Everybody Go Home!

On the morning of 8 September 1943, the German troops surround the base after the Badoglio surrender. Innocenzi, a junior Italian lieutenant, is stunned by the sudden turn of events and the collapse of the front. The sea-side setting underscores the chaos as Allied forces are suddenly in retreat and Italian soldiers question what comes next.

Innocenzi and some disbanded soldiers flee the German crackdown. He is deeply frustrated as many men abandon the plan to report upward and simply decide to go home. The moment marks the abandonment of discipline and the beginning of a dangerous odyssey.

Innocenzi teams up with engineer Ceccarelli and sergeant Fornaciari, leaving behind their former commands. They discard their uniforms and set off southward, taking a perilous route through a country torn by occupation and partisan warfare. They become civilian travelers, relying on luck and guile to survive.

The trio encounters a band of anti-fascist guerrillas on the road. While a captain they meet along the way later joins them, Innocenzi and his companions decline to join the guerrillas. The moment contrasts different paths people take in the resistance.

Innocenzi experiences a moral temptation when a sultry black marketeer offers a deal to smuggle flour to Rome. He and his companions decide to help, but the lorry breaks down in a rubble-strewn town and the hungry crowd plunders the vehicle. After a brief scuffle, Innocenzi returns to the group and resumes the journey.

They witness the killing of a rookie who had tried to protect a Jewish girl during a roundup. The incident underscores the brutality of the occupation and the personal costs of standing up to it. The trio moves on with renewed awareness of the dangers.

Reaching Fornaciari's rural home, they are greeted with hospitality and share a darkly humorous polenta dinner served farm-style. Fornaciari's wife reveals that they have been sheltering a former U.S. POW escaping from a prison camp to protect him. The home becomes a fragile refuge amid the war's chaos.

A nighttime fascist patrol raids the house and discovers the Allied serviceman. Fornaciari is hauled away toward a grim fate while Innocenzi and Ceccarelli slip out in the confusion. The incident underlines the immediate dangers of sheltering Allies and the fragility of their safety.

The fugitives reach Littoria (Latina) and are greeted by Innocenzi's widowed father. The elder man introduces a fascist party leader recruiting for the RSI, and Innocenzi objects to the idea of serving the puppet state. A deep rift grows between father and son as they clash over the war's meaning and the soldier's future.

From Littoria they push toward Naples, passing a brutal fascist roadblock on the way. Ceccarelli sacrifices a suitcase of delicacies he was meant to deliver to the wife of his commanding officer to secure passage, and Innocenzi panics at the risk of losing everything. They eventually reach Naples and merge with local resistance circles.

They are pressed into an Organisation Todt rubble-clearing chain gang as the Four Days of Naples erupts. The city rises against the occupiers, giving them a chance to flee and join insurgent actions. Ceccarelli is killed by German fire, and Innocenzi resolves to fight the occupiers alongside the insurgents.

With Ceccarelli dead, Innocenzi resolves that the true war is against the Nazis. He joins an insurgent band and takes up the Breda M37 machine gun to fight the occupiers. The film closes on his hardened gaze as he steels himself for further resistance.