Harry Angel (Mickey Rourke) is a down-on-his-luck private detective living in New York in the 1950's. He is hired by a mysterious gentleman with the cryptic name of Louis Cyphre (Robert De Niro). Cyphre is looking for a singer who went by the name Johnny Favourite. Favourite is in debt to Cyphre, and is proving very difficult to find. Angel's investigation of the case takes him from seedy Brooklyn to voodoo-laden Louisiana. It is there that he meets Epiphany Proudfoot (Lisa Bonet) whose mother knew Johnny Favourite. Through the course of the investigation, the bodies pile up, and Angel himself becomes a suspect. Through eerie flashbacks, it becomes apparent that all is not as it seems when it comes to the relationship between Angel, Favourite and Cyphre. As the movie reaches its climax, we witness a man struggling to reconcile himself to the decisions he made in the past and the consequences those decisions will have on his future.