The political leader Alberto Carnevali, secretly returns to his country to plot against the dictatorship of Marcos Perez Jimenez. The Intense subversive struggle brings the torture of many of his comrades.

Commissioner Leon (Miguel Angel Landa) investigates the murder of a woman in a population near the capital. The woman was raped before death and the case is complicated when his brother becomes the prime suspect, since it is a priest (Eduardo Serrano). Because of the implications that inquiries might have, Leon is pressured to keep the event as a "crab" (Cangrejo, or a unsolvable case), but he decides to comply with the law.

The film tells the story of Ramón Antonio Brizuela, who since childhood has to deal with rampant violence and the drugs, sex and petty thievery of a Caracas slum. Starting with delinquency, Ramón moves on to serious gang activity and robberies. He grows into a tough, self-confident young man who is hardened to violence. His views change when his fiancée's brother is killed in a robbery.

1964, in a Latin American country, a journalist is head of an armed liberation movement that decides to initiate radical actions. His second in command, a farmer, and the other members of the group will kidnap a north american colonel stationed in Venezuela to force his government to suspend the execution of the vietnamese Nguyen Van Troi, accused of trying to assassinate the American Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara.