The true story of Henry Hill, a half-Irish, half-Sicilian Brooklyn kid who is adopted by neighbourhood gangsters at an early age and climbs the ranks of a Mafia family under the guidance of Jimmy Conway.

Martian Garcia announces to his parents that not only is he proud to have converted to Atheism, but he intends to tell his whole family on Christmas. His parents then disown him on the spot, and they turn to his Aunt Patrica, who turns the rest of his family against him, and she's determined to either bring him back to the fold or kill him trying.

Alex Blake, an ex-prize fighter, works the night shift and keeps to himself. Things change for him because of two women, a hooker trapped under a sadistic pimp, and a Harvard grad student working on her doctorate who moves into his apartment. Alex is a nice guy, but has a lot of rage inside, which gives him a temper that he has more and more trouble controlling. We slowly learn through the course of the film why he lost his will to fight, and how interactions with the two totally opposite women end up causing him to "fight his fight."