An ordinary woman is unwittingly led into California's criminal underbelly in this drama. Betty Parrish (Debra Winger) is a bank teller who is involved in a rather sporadic relationship with Mike (Mark Keyloun), a low-level tennis pro who supplements his income by dealing cocaine on the side. One night, Betty finds herself stood up by Mike and discovers that there's a good reason why he hasn't shown up -- he's been killed. It seems that Mike and his friend Pete (Darrell Larson) were acting as middlemen in a deal for one of the city's major drug suppliers. Mike and Pete made the mistake of siphoning off some of the cocaine for their own purposes (Mike wanted product to sell to his customers, while Pete needed to satisfy his growing addiction to coke), and the dealer's thugs had Mike eliminated rather than allowing him to steal from their boss. Betty and Pete want to find out the truth about how and why Mike was murdered, and their journey leads them into the darkest regions of the Los Angeles underworld. Mike's Murder went through extensive revisions between its first previews and its final release; pop singer and songwriter Joe Jackson, then at the height of his popularity, composed a score for the film, and a soundtrack album of his music appeared in stores several months before the film's belated release. However, by that time much of Jackson's music had been replaced with a new score by John Berry.
~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide