The screenplay was a joint effort of Nicolas Gueilburt, Ricardo Ragendorfer, Dodi Shoeuer, Pablo Trapero, and actor Daniel Valenzuela, and partly funded by INCAA.

The movie deals with the corruption of the Bonaerense Police in the Buenos Aires Province, Argentina, and the lives of those involved in it.

After the locksmith Polaco breaks open a safe and uses him as a scapegoat, Zapa is convicted and sentenced to imprisonment in the Buenos Aires police jail, which is pictured as notoriously corrupt.

His journey through the political underworld as he frames and bribes ultimately takes him to the edge of innocence, and a final confrontation with Polaco.

This powerful sweat-stained swatch of Argentine neo-realism, filmed in harsh high contrast that throws its characters' faces into deep shadow, follows the initiation of Zapa (Jorge Román), a naïve police recruit, into a labyrinth of sleaze...[the film] is all the more disturbing for refusing to act as an exposé.