Guy #1, John Turturro, helps execute a tense liquor-store robbery as an unseen man wearing a welding mask listens to a police scanner. That figure suddenly steps out from behind the storefront and, wielding a flamethrower, incinerates two of the fleeing robbers. The survivors scatter underground, revealing their allegiance to a street gang led by a charismatic figure known as X, Mario Van Peebles.
The film shifts between two threads: John Eastland, Robert Ginty, a Vietnam veteran, and X. Eastland develops a complicated relationship with a dancer named Caroline, Deborah Geffner. X announces his plan to lead the punk gang to dominate the streets and the city itself. The gang robs an armored car and shoots down a police helicopter, while a garbage truck driven by Be Gee, Frankie Faison, swerves into the crowd just before the police arrive. In a torch-lit subway sequence, the gang executes the armored car driver, and X’s brother is incinerated by the masked avenger.
Eastland and Be Gee reunite, driving around town in the garbage truck and visiting the bar where Caroline works, before Eastland and Caroline take the garbage truck to her apartment. A Mafioso visits the gang’s lair in another torch-lit ceremony and offers to sell them heroin; the gang tests a sample on a kidnapped victim and quickly deduces Caroline’s home location by recognizing the garbage truck.
The next day, Eastland and Caroline visit a park. The gang assaults Caroline while Eastland is distracted, leaving her paralyzed in the legs. Eastland and Be Gee discuss crime in the bar, and the masked man reappears in an alley, incinerating two more gangsters. Eastland and Caroline briefly reconnect, and Eastland contemplates vigilante justice with Be Gee.
They arm themselves, ambush a group of gangsters in a park, and torture one gangster to extract information. Eastland and Be Gee then attack a warehouse where a drug sale was taking place between X and the Mafioso, triggering a firefight. Be Gee is killed, the Mafioso and his crew are blown up along with the money, and Eastland manages to seize the heroin. In retaliation, the gang murders Caroline as Eastland mourns Be Gee.
Driven by revenge, Eastland outfits the garbage truck with improvised armor, machine guns, and antitank rockets on its sides and top. The final showdown unfolds in a factory, where Eastland uses the armored garbage truck to wipe out most of the gangsters and to incinerate the remaining foes with a flamethrower. X chases Eastland and wounds him in the pursuit, capturing the bag of heroin, which explodes and kills X, leaving Eastland to walk away alone from the wreckage.
