Trabucco, Walter Matthau, is a coolly efficient mob hitman chasing a long-awaited retirement by eliminating a string of witnesses. His latest target is Rudy “Disco” Gambola, who is about to testify before a Riverside jury, and the job sends him on a detour that collides with a troubled man named Victor Clooney, Jack Lemmon. Victor is an emotionally unsettled television censor hoping to mend fences with his estranged wife Celia Clooney, Paula Prentiss, a researcher for a 60 Minutes segment who has become enthralled with the clinic run by Dr. Hugo Zuckerbrot, Klaus Kinski.
Trabucco checks into the Ramona Hotel in Riverside, across from the courthouse, while Victor takes a room in the neighboring unit. After Victor reaches out to Celia and is rejected, he attempts to end his life. Fearing the attention of the courthouse guards, Trabucco reluctantly agrees to accompany him, hoping to quietly remove him from the picture, but a cascade of awkward mishaps keeps foiling their plans at every turn. The two men drift from one tense moment to the next, their fates intertwining as the mobster’s cool professionalism collides with Victor’s chaotic vulnerability.
The pair’s route leads them to the Institute for Sexual Fulfillment, the clinic Celia has become involved with, where Zuckerbrot’s charisma and the clinic’s promises provoke mixed feelings in Celia. The weekend detour becomes a riddle: will Victor prove useful or derail everything? After Celia resists Victor once more, they return to the hotel, and Victor hatches a plan to jump from the building while setting himself on fire. In the chaos, Trabucco attempts to intervene, only to end up knocked out, and Victor—seeing an opportunity to aid his “friend”—tries to rally him to safety. Zuckerbrot arrives in the hotel and, mistaking the injured Trabucco for Victor, sedates him with a powerful injection, escalating the medical farce to a dangerous brink.
With Gambola’s arrival imminent, Trabucco is too groggy to complete the hit, so Victor volunteers to finish the job and earn Trabucco’s reluctant respect. Victor succeeds, and the two flee the scene, slipping past the police after Trabucco, disguised as a priest, has ensured Gambola’s death. The moment feels almost humane, even as it underscores the uneasy alliance that has formed between two men bound by fear, desperation, and self-preservation. Victor’s bold act buys them both time, but it also binds him to a future he cannot easily escape.
Months pass, and Trabucco enjoys an isolated tropical retreat, hoping for quiet. His respite is shattered when Victor unexpectedly joins him, revealing that he is now being hunted by the authorities for blowing up Zuckerbrot’s clinic. Celia has vanished with Zuckerbrot’s female receptionist, leaving Trabucco to confront a future that feels like a raw nerve. In a bid to rid himself of Victor for good, Trabucco contemplates reviving an ancient local custom—sacrificing humans in a volcano—an idea whispered by his own servants as a final, brutal solution to a life that no longer makes sense. The story closes on a note of bleak ambiguity, with loyalty, danger, and the lure of escape colliding in a way that keeps the men tethered to a world where no one really wins.
