Handlung

The lives of an ex-con, a coffee-shop owner, and a young couple looking to make it rich intersect in the fictional and hypnotic Rain City.

In the metropolis of Rain City which is run under a military state, Wanda's Café is the meeting point for several individuals, who, in the words of Lt. Gunther of the police department, are converging on "the shit (they're) wallowing in". Former Rain City police officer John Hawkins - Hawk to his friends - has just been released from prison where he served eight years for murder, a crime to which he readily admits. He killed Fat Adolph, a mobster, in an effort to clean up the streets and protect the ones he loved. He has returned to Wanda's - Wanda who was his former lover - to restart his life. Straightforward Wanda still loves Hawk, but is not in love with him, and as such offers him a place to stay with no strings. Wanda has just hired largely innocent Georgia to work in the café. Penniless Georgia and her husband Coop have just arrived in Rain City with their infant son Spike in the run-down camper in which they live. They believed moving to the city - their first time ever in such - would solve all their problems. Frustrated Coop has been unable to find work, so he ends up hooking up with another Wanda's regular, a criminal named Solo. The power and money associated with this new criminal life changes Coop. His and Solo's problem is that their criminal activities are impinging on that of a more ruthless criminal named Hilly Blue, who will not sit idly by without getting what he considers his fair share of the activity. In the meantime, Hawk starts to fall for Georgia, who is torn between the love she felt for the man she married as opposed to who Coop has become, and the support provided by Hawk, who wants to care for her and Spike. Hawk has to decide what to do to help Georgia while getting what he wants for his renewed life.—Huggo

The time is somewhere in the Future, in a place called Rain City. The place is a police state and everything has a 1940s-style feel to it, including attitudes and language characters use to deal with each other. Outside of the city, a young well-meaning father Coop (Keith Carradine) and his tender pretty wife Georgia (Lori Singer), and their small baby live in a trailer, and decide to move to the city for better work after Coop fails to find meaningful employment. In Rain City, ex-cop Hawk (Kris Kristofferson), imprisoned for killing a man, is released from prison and returns to his ex-girlfriend Wanda (Geneviève Bujold) who runs a diner. When Coop and Georgia arrive at Wandas Diner they are cased by Solo (Joe Morton), a sly thug who quotes passages from literature as he sips his coffee. Solo immediately attaches himself to the needy Coop and the two enter into a crooked deal to obtain stolen jewelry and resell to a local gangster Hilly Blue (Glen Milstead aka Divine). Hawk immediately sees how Solo is using the impressionable Coop to further shady crime activities and what it is doing to the vulnerable Georgia and her young baby. After prodding from Wanda, the disillusioned Hawk seeking some value in his own life, intervenes in order to help the young girl Georgia and is immediately attracted to her sensitivity. As the duo Coop and Solo get more deeply involved in their crime activities, Hilly Blue manipulates those around him to control the forces that govern the gangsters in Rain City and in a confrontation between Hawk, Coop, and Hilly Blue a philosophical denouement is achieved that shows to all involved what value they have in their lives.