A federal agent goes undercover to avenge the murder of a friend but one of the gang thinks he seems familiar.
The movie begins with scenes of organized crime figures saying they want to take over all of the $2 Billion in gambling take in the U.S. They want slot machines, numbers, counterfeit money, horse racing and anything else they can get control of by crushing the competition and stealing everything not locked down. There are some short establishing scenes of fighting among various organizations, both legal and illegal including some gun play as should be expected to setup the plot. The Department of Justice gets involved and recovers some counterfeit money and decides to use it for a sting to try to capture one of the bad guys. The sting goes bad and one G-Man dies. A preppy-perky new guy comes on board to replace the dead G-Man and work for Elliott. Elliott then decides to work his way to the top of the crime organization to take it down from the top. Then there is a "who's on first" style comic relief scene about how to buy a numbers slip. Elliott as "Duke" defends a numbers runner and meets him for a drink then meets the numbers accountant. He and she (Maxine) hit is off right away. He also meets one of the gangsters who thinks he knows him. Later they begin to find clues to the operation and a possible headquarters location for the mob.
Later on we find out that Maxine is not so enamored with the numbers operation and feels trapped. She dislikes "Duke" for sticking with it and supporting the illegal operations. Meanwhile, the possible headquarters is staked out with G-Men all around watching everyone going in and out.
The "Big Guy's" son accidentally gets shot and killed and Elliott gets blamed. But almost simultaneously he gets made as a G-Man and taken to the cellar to be killed. In the cellar, Elliott wrestles the gun away from his killer and a fight ensues. Right on queue, the rest of the Feds come in. There is some shooting and some arresting. Maxine tips the feds that Elliott is downstairs and they break in and save him and arrest his supposed killer.
The Big Guy is arrested, too, and the killer of the Big Guy's son is identified and cuffed.
Elliott gets the girl (Maxine of course) and the credits roll. 1 hour, 6 minutes.
