Detective Mike Logan has been reassigned to the
Domestic Disputes Department on
Staten Island following an assault on Kevin Crossley after the latter's acquittal, a job he considers to be a "career dead-end". Three years later, a resentful and isolated Logan unexpectedly becomes involved in a homicide case when, after an altercation with his partner while handling a call to a domestic dispute, Logan's supervisor reassigns him to work with Staten Island homicide detective Frankie Silvera to investigate the murder of the girl, whose body Logan encountered earlier when she was found dead in New York Harbor. The victim was found to have been stabbed and her hands cut off. After discovering that the victim had been a dancer at an exotic club in
Manhattan owned by Gianni Uzielli, son of mafia godfather Don Giancarlo Uzielli, Logan meets with his former supervisor Captain
Donald Cragen, who advises him that the case may involve a dirty-cop conspiracy leading back to the 27th Precinct, the very precinct from which Logan was banished. Logan's commanding officer repeatedly orders him to leave the case to the "real detectives" in the NYPD, but Logan sees solving the case as the long-hoped-for chance to resurrect his career and get reinstated as a homicide detective. He visits Executive Assistant District Attorney
Jack McCoy, and convinces McCoy to authorize a cross-jurisdictional investigation. Logan also becomes romantically involved with the victim's twin sister, a ballet dancer. Logan is shot at by a mystery assailant, whom he believes must be the murderer he is closing in on. Logan also suspects that Detective Sammy Kurtz is the dirty cop, but ultimately finds that it was Detective Tony Profaci who had long been on the take from the Uzielli family, and that Profaci had helped Gianni dispose of the girls body after the latter had murdered her for refusing to abort a pregnancy of which Gianni was the father. Logan and Silvera go to the Staten Island home of Giancarlo Uzielli, who has decided to turn over his son for breaking the mafia's rules by attempting to assassinate a cop. Enraged, Gianni grabs a gun and shoots his father dead before being subdued and taken away by the police. The film ends with Logan walking down a Manhattan street while news reports detail the botched arrest of Gianni Uzielli. ==Cast==