A man who is down on his luck falls in with a criminal.

Unemployed Howard Tyler is desperate for a job since he is married with one child and another on the way. When he meets "bon vivant" Jerry Slocum, this stranger offers Howard a job. He learns that Jerry is a small-time thief and Howard's job would be to drive the getaway car after the heist. Howard improves his family's life and tells his wife Judy that he's working the night shift at a factory. Meanwhile, tabloid journalist Gil Stanton is assigned to promote the thefts to increase sales. When Jerry kidnaps a millionaire's son, he brutally kills the man and forces Howard to help him dump the corpse in the sea and ask the family for ransom. When the boy is found, Stanton incites the population by calling the abductors monsters. When Howard and Jerry are arrested, a mob threatens their lives in front of the police station. How will the police officers protect the prisoners?—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil