District attorney Ford Cole is running for mayor, promising to capture the city's elusive crime boss, Danny Ludin. On the night of a gas link in the inner city, his interview with a national reporter is interrupted by word that his best prosecutor, Nora Timmer, who's also his lover, has killed a man she claims was assaulting her. A few minutes later, a man shows up at Cole's office claiming it was murder, implicating Nora in complicated schemes and crimes. Cole wants a few hours to get to the bottom of a mess that quickly includes land deals, shell corporations, and political corruption. Who's setting up whom?

In grim, dull Vaslui, Cristi is a young police officer, conscientious, laconic, recently married to Anca, a teacher. He's tailing a kid who smokes pot and may be supplying his friends. Cristi dislikes the assignment: the kid's clearly not a dealer, an arrest would ruin his life, and, Cristi assumes that Romania will soon tolerate marijuana. His superior tells him flatly that the law is the law and to finish the case with a quick arrest. Cristi wants to follow the informant, a youth whose father is a builder. Cristi watches, he smokes, he writes reports, he wants to meet with the prosecutor. Can a cop have a conscience? Is the noun being modified "procedural" or "state"?

Yuppie Daniel Miller is killed in a car accident and goes to Judgment City, a waiting room for the afterlife. During the day, he must prove in a courtroom-style process that he successfully overcame his fears (a hard task, given the pitiful life we are shown); at night, he falls in love with Julia, the only other young person in town. Nights are a time of hedonistic pleasure, since you can (for instance) eat all you want without getting fat.