Unscrupulous boxing promoters, violent bookies, a Russian gangster, incompetent amateur robbers, and supposedly Jewish jewellers fight to track down a priceless stolen diamond.
An anthology of eleven vignettes featuring star-studded casts of extremely unique individuals who all share the common activities of conversing while drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes.
Ivanhoe Martin arrives in Kingston, Jamaica, looking for work and, after some initial struggles, lands a recording contract as a reggae singer. He records his first song, "The Harder They Come," but after a bitter dispute with a manipulative producer named Hilton, soon finds himself resorting to petty crime in order to pay the bills. He deals marijuana, kills some abusive cops and earns local folk hero status. Meanwhile, his record is topping the charts.
When a Las Vegas performer-turned-snitch named Buddy Israel decides to turn state's evidence and testify against the mob, it seems that a whole lot of people would like to make sure he's no longer breathing.
After being discharged from the Army, Brian Flanagan moves back to Queens and takes a job in a bar run by Doug Coughlin, who teaches Brian the fine art of bar-tending. Brian quickly becomes a patron favorite with his flashy drink-mixing style, and Brian adopts his mentor's cynical philosophy on life and goes for the money.
Chili Palmer is a Miami mobster who gets sent to L.A. to collect a bad debt from Harry Zimm, a Hollywood producer who specializes in cheesy horror films. When Chili meets Harry's leading lady, the romantic sparks fly. After pitching his own life story as a movie idea, Chili learns that being a mobster and being a Hollywood producer really aren't all that different.
Don Salvatore Anastasia, a priest in a seminary in Tropea, Calabria (Italy), gets a ticket to visit his brother in New York. He has never known him, because the brother emigrated illegally in the U.S.A. years before. Upon his arrival in America, he is greeted with much respect, as well as his brother, also from the Italian-American community of Little Italy. Enthusiastic of that, he decided to stay on as assistant pastor in the church of Saint Lucia and bring it to a new shine. Accompanied in New York, his last name, Anastasia, commands respect and, above all, opens the door hitherto locked: his brother, really, is the infamous mob boss Albert Anastasia.
Three World War II buddies promise to meet at a specified place and time 10 years after the war. They keep their word only to discover how far apart they've grown. But the reunion sparks memories of youthful dreams that haven't been fulfilled -- and slowly, the three men reevaluate their lives and try to find a way to renew their friendship.
Set in Prohibition era Chicago, bootlegger Robbo and his cronies refuse to pay the greedy Guy Gisborne a cut of their profits after Guy shoots mob boss Big Jim and takes over. When Big Jim's daughter, Marian, gives Robbo a large sum, believing he has avenged her father's death, the gangster donates to an orphanage, cementing his reputation as a softhearted hood.
A honeymoon couple in New York for one night of wedded bliss before he's to join the army, become involved with gangsters after they find a cadaver under their bed.
City Royale
Set in 1960s Sydney, this is the story of an Australian gangster whose booming business, buoyed by the influx of U.S. soldiers in town for R&R during their tours in Vietnam, attracts the attention of first the Chicago mafia, and then their East Coast competitors.
Eun-jin who is a living legend among the gangsters dominates the male-centered underworld wielding only a pair of her trademark blades. One day, Eun-jin finds her sister from whom she was separated at an orphanage during childhood, and her sister tells Eun-jin that her last dying wish is to see that Eun-jin gets married.
Former Scissor Gang leader Eun-jin, who now suffers from amnesia, nevertheless defends Jae-cheol, a restaurateur who employs her, from a gangster who wants his business.
A hot-shot lawyer is hired by a Hong Kong chemical plant to dispose of opposition to their polluting ways. But when he falls for a beautiful woman out to stop the plant, he is torn in a conflict of interest and asks his trusty friends Samo and Biao to help out at least until they discover the true purpose of the plant.
Dallas, a successful executive with a beautiful wife, dreams of having a family, while his gay brother Austin dreams of winning a local drag show. By a twist of fate, the brothers switch bodies and have to see how the other lives.
Two reporters search for a missing body in a wax museum.
Masaki, a baseball player and gas-station attendant, gets into trouble with the local Yakuza and goes to Okinawa to get a gun to defend himself. There he meets Uehara, a tough gangster, who is in serious debt to the yakuza and planning revenge.
In 1930s Marseilles two small-time crooks decide to join forces when they meet while brawling over a woman. Starting with fixed horse races and boxing matches, they soon find themselves doing jobs for the local gangster bosses. When they decide to go into the business for themselves, their easy-going approach to crime starts to change.
An aging gangster, Fernand Naudin is hoping for a quiet retirement when he suddenly inherits a fortune from an old friend, a former gangster supremo known as the Mexican. If he is ambivalent about his new found wealth, Fernand is positively nonplussed to discover that he has also inherited his benefactor’s daughter, Patricia. Unfortunately, not only does Fernand have to put up with the thoroughly modern Patricia and her nauseating boyfriend, but he also had to contend with the Mexican’s trigger-happy former employees, who are determined to make a claim.