Sasà Jovine (Nino Manfredi) is a self-styled lawyer involved in petty businesses with Neapolitan mobsters (camorristi). When one of his clients, don Michele Miletti (Paolo Stoppa) offers him a huge bribe (mazzetta) to search for his daughter who disappeared mysteriously taking with her some hot documents, Sasà finds himself trapped into a spiral of homicides.
In 1950s Naples, a couple struggles to be together against the will of the mother-in-law. In the end, not only will they be together, but the mother-in-law-to-be, a widow, finds love as well.