Spike Fumo is an Italian kid apsiring to be a boxer. He falls in love with a rich girl, who turns out to be the daughter of a Mafia boss. Spike is threatened to leave Bensonhurst by the mob, and then goes to a poverty-stricken Puerto Rican part of Brooklyn.

A young drifter returns to his home in Key West, Florida and attempts to open a fishing charter business, provoking a dangerous feud with a rival fishing sea captain.