The movie opens with the murder of New York City Detective Lieutenant Danial Lombardy, his body discovered in Hong Kong waters. Three strangers arrive on the same ship at the port of Macao, then under Portuguese rule, off colonial Hong Kong: Nick Cochran, a cynical, but honest ex-serviceman, Julie Benton, an equally cynical, sultry, and well-traveled night club singer, and Lawrence Trumble, a jovial traveling salesman who deals in coconut oil, silk stockings, cigars and contraband. Corrupt police lieutenant Sebastian notifies casino owner and underworld boss Vincent Halloran about the new arrivals.
Don Anthony is the head of California's largest crime family. Unbeknownst to him, his voluptuous mistress Gina and his arch-rival Don Francisco have plotted a hostile takeover of the business, and Don Anthony is gunned down following a mob meeting. Lying mortally wounded in the hospital, Don Anthony directs his chief lieutenant Monk to locate his estranged son Tony to assume the family business and carry on the Anthony name.
Charlie Chan is proud of his oldest son, swimmer Lee, being chosen to represent the United States at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin. Meanwhile, over the skies of Chan's Honolulu, the "Hopkins plane" is demonstrating an improvement of remote radio control to the US military. The aircraft is hijacked by a concealed stowaway, the device stolen, and the test pilot murdered.
A young boy witnesses four mobsters beating his father to death. Twenty years later, he sets out on a quest to eliminate all of the gang members involved in the murder. After killing three of them, Police Captain John Kiley (Karl Malden) informs the mob's boss that an unknown boy has begun killing his mob partners.
After the body of murdered woman Elizabeth Mercer is found, nude and handcuffed, floating down the Hudson River in New York City, two men are murdered by an assailant who handcuffs them before killing them. Paul "Mac" McCormack, an ambitious TV talk-show host, and Larry Weeks, a police detective and aspiring stand-up comedian, team up to try to locate the killer. Meanwhile, Virna Nightbourne, a student at the Art Students League of New York, has been completing portraits which coincidentally appear to depict the crimes.
New York City private eye Peter Joseph "P.J." Detweiler needs the work, so he accepts an offer to be a bodyguard to protect Maureen Preble, the mistress of shady millionaire William Orbison. Orbison takes the family to the Bahamas, where a romantic attachment between P.J. and Maureen seems to be growing.
Unscrupulous newspaper photographer Jack Early is sent to take a picture of racketeer Nick Palmer, who doesn't like to be photographed. Palmer takes a liking to Early and asks him to frame his henchman Colton, but Early double-crosses Palmer and informs Colton that his boss had planned to frame him. Shortly afterward, Palmer is killed by a car bomb and Early becomes famous for snapping a photo of the event.
Andy, Trevor, and Billy are childhood friends. As young adults, Billy sells drugs and Andy does deliveries for him. One night, Trevor delivers instead and gets busted by narcs.
The movie is based on Tim McLoughlin's novel Heart of the Old Country, which has Mike Manadoro (Kevin Zegers) as a 19-year-old Brooklyn boy who is torn between two worlds. When Mike's photography portfolio wins him a partial scholarship to New York University, he must figure out how to balance his tight-knit Italian neighborhood roots in Bay Ridge with the opportunity to blend into the expansive, sophisticated world on the other side of the East River. Since his job at a local car service doesn't earn him enough to make up for the rest of the tuition, and his father, a retired sanitation worker on disability, refuses out of pride to…
The film opens with Mr. Moto in disguise as a street salesmen and selling goods to passers-by. He sees a man leaving a shop with a tattoo of the British Flag on his arm.
The ruthless and uncouth Solly Caspar, the crime boss of Bay City (a fictional town near San Francisco), wishes to defeat a campaign by multimillionaire mayoral reform candidate Frank Jansen. Caspar tasks crooked ex-cop Ben Grace with uncovering dirt on Jansen. Ben follows Jansen's secretary and girlfriend June Lyons to a women's prison to photograph her collecting her sex-starved kleptomaniac sister Dorothy, a multiple ex-con.
Kevin, Brian, Chris, Darick and Eddie are childhood friends from a working-class neighborhood in Pittsburgh. They are in their mid-20s and working low paid blue collar jobs and occasional small criminal offenses like selling marijuana or illegally providing liquor for parties. Brian convinces all but Eddie to start making money by pandering.
Mara is married to Vietnam veteran Donny, who has horrible visions and nightmares of his combat experiences. She is having an affair with Jake. The lives of all are disrupted when she meets a mysterious stranger, Reed, who became her new lover.
While staking out his next assignment, the innocent girlfriend of his notorious boss, contract killer Malik (Treach) reflects on the dark path he's chosen but cannot escape. Torn between his sense of duty and his newfound sense of humanity, he finds that the only way out is a perilous showdown with men who are every bit as cold-blooded as he is.
Steve Grey is a hotshot New York newspaper reporter specializing in murder. When a crooked businessman named Halford is murdered, Steve pins the blame on the dead man's associate, Henry Mander, theorizing that Halford was killed by a rifle from a shooting gallery across the street. Mander is arrested, tried, convicted and sentenced to death.
The story centers on Billy "Shiner" Simpson, a boxing promoter banned from legitimate fights until he finds a promising start in his son Eddie. The night of the fight sees Eddie killed, and Simpson suspects rival Frank Spedding. Billy seeks revenge, only to grow mad as his suspicions draw closer to home.
Darryl Graham moves into an apartment complex, meeting his new neighbors: Connie and Avery, who have a troubled marriage; couple Slim and Krystal, who is Avery's daughter; Ben and his son Benny; and several gossiping women. As Benny helps Darryl move into his apartment, the two become friends. Connie, who initially disbelieves the gossips when they say Darryl is the most attractive man they've ever seen, makes a fool of herself when introducing herself to him.
FBI agent Diane Norwood and DEA agent Max Parrish are both in pursuit of the same criminals—a trio of allied crime bosses and a man named Thomas Livingston, who handles their finances. But, instead of working together, the two agents race to be the first to arrest the suspects and seize their millions in order to claim the money for their agency. After realizing neither one can be beaten or persuaded off the case, the agents reluctantly decide to work together.
Lynn Schaffer is a loving mother and wife, who gets arrested for a crime she did not realize she had committed. She does not take the arrest seriously at first. Viewing herself as innocent, she goes against the advice of her lawyer to take a plea-bargain.
A group of friends steal a valuable statuette for a ruthless art dealer. The amateur thieves botch the delivery of the statuette and the art dealer demands that they pay him $1 million by the end of the week or face the consequences: certain death. Desperate, the friends decide to take out a $1 million life insurance policy on one of themselves with the idea that if one of them is sacrificed, the others will collect on the policy and be able pay off the art dealer.
Coming back from an extended business trip, Frank discovers that his girlfriend Janie is now working at a new resort hotel where the owner has given her a permanent place to stay, as well as other gifts, in exchange for her affections. As they fight over this development, tensions between Frank and Janie escalate out of control until he is holding her hostage in a standoff with the police. As the negotiators try to talk Frank into giving himself up, the desperate man feels himself being pushed further and further into a corner.
