Superintendent Chessari is sent to run a small police station on the outskirts of Rome - a temporary posting in a difficult area, with not much backing and very few staff. His deputy, Lorenzo Corsi, is a youngster just out of the Academy, full of enthusiasm and high principles which clash with the corrupt reality of the streets and the attitude of his colleagues. The small police station seems like an outlying frontier post, a sort of backwater where recruits and hot-heads are assigned to rot. Chessari wants a quiet life, and all he does is set up a few routine operations; following suspects and tapping phones. He tries to avoid making waves that might upset his plans for career advancement. His men, however, are a bunch of loose canons, who are not intimidated by the rules or regulations imposed upon them and at times risk crossing the line of legality.