Argenteuil, July 1973. Five unstable, insecure buddies pass the boredom by pilfering in the stores and revving up their motorcycles. On the eve of July 14th, during a trip to Bastille, a motorcycle paradise, one of them, Roger, gets into a fight with a policeman and is wounded. While fleeing, he meets a young "runaway" who helps him escape the search and rejoin Anne, "his wife". Despite a rather incredible maneuver, the two boys break into an apartment and kidnap the occupants. Anne and Roger don't manage to reach each other "discreetly", and the adventure ends stupidly: surrounded by the police, Roger makes a false move and throws the motorcycle into the ditch. When they get out of hospital or prison, life starts all over again.

Rocco Papaleo, an optimistic and kind man from a mining town in Alaska, gets away from his company during a trip to Chicago and is increasingly disillusioned in the face of the city's hostility.