Joshua Shapira is a hardened young criminal--he's a hit man for the Russian mob--who is estranged from his family and banished from the streets of Little Odessa. Forced to go back to Brighton Beach for a quick job, he is inexorably drawn into his old world. Joshua's worshipful little brother Reuben is con-man enough to skip school for weeks without his parents finding out and Alla is a young woman in the neighborhood who is drawn to Joshua even though she knows he is a murderer. Meanwhile, Joshua and Reuben's aging parents fail to grasp the loyalty and violence that permeates their children's lives.