A coldhearted hit man (William Hurt) kills a toy-company bigwig, but his world turns topsy-turvy when he later receives a mysterious package (complete with "bonus surprises") from the company at his luxurious high-rise abode in San Francisco.

William H. Macy plays dual roles in this imaginative tale about an author who copes with a family tragedy by writing himself into the noirish dramas of his own novel, where he interacts with his main character, a hard-boiled investigator in 1938 Los Angeles.