The story follows the life of the former race car driver François Holin, nicknamed Ho, portrayed by Jean-Paul Belmondo. After a tragic accident leaves his close friend dead, Ho steps away from the track and slides into the world of crime, becoming a key member of a bank-robbing gang. Within the group, the Schwartz brothers meet his entry with snobbery, yet they work with him because his skill behind the wheel is their best shot at a flawless getaway. The gang’s dynamics are tense, and trust is thin, but Ho’s driving instinct keeps their plans alive.
As they prep for their next heist, disaster strikes when the gang’s leader is killed. Seizing the moment, Ho assumes control, craving to carry out the robbery himself. The first step of the new plan is carjacking, a move Ho executes with the confidence of a man who knows every inch of the streets. However, fate intervenes when the police close in, and Ho is captured and jailed. In a crowded jail cell, he ends up sharing space with a petty criminal who has barely more than a month and a half left on his sentence, and the latter decides to imitate Ho.
After 1.5 months pass, the guards blur the lines between the two men, allowing Ho to slip out under a ruse of mistaken identity. He returns to the old apartment that once housed his gang, where his escape becomes front-page news. The press crowns him “public enemy number one,” painting him as a fearless criminal whose audacity seems equal to the police’s confidence. The authorities, aided by sensational journalism, hope to provoke Ho into conspicuous, rash acts, underestimating his vanity and vanity’s cost.
Determined to outwit them, Ho forces the journalist who wrote the sensational pieces to reveal the truth. He also plans to implement a scheme that had already been laid out prior to his arrest, but the Schwartz brothers refuse to rejoin, having apparently found new partners. Undeterred, Ho searches for fresh accomplices and ends up recruiting three small-time crooks who agree to participate in a bank robbery. The heist goes off, and for a moment, Ho tastes success; but the hunt is far from over, and the net tightens as the police close in on the elusive getaway driver.
As law enforcement closes in, Ho’s weakness for expensive ties becomes a telltale clue, and ambushes are set in storefronts to trap him. In a tense confrontation designed to squeeze him out, Ho clashes with the Schwartz brothers once more over the stolen money, a struggle that proves deadly for the elder partners and also costs the life of Ho’s girlfriend, a famous model. The brutal turn of events leaves Ho reeling and, once again, in the hands of the police, ending another chapter in a cycle of bravado and consequence.
