Volker Schlöndorff transposes Bertolt Brecht’s late-expressionist work to latter-day 1969. Poet and anarchist Baal lives in an attic and reads his poems to cab drivers. At first feted and later rejected by bourgeois society, Baal roams through forests and along motorways, greedy for schnapps, cigarettes, women and men: ‘You have to let out the beast, let him out into the sunlig...。约翰亨利(侠客欧尼尔饰)是军方的治金专家,负责一种新型防卫的武器的研发计划:利用「声波」把敌人歼灭,却不必动到一刀一枪:他和神秘的政府高层研究小组合作,小组领导人是精明的女性电子专家史巴克;就在测试武器的当天,由于小组成员桑纳一时疏忽,导致史巴克半身麻痹,约翰亨利在心力交瘁之余,决定回到洛杉矶,永远离开武器的世界。洛城平静的生活维持不久,他竟在一群抢匪身上见到自己创造的武器,原来,桑纳已经离开政府单位,准备将武器高价售予全球最凶残的恐怖份子,约翰亨利必须在歹徒得逞之前阻止他们,而他最先想到能帮他的人就是躺在医院里的史巴克……。