Tommy is a career criminal, released from prison after a seven year stretch, to be reunited with his old heist buddy, Mick. Mick takes Tommy to his room in the crumbling splendour of the Golden Eagle hotel in a downbeat area of Los Angeles. The hotel's inhabitants are a bizarre mixture of elderly bums, prostitutes and pimps. Mick, however, has a plan for him and his pal to escape this mess, go straight and make a new life working in Las Vegas. Tommy is not so sure about the plan and seems intent on landing right back in prison again. When Tommy disastrously tangles with a prostitute, whose pimp is a savage thug, it seems as if the old boys' exit strategy may be nothing more than a pipe-dream.