Before being extradited to Africa to stand trial, a notorious Belgian criminal is entrusted to the Marseilles police department for less than 24 hours. But the wily crook convinces bumbling policeman Emilien he's a lowly Belgian embassy employee who got railroaded by the brilliant master criminal.

A series of events unfold like a chain reaction, all stemming from a minor event that brings the film's five characters together. Set in Paris, France, Anne is an actress whose boyfriend Georges photographs the war in Kosovo. Georges' brother, Jean, is looking for the entry code to Georges' apartment. These characters' lives interconnect with a Romanian immigrant and a deaf teacher.

In 1850, on the isolated French island of Saint-Pierre, a murder shocks the natives. Two fishermen are arrested. One of them, Louis Ollivier, dies in custody. The other, Neel Auguste, is sentenced to death by the guillotine. The island is so small that it has neither a guillotine nor an executioner. While those are sent for Auguste is placed under the supervision of an army Captain.

To get royal backing on a needed drainage project, a poor French lord must learn to play the delicate games of wit at court at Versailles.

Sylvie Drapier is an attractive 40-year old surgeon, specializing in liver transplants, who heads a department in the foremost clinic of a small country town. Divorced, she lives alone with her eight-year-old son, David. One night, returning home from a major operation, Sylvie is violently assaulted and raped in the garage of her building. In the furious struggle with the rapist, she manages to scratch him with a brooch. Several weeks later, the rapist attacks a pharmacist, but this time, the victim escapes by severely injuring him. The assaulter is hospitalized and must undergo a liver transplant, an operation which only Sylvie Drapier can perform...