Kansas City

Ice cool, red-hot jazz is the soul of Robert Altman's personal excursion back into the title Missouri town during its seedy Depression-era heyday. With his trademark quickly shifting cross-cut episodes Altman skewers the American institutions of big business, politics and the myth of American honesty, and fortitude in the face of adversity. His 1934 Kansas City is a ruthless place where the struggle to survive drives normally decent people beyond the law's frontiers. The stories begin as feisty, determined Blondie O'Hara (Jennifer Jason Leigh) bursts into the well-appointed home of local blue-blood Carolyn Stilton (Miranda Richardson), the wife of prominent Democrat Henry Stilton (Michael Murphy). Blondie slips Carolyn some laudanum to calm her and then sets off. Her purpose for the abduction is to somehow use Carolyn to get back Blondie's husband Johnny O'Hara (Dermot Mulroney), a bumbling petty thief who stupidly put on blackface to disguise himself and robbed the biggest mobster in Kansas City, the enigmatic African American crime boss Seldom Seen (Harry Belafonte). Seldom Seen runs the riotous Hey-Hey Club where a jazz band ceaselessly jams. He has captured Johnny and now amuses himself by torturing the little hood and manipulating his mind. Meanwhile, Blondie continues searching accompanied by the now laudanum-addicted Carolyn, who stumbles along in a half-blind haze. Blondie speeds things up by forcing her captive to involve her husband, who is busily engaged in corrupting the upcoming presidential election. In the midst of it all, a ruthless mobster (Steve Buscemi) strong-arms innocent people into voting his way.