On the night before retirement, police lieutenant Amore is called to investigate the off-duty death of his longtime partner, who fell prey of an illegal scheme Amore himself was secretly part of.

Milan, Italy, 1967. Santo Russo, a boy of Calabrian origin, arrives north with his parents and younger brother to find better living conditions. Due to an absurd misunderstanding and his father's contempt, Santo ends up in prison, where he gets a “true education.” In 1978, he and his friends Slim and Mario embark on a 15-year criminal career, a successful and ruthless spiral of robberies, kidnappings, murders and heroin smuggling.

The grown-ups are not there. The children play, they act. The script they enact through mimicry is the world that is raising them. It is a frightening, cruel world: it is us. But they are only pretending.