The life, the crimes, the arrests and the prison break of Renato Vallanzasca (Kim Rossi Stuart) and his group is a cinematic story that also gives a broader picture of Italy's recent history. Milan, the seventies. The underworld is dominated by the unchallenged power of Francis Turatello (Francesco Scianna), nicknamed "Faccia d'angelo" (Angel Face) when Vallanzasca's gang arrive on the scene. Having begun his criminal career at an early age, he is now the leader of a gang made up of his childhood friends, drug addicts and juvenile delinquents who have progressed from robbery to one murder after another. The cash flows and the gang throw themselves into high life. Renato, in the meantime, has met Consuelo, a beautiful and self-assured girl from the south who finds herself with him at the time of his first arrest through to his prison break from San Vittore four and a half years later. But Vallanzasca's outlaw days are coming to an end: the killing of two policemen in the tollbooth at Dalmine changes the destiny of the crime boss who is arrested shortly afterwards. His prison sentence at Rebibbia offers him the chance to clear things up with his sworn enemy Turatello. The following years are punctuated by transfers from one prison to another, by trials and by daring escapes. During a transfer to another prison by ferry he escapes and runs to Antonella (Paz Vega), a childhood friend who has stayed close to him all his life. But once more Vallanzasca's life as a fugitive starts again but he is not the cantankerous youth of yesteryear.