Fourteen-year-old Tolly Devlin sees four hoods beat his father to death. Twenty years later, the killers have risen to the top of the crime syndicate. Ever since his adolescence, Tolly (Cliff Robertson)'s goal has been to avenge his father. Tolly has even become a criminal and gotten himself sent to prison so that he could get close to one of the perpetrators. He becomes as vindictive and sadistic as the men he is pursuing, and rejects the two relationships that could redeem him, his mother-figure (Beatrice Kay) and his girlfriend (Dolores Dorn).