El Argentino, a comic-book bandit, is being pursued by the Civil Guard over and around the border territory between Portugal and Galicia, in northern Spain. Meanwhile, adventure-seeking bourgeois bad boy Xan, on the run from a Franciscan monastery, meets artless country hunk Joao, AWOL from the army. Poverty forces the pair to reconstruct themselves as a comically incompetent Butch and Sundance, posing as members of El Argentino's gang, stealing horses and waylaying a tax collector. They link up with Barbara Miller, a New York Times photographer preparing a feature on El Argentino. The trio are captured by El Argentino himself, but thanks to the bandit's heart of gold and his comic vanity, their lives are spared; the trio spend the rest of their efforts trying to avoid the attentions of the Civil Guard...