Max, chief police officer of the highway unit, has a very personal concept of justice: catching criminals red-handed. When a sting operation he's planned goes south, Max has a chance encounter with a childhood friend, Abel, who has fallen into pillaging the Nanterre zone of Paris with a group of ferrailleurs [junkmen]. Frustrated and obsessed by his inability to catch the professional criminals at his doorstep, Max hatches a plan to bring down Abel's amateur group. By starting a strange relationship with Lily, a prostitute with whom Abel lives, Max, passes himself off as a successful banker, and weaves a web of intrigue that he hopes will snare Abel and the ferrailleurs.