When German police viciously quell a protest against the shah of Iran, popular journalist Ulrike Meinhof (Martina Gedeck) rebels against her dishonest marriage, walks away from her children and joins radical anarchist Andreas Baader (Moritz Bleibtreu). Together with Baader's girlfriend, Gudrun Ensslin (Johanna Wokalek), they form the violent Red Faction Army, and together perpetrate a slew of terrorist attacks as a way of disrupting the fabric of what they see as an increasingly fascist state.
