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.

Their first target is the singer Johnny Hallyday, who is delighted at the publicity and himself writes them a huge ransom cheque.

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.

The gang kidnap the Pope at the airport and demand that every Catholic in the world must contribute at least one dollar for his release.