Prime Cut

A slaughterhouse processes cattle while a human cadaver is implied by a wristwatch and a shoe on the conveyor line. A woman operates the sausage machine until Weenie interrupts, timing the process with his own watch. He finishes a string of sausages and marks the package with a Chicago address, signaling that human remains are being shipped as product.

It is established that Weenie is the brother of Mary Ann, the crooked operator of KC's slaughterhouse. Their operation is tied to Chicago crime and cross-state schemes. This familial link ties the KC racket to the Chicago mob's larger plan.

The sausages are revealed to contain remains of an enforcer from the Chicago Irish Mob, sent to Kansas City to collect a debt. The Chicago mob boss learns of the sausage production and mentions another enforcer found floating in the Missouri River. The gruesome packaging links KC's slaughterhouse to Chicago's underworld.

The head of the Chicago Irish Mob contacts Nick Devlin, explaining the debt and the sausage scheme. He notes the other enforcer found in the Missouri River and presses Devlin to go to Kansas City to collect $500,000. Devlin agrees to a $50,000 fee and starts assembling his muscle.

Devlin recruits a driver, Shay, and three younger mob members, including O'Brien, who even brings Devlin to meet his mother in Chicago. The team prepares for the trip to Kansas City and the looming debt collection. The uneasy history between Devlin and Mary Ann looms in the air.

In Kansas City at a flophouse, Devlin tracks Weenie down, beats him, and forces him to inform Mary Ann that Devlin is in town to collect the debt. The brutal interrogation establishes Devlin's resolve and Mary Ann's dangerous network in KC. The scene sets the plan in motion.

The next day in a prairie barn, Mary Ann hosts a white-slave auction while Devlin and his men confront her over the debt. A young girl, Poppy, begs for help and is taken with Devlin 'on account' as she shares a harsh backstory about growing up in Missouri. Mary Ann defers the money until the county fair the next day.

At the county fair, Mary Ann hands Devlin a box that supposedly contains the debt money, but the box holds only beef hearts. Violet distracts Weenie while Devlin kidnaps Poppy and they escape with her. O'Brien is killed under a viewing stand, and the chase spills into a wheat field before Devlin's men ram a combine operator with a truck and drive back toward KC.

After escaping the fair, Devlin and Poppy ride back to town, where Devlin goes to Clarabelle’s houseboat. Clarabelle attempts to seduce him, but he rebuffs her and has the houseboat set adrift on the river with Clarabelle aboard. This act seals the break between Devlin and Mary Ann’s circle and shifts him toward his next move.

Back at the hotel, Devlin learns Delaney is being taken away by an ambulance and that Mary Ann's men ambushed them and captured Poppy. Violet has also been gang-raped as a warning. The violence underscores the cost of Devlin's pursuit and the peril to his allies.

Devlin, with Shay and Shaughnessy, drives to Mary Ann’s farm through a sunflower field and engages in a gun battle with her men. He uses a livestock truck to ram the gate and smash the greenhouse, then enters the barn where he confronts Mary Ann and Weenie. He kills Weenie; Mary Ann is mortally wounded, and Devlin refuses to finish her off, leaving her to die as Poppy is freed.

In the closing scene, Devlin and Poppy return to the Missouri orphanage to demand release of the remaining girls. Poppy knocks out the matron, and they walk away, heading back toward Chicago with Devlin implying a return to a peaceful life there.