Starring Lino Ventura and popular singers Jacques Brel and Johnny Hallyday, it recounts the adventures of five criminals who progress from conventional urban crime to international notoriety as celebrity kidnappers.

[1][2][3] In Paris in 1972, a group of five career criminals realise that the rewards from their traditional way of life are shrinking in the modern world.

Jacques accepts that his bank robberies yield a low net return for high risks.

Decamping with the proceeds to Latin America, they are hired by left-wing guerillas to kidnap the Swiss ambassador.

When Ernesto, leader of the rebels, refuses to pay the kidnappers' fee, they kidnap him and sell his freedom for cash to three separate buyers; his soldiers, the government, and the CIA.