As Mike Max's wife, Paige (Andie MacDowell), and the police search for him, Ray discovers footage of Mike’s kidnapping on his surveillance monitors. However, he soon realizes that some of the files are being manipulated or deleted, leading him to suspect a deeper conspiracy within his own project.

The film explores the contrast between "second-hand" violence in media and real-life trauma.

It acts as a prescient meditation on the emerging "Big Brother" surveillance state of the late 20th century.

An idealistic computer scientist (Gabriel Byrne) working on a top-secret government project at the Griffith Observatory. The project uses a massive network of cameras to monitor the entire city with the goal of creating "the end of violence" by stopping crimes before they happen.

The threads eventually converge as Ray seeks out Mike to understand what truly happened during the kidnapping, while various subplots involve a young actress (Traci Lind) and a movie-loving detective (Loren Dean). Key Themes

The 1997 film , directed by Wim Wenders, follows a multi-layered story centered on the culture of surveillance and the consumption of violence in modern society. The Storyline