Favorite, Angel counter questions and discovers Johnny Favorite was her father. She talks to a neighbor about keeping her child, then returns to tell him that Johnny never returned from the war and that her mom died waiting. Angel flirts with her. She glances back at him as she walks away. In a dark-arched courtyard of a residential hotel, Angel arrives and is given a message by the concierge. He walks past a young girl to ascend the stairs. A church choir sings and an altar boy prepares the Bible. Angel enters and walks through the church to the back of the sanctuary, to meet with Cyphre. They chat. He asks about the progress. Angel tells him that he found loads of stuff but still no Favorite, and 3 murders: the Doctor, Toots and Margaret. He is freaked out by the weird religiosity going around. He tells him that Favorite was not liked. and that the police are investigating him. Cyphre asks about the last murder. Angel tells him about Margaret, and that he is fed up with the case, and all of the vagueness. And that he is getting set up by Johnny, who he thinks is killing all the people he once knew. Cyphre acts political and evasive like he did in their first two meetings and just wants the debt settled because of his old=fashioned ideals like "an eye for an eye", but Angel is not having it. Cyphre offers more money, but Angel refuses, the stakes are getting too high. He wants out. He goes back to his room. It is raining heavily and Epiphany is sitting outside waiting. They have a drink. The apartment is leaking badly. Angel tells her that he thinks that Johnny was a creep - he asks more about him, she tells him that her mother thought Favorite was as close to true evil as she wanted to come and that he was a great lover. Epiphany says she is 17. Angel asks about the father of her son. They laugh about the state of the leaky room, she talks about witchcraft and getting pregnant. Then Epiphany puts on some music and invites him to dance. He declines, only to repeal. He picks her up and they dance. She kisses him. They lay down. The rain pours. She straddles him. The rain gets harder. They make passionate love. The rain is pouring in the room, and the water turns red. She screams and it turns to blood. It gets very violent and intercut with voodoo ritual, going down an elevator, hooded black-veiled woman cleaning a bloody mess off the wall of the room with a fan in the window, and Winesap being decapitated by a fan. A fabrication. They orgasm. Angel immediately gets up and punches a shaving mirror. The cops return knocking. He exits in a towel. They are tracing the new death of Margaret. They are racist and state that Krusemark comes from a white family of money. Angel brushes them off. They want to know who he is seeking. He insults them. They get pissed off. The cops leave. He returns to his room, she is now in the bath singing the words to the familiar piano piece that's been playing throughout the movie. He asks after the tune, "a tune by Favorite" her mother always sang to her. She continues. Angel looks at himself in the broken mirror. He walks down the street, and sees the pickup truck from before, is watching him. He quickly approaches, attacks the seated driver. The passenger runs off, Angel gives chase. The driver recovers and follows after them. Angel is lead into a stable. The passenger starts shooting. The horses go frantic, the driver sets a dog free, the dogs attacks only to be kicked by the horse, which then gets shot and falls on Angel. He is trapped but struggles free, he escapes by running through a chicken coup. A group of hicks gather skinning animals. A rough horse race starts, someone points Angel to an elderly man. The man asks what he wants. Angel knows that the two men in the pickup are his men. The man tries to pay him off to reveal who Angel is working for. Angel tells him the facts he knows concerning his part in the release of Johnny Favorite, he is Margaret Krusemark's father (Stocker Fontelieu). The man gets nervous, they go into a kitchen and have a drink where is it private. He confesses it was him, the Edward Kelly pseudonym that paid the doctor. He tells Angel that he and his daughter dropped Johnny in a crowd of people on New Years Eve of 1943. Angel fidgets with blocks of ice. The man tells Angel about Margaret's voodoo stuff and that he witnessed Favorite conjure up Satan, he is a devoted Satanist, and that says that Favorite sold his soul to Satan for fame. Angel gets really mad, personally worked up, and starts yelling, "Who was the boy?" He tells him that Toots and Johnny took an innocent man, a soldier, and conjured complex stuff, and then Johnny ate his heart to deceive the devil on New Year's Eve of 1942. He planned to vanish for a while and return as the sacrificed boy. Though the ritual had worked, Johnny was drafted before he could work things out and after he came back home and in the hospital, Ethan and Margaret dropped him off in Time's Square exactly one year later on New Year's Eve 1943 when Johnny was apparently recovering from amnesia and still had a bandaged face. It was Margaret's idea to drop him off in Times Square to jog his memory, but he disappeared, they never saw Johnny again, and he was presumed dead afterwards. Angel runs into the toilet to vomit. Then looking in the mirror, he has flashbacks, the ones he's been having repeatedly with the hotel window fan, the hooded black-veiled figure scrubbing blood off the walls, and the New Year's Eve celebration in Time's Square. The toilet door supernaturally slams closed while Angel is looking in the mirror and screaming, and when Angel exits he finds Krusemark face first in a cauldron of boiling gumbo. Angel takes off frightened. Angel hastens back to Margaret's apartment, rushes upstairs, and enters searching frantically for something her father had mentioned, a vase that had the dog tags of the sacrificed boy. He ransacks the drawers, breaking and smashing everything. Finally, he finds the vase, it contains dog tags. The tags read "Harold Angel" with the birthdate February 14, 1918. Angel screams in disbelief screaming "I know who I am"! Cyphre appears sitting in a chair, smiling with his hair long and unbunned and fingernails longer than ever, in the apartment. Louis Cyphre IS Lucifer. Angel tells him that he is not scared of him, and that he knows he is being set up, a frame. He did not kill anyone, he names the dead people. And Cyphre addresses him as Johnny, and contradicts saying that he DID kill them and that he has been living on borrowed time for the past 12 years in the real Harry Angel's memories. Angel threatens to call the lawyer, Cyphre smirks saying Winesap is already dead, making it apparent the hallucination Angel had of Winesap being decapitated was real. Cyphre continues to say only the soul is important, and that his belongs to him. Cyphre picks up a record and a gun. He plays the record with the song of Johnny singing "Girl of My Dreams", the tune that has played throughout the movie, takes the dog tags, and leaves Angel to recall the details of how he murdered each of the people. He still refuses to accept the truth. The last person that flashes before him is Epiphany. He runs off through the rain. He arrives at his own hotel room. A hooded, black-veiled figure that has appeared in the Harlem church and flashbacks is sitting outside the door. It is a clean-shaven Louis Cyphre in disguise. The police are inside. Epiphany is dead, bleeding from the groin on his bed. The detective asks who she is. Angel says that she is his daughter. The cop does not believe it. The cop reads the dog tags around her neck and says that she surely isn't "Angel, Harold". The other cops bring out his grandson from the joining room and tell him "You're gonna burn for this, Angel". He replies, "I know... In hell". The baby's eyes glow orange as he points at Angel, making it evident Epiphany was impregnated by Satan himself. Credits roll An elevator's doors close and it descends. Details of the descent are intercut by credits. Angel dressed in a smart suit is the passenger. It finally stops at the bottom, deep below. Harry stands behind the latticed gates. A heartbeat goes silent. The end.

Set in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the film begins in a diner called Benny's Billiards, where local tough guy Rusty James is told by Midget that rival group leader Biff Wilcox wants to meet him that night in an abandoned garage lot for a fight. Accepting the challenge, Rusty James then talks with his friends: the wily Smokey, loyal B.J., and tall, nerdy Steve; who all have a different take on the forthcoming fight. Steve mentions that Rusty James' older brother, "The Motorcycle Boy," would not be pleased with the fight as he had previously created a truce forbidding gang fights, or "rumbles." Rusty James dismisses him, saying that the Motorcycle Boy (whose real name is never revealed) has been gone for two months, leaving without explanation or promise of return. Rusty James visits his girlfriend, Patty, then meets his cadre and walks to the abandoned garage lot, where Biff and his buddies suddenly appear. The two battle, with the fight ending when Rusty James disarms Biff and beats him almost unconscious. The Motorcycle Boy arrives dramatically on his motorcycle and his appearance distracts Rusty James who is slashed by Biff in the side with a shard of glass. Incensed, the Motorcycle Boy sends his motorcycle flying into Biff. The Motorcycle Boy and Steve take Rusty James home (past Officer Patterson, a street cop who's long had it in for the Motorcycle Boy) and nurse him to health through the night. Steve and the injured Rusty James talk about how the Motorcycle Boy is 21 years old, colorblind, partially deaf, and noticeably aloof; the last trait causing many to believe he is insane. The Motorcycle Boy and Rusty James share the next evening with their alcoholic, welfare-dependent father, who says that the Motorcycle Boy takes after his mother whereas, it is implied, Rusty James takes after him. Things start to go wrong for Rusty James and he's eventually kicked out of school after his frequent fights. Despite Rusty James's desire to resume gang activity, the Motorcycle Boy implies that he has no interest in doing so. Shortly after, Rusty James goes to a party at a lakeside cabin hosted by Smokey, where he has sex with another girl, causing Patty to break up with him. At Benny's some time later, Rusty James sees that Patty and Smokey have begun dating, and Smokey confesses that he set up the entire party so that Rusty James would cheat on Patty, driving her to leave him for Smokey. The two brothers and Steve head across the river one night to a strip of bars, where Rusty James enjoys briefly forgetting his troubles. The Motorcycle Boy mentions that he located their long-lost mother during his recent trip while she was with a movie producer, which took him to California although he did not reach the ocean. Later, Steve and Rusty James wander drunkenly home, and are attacked by thugs, but both are saved by the Motorcycle Boy. As he nurses Rusty James again, the Motorcycle Boy tells him that the gang life and the rumbles he yearns for and idolizes are not what he believes them to be. Steve calls the Motorcycle Boy crazy, a claim which the Motorcycle Boy does not deny, further prompting Rusty James to believe his brother is insane, just like his runaway mother supposedly was. Rusty James meets up with the Motorcycle Boy the next day in a pet store, where the latter is strangely fascinated with the Siamese fighting fish, which he refers to as "rumble fish." Officer Patterson suspects they will try to rob the store. The brothers leave and meet their father, who explains to Rusty James that, contrary to popular belief, neither his mother nor brother are crazy, but rather they were both born with an acute perception. The brothers go for a motorcycle ride through the city and arrive at the Pet Store where the Motorcycle Boy breaks in and starts to set the animals loose. Rusty James makes a last-gasp effort to convince his brother to reunite with him, but the Motorcycle Boy refuses, explaining that the differences between them are too great for them to ever have the life Rusty James speaks of. The Motorcycle Boy takes the fish and rushes to free them in the river, but is fatally shot by Officer Patterson before he can. Rusty James, after hearing the gunshot, finishes his brother's last attempt while a large crowd of people converges on his body. Rusty James finally reaches the Pacific Ocean (something the Motorcycle Boy failed to do) and enjoys the shining sun and flocks of birds flying around the beach. He also tries to forget what happened to his brother.

When libidinous but not-very-smart attorney Ned Racine begins an affair with Matty Walker, the young wife of a tycoon, their desire to be together leads to thoughts of murder.