The film is narrated by Frankie, a young
everyman living in
South East London during the
Thatcher era of the 1980s specifically 1984, with little hope of ever making anything of himself, yet he dreams of "being somebody" and escaping his lonely, dreary lifestyle. After severely beating his mother's
abusive boyfriend, he becomes a fugitive, and through family connections escapes to the
Costa del Sol. His job there is to deliver a bag containing money to "Playboy Charlie", a suave expat and fugitive who runs his own nightclub. Impressed by Frankie's honesty in not opening the bag, Charlie takes a liking to Frankie, introduces him to his business associates, including the
psychopathic Sammy, and invites him to remain in Spain and work as his
driver. Frankie discovers that Charlie and his associates are in fact the "Peckham Four", wanted for
armed robbery back in Britain. However, Frankie decides he prefers the excitement, wealth, status, and luxury that Charlie's gang offers, as opposed to his previous unremarkable life in London. Frankie therefore joins Charlie in the business of smuggling
hashish across the
Strait of Gibraltar from Morocco. The film then follows the rise-and-fall pattern common to many gangster films, showing first the criminals living the high life as their
cannabis trade is booming, and then their downfall as greed and
paranoia introduce conflict between them, and eventually split them up. Tensions amid the group are exacerbated by the mutual attraction between Frankie and Sammy's wife Carly. Charlie and Frankie decide to go into business alone, importing
cocaine instead of cannabis through drop-offs from Colombian aeroplanes, but this fails to resolve their problems. Not only do both men become increasingly addicted to the drug itself, but their new smuggling attracts the ire of the local mayor, who had previously been happy to ignore the cannabis trade but warned them not to import cocaine. After discovering that Frankie and Charlie have entered the cocaine trade, the mayor cracks down on their gang and shuts down their businesses. A subsequent assassination attempt on the mayor's life proves unsuccessful, and leads to the beheading of one of the gang's affiliates. Six months later, Frankie and Charlie are
homeless thugs, reduced to stealing in order to survive. While organising a disappointing reunion party at Charlie's old bar, now run by Frankie's friend Sonny, Frankie meets Carly again and decides to make one last deal. He invites Sammy in on a pick-up, but while both intend to betray the other, Carly had given Sammy a pistol. Sammy tries to shoot Frankie, but this proves unsuccessful as his pistol was handed to him with an empty magazine, unbeknownst to Sammy. Frankie in turn attacks Sammy with a rock; the fight then ends abruptly as Sammy is fatally shot by
Spanish Navy patrolmen while Frankie escapes through a sewage pipe and emerges to meet Carly, who was responsible for handing Sammy his unloaded gun. Preparing to leave town with Carly, Frankie discovers that she is plotting against him as well when he finds another pistol in her handbag amongst their money and realises that she is an awful Leeds United fan; Frankie knocks her unconscious and drives off triumphantly into the sunset on his own. The ending reveals that Sonny cleaned up his act and continued to run Charlie's old bar, which he did successfully, whilst Charlie was reduced to
working as a bouncer. The theatrical ending also reveals that "Carly went back to her parents' house in
Penge", "Sammy went to Hell" and "
Frankie went to Hollywood". ==Cast==