 Alain Chanier is a dapper businessman from Marseilles, France, who is in reality a drug lord working on a big score - to sell $32 million worth of 89% pure heroin to New York City. But his potential buyer - small-time hood Salvatore Boca - is being tailed by two undercover NYC cops, James "Popeye" Doyle and Buddy "Cloudy" Russo. The more Popeye and Cloudy dig, the closer they get - to where Chanier agrees to an attempt on Popeye s life that results in a brutal train hijacking and automobile pursuit, and eventually to a showdown between police and mobsters outside the city.