It's New Year's Eve and a serial killer stalks the streets of New York, looking for his next victim. Under pressure from the public and the press, Police Commissioner Frank Starkey (Harvey Keitel) and the mayor (Rod Steiger) reinstate Starkey's brother Nick (Kevin Kline) in the force to track down the murderer. Nick was pressured to resign some years back and bad blood remains between him and his brother; almost immediately he rubs his superior (Danny Aiello) the wrong way when he turns his office into a sort of beatnik den. Flanked by his eccentric buddy (Alan Rickman) and the mayor's daughter (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio), Starkey goes about running the killer down his own way.
