Marion, a secretary in the City, awakes in a crashed car outside the office of Metropolis magazine. Dazed, she stumbles into the building, where she finds a bloodied message: "Marion, remember what I told you - write it..."

Twenty-four hours earlier, at Kings Cross station, fifteen-year-old Pete arrives from Newcastle to find his friend Mick. His telephone call is answered by Mick's ex-girlfriend Cheryl, who denies any knowledge of him and whose relationship with her new lover Danny is fast collapsing in arguments about money.

Cruising around London in a 1950 Pontiac are Johnny, a young rent boy, Paul, his pimp, and Suan, Paul's PA. They travel to the Isle of Dogs for a final meeting with Chuck, a wealthy American businessman; but instead of signing a contract, Chuck teases Paul and his associates by postponing a decision until later that day.

Meanwhile, Richard, researching an article on the East End for Metropolis magazine, meets with Johnny in a gay bar. Johnny is more interested in talking about his plans to get to America; he sights Pete and tries to recruit him as a rent boy.

Forlorn, Danny visits his brother Billy, a professional boxer, who rejects his requests for money. Danny is further dejected when he arrives to collect Cheryl from her daytime job only to find that she has already left with another man.

Johnny visits his next client: Chuck, who before making love decides not to sign a deal with the docklands development scheme.

Badgered by his editor for inside details of drugs and corruption scandals in the East End, Richard finds himself - like all the other characters - inside the notorious nightclub, Empire State, where Cheryl works as a bartender and where Marion arrives to meet a man through a lonely-hearts column. Paul arrives with an entourage of investors, confident that he can announce Chuck's signing of the deal. But Chuck is at Heathrow, saying goodbye to Johnny, who on impulse takes the next flight to New York.

Richard meets Pete, and learns that his friend Mick vanished after being involved in hard drugs. Local entrepreneur Frank - Billy's boxing manager and owner of Empire State - arrives, enraged by Billy having lost the match. Paul confronts Frank and announces that, as his lease is now owned by Paul's business consortium, his days as a local power are numbered.

Hearing that Paul's American deal is off, Frank challenges him to regain his losses by gambling on a no-holds-barred bout between two fighters. Paul loses his money, house and car, and as people leave, Danny goes mad in the car park with a pump-action shotgun. In the chaos, Richard escapes with Marion and tells her all that he knows about the business dealings of the East End. Danny collapses in the doorway of Billy's house. Crashing outside the Metropolis building, Richard is followed inside by two of Paul's henchmen...

Mark Finch, Monthly Film Bulletin, May 1987