Gilles meets Guylaine on a beach. He's a bookish scholar with glasses; she's a waitress in a blue-collar bar in a rough part of Montreal. Gilles comes for a visit... Guylaine's brother Bob works for the brutal gangster Matroni. Two toughs have hijacked a tractor-trailer full of stolen car parts that Matroni was about to deliver to an even worse gangster, Boyd. Boyd is very dangerous and he wants those parts. Guylaine's friend Linda knows the hijackers and has left their names with her mum in a letter. The thugs have gotten to Bob and beaten him up, so that means only one person can take the letter to Matroni at his autowrecking yard, polite and courteous Gilles...

Un jeune intellectuel idéaliste tombe amoureux d'une serveuse issue d'un milieu populaire plutôt louche et doit bientôt croiser le fer avec le frère de la jeune femme, un petit voyou qui fraie avec des mafiosi.