It is set in San Francisco, California. It stars Sigourney Weaver as criminal psychologist Dr. Helen Hudson and Holly Hunter as police detective M.J. Monahan. Dermot Mulroney plays her work partner, detective Reuben Goetz. Harry Connick, Jr. plays Daryll Lee Cullum and William McNamara plays Peter Foley. Cullum is imprisoned early in the movie for murder and for attacking Hudson. As a result of the attack, she has agoraphobia and posttraumatic stress disorder. Foley is a serial killer who is committing murders in the ways that they were done by notorious serial killers.