A rich cross-section of urban USA find their lives changed when their fates collide at gunpoint. At the centre of it all are Helen and Warren Harding, an up-scale couple on the brink of divorce, whose awakening in the night by a burglar sets off a catastrophic series of events.
Adopted as a child, new father Mel Colpin decides he cannot name his son until he knows his birth parents, and determines to make a cross-country quest to find them. Accompanied by his wife, Nancy, and an inept yet gorgeous adoption agent, Tina, he departs on an epic road trip that quickly devolves into a farce of mistaken identities, wrong turns, and overzealous and love-struck ATF agents.
Three minor delinquints (Danes, Ribisi, and Epps) are recruited by a cop (Farina) working undercover to bust a cop/drug ring. When the officer who recruited them is killed, they go above and beyond the call of duty to solve the murder; and bust the drug ring. Suffering the jibes, and ridicule of fellow officers; they struggle to save their names, and that of their deceased benefactor.
After a young boy is almost runover by a maniac on a highway, a re-encounter and confrontation by the boy's father with the driver sets off conflicts with a carful of maniacs.
The seeds of love are planted when Lisa, a high-powered investment banker, receives flowers from a secret admirer. But when his fairy-tale fantasies clash with her workaholic ways, they soon find out that sometimes, it's harder than it seems for love to conquer all.
A disease carried by common cockroaches is killing Manhattan children. In an effort to stop the epidemic an entomologist, Susan Tyler, creates a mutant breed of insect that secretes a fluid to kill the roaches. This mutant breed was engineered to die after one generation, but three years later Susan finds out that the species has survived and evolved into a large, gruesome monster that can mimic human form.
Rich, successful Bryce meets beautiful Lissa at a bar one night and invites her back to his house, not suspecting for a moment that Lissa isn't really who she seems. What unfolds next is a dangerous, tangled web of double-crosses and seduction.