Southern Italian workers relocate to Milan and adjust to life in the city, where they reside in a house together. Among the group are country boys Gigi and Carletto, who are overwhelmed by urban living. While some find work at a hectic restaurant, others are employed at a grim slaughterhouse. However, when some of the migrant workers are unable to make ends meet, they resort to theft, worsening their situations.

After Annunziata (Angela Molina) opens up a hostel with her friend Antonio (Daniel Ezralow), she is saved from being raped by a Camorra boss as the gangster is suddenly killed. The killer escapes before Annunziata is able to see who it was. Following this murder are several others, and always with the same “signature” — a syringe in one of the testicles of the victims. As the gangsters continue to be killed off, the identity of the killer – or killers – slowly becomes obvious.

Life in Naples is tough, so Neapolitans invent ways to get by. Whatever works, conning mostly, tricking the IRS, the university, the landlord, cruise ship passengers, even conning victims three times with the same ruse.

A bureaucratic snafu sends Marco Tullio Sperelli, a portly, middle-aged northern Italian, to teach third grade in a poor town outside Naples