Nick Rinaldi (Spano) is the aimless son of corrupt property developer Joe Rinaldi (Lo Bianco), who is determined to provide for Nick after the death in Vietnam of the Rinaldi's older son. Rinaldi owns a derelict apartment building that blocks the construction of a mixed-use development that the equally corrupt mayor pushes hard for to boost his re-election chances. Bored at the no-show job organized by his father, Nick quits and turns to crime to assuage his debts and drug addiction. Joe is introduced arguing with idealistic alderman Wynn (Morton) about hiring more African-Americans, which Rinaldi is hesitant to do for political reasons. Nick joins his friends, low-rent thugs Bobby and Zip, who work for small-time hoodlum Carl (Sayles). Carl sets the men up with access to a local electronics store. Unbeknownst to the men, the owner is a close friend of Joe's. While breaking into the store, they are thwarted by the store's new security guard (who is Wynn's brother-in-law), who threatens to shoot them despite his gun being fake. Bobby and Zip are arrested and jailed while Nick flees. While the pair sit in jail, annoyed by delusional homeless man Asteroid (Strathairn), Nick begins to fall for Angela (Williams), a waitress at a local restaurant, who has a child by Rizzo (Denison), a young and hot-headed policeman. Rizzo, who stalks his ex-wife, is infuriated that Rinaldi is pursuing Angela, and hassles two young black boys as a result. The boys, deciding that they may as well live up to the way the police portray them, attack a professor jogging in a nearby park, later falsely claiming that the professor made advances toward them. Wynn privately expresses doubt in the story of the boys, but worries of his perception from the black community if he does not stand with the boys, especially from Malik (Tom Wright), an intense composite character that represents black power, Nation of Islam, and Pan-Africanist ideals.