After an elderly crime boss retires from business, his three lieutenants each inherit a piece of his empire: Max is given the kidnapping ring, while the prostitution racket and the drug trafficking go to the others. Max is not satisfied with his share, and after killing the old boss he gets rid of the other two lieutenants. However, a police officer finds a lighter at the murder scene which could lead to Max, who then kidnaps the policeman's daughter.

During World War II, an American major is captured by the Germans and thrown into a POW camp run by a sadistic Nazi officer, whose main pleasures are whipping the local female population and torturing prisoners. The major organizes an escape attempt using the camp's nubile female doctor as a hostage.

Following a bungled robbery, three violent criminals take a young woman, a middle-aged man, and a child hostage and force them to drive them outside Rome to help them make a clean getaway.