Bill Baker, an American oil-rig roughneck from Oklahoma, travels to Marseille to visit his estranged daughter, Allison, who is in prison for a murder she claims she did not commit. Confronted with language barriers, cultural differences, and a complicated legal system, Bill builds a new life for himself in France as he makes it his personal mission to exonerate his daughter.

Alex, the son of a gang boss from Marseilles, joins the French Foreign Legion to avoid a hit put out on him by the Corsican Mafia. Four years later, Alex deserts and returns to Marseilles to get back together with Katia, his former girlfriend. But in the city, relationships have changed...