In 1970, James Blaine Mooney, an unemployed carpenter in Framingham, Massachusetts, hatches a plan to steal four Arthur Dove paintings from the town’s art museum. To pull off the heist, he borrows money from his parents and even asks his wife, Terri Mooney, for funds under the pretense of buying supplies for work, so he can pay three men who will help execute the job. The plan runs through two accomplices, Guy Hickey and Ronnie Gibson, while the getaway driver ultimately backs out after stealing a car for the job.
The trio drives to the museum and makes off with the paintings, with Gibson pulling a gun on a student doing homework and assaulting a security guard in the process. Back home, James Blaine Mooney proudly displays one of the stolen works in his living room, only to take it down after his father—who would later be a local judge—criticizes the thieves for their lack of ambition. He then conceals the paintings in a loft above a barn, preparing a container to hide the loot as police and FBI agents descend on his family to investigate.
The investigation intensifies when Gibson names Mooney as the mastermind during his own arrest for a separate bank robbery. Mooney denies any involvement and asks Terri Mooney to move their sons, Carl and Tommy, to his parents’ house, though young Tommy resists leaving. Meanwhile, Guy Hickey presses Mooney for more money, and a roadside meeting with Tommy becomes a trap: an organized crime outfit abducts Mooney and forces him to guide them to the paintings’ whereabouts.
With his role in the heist now public, Mooney goes into hiding with friends from art school, Fred and Maude. While Fred is intrigued by the sensational story, Maude suspects Mooney’s true plan and confronts him, realizing he intended to use their old professor—an admirer of Dove—as a fence to move the paintings. Maude urges him to disappear, but Mooney resists Fred’s suggestion to hide out at his brother’s Toronto commune and instead heads to Cleveland to stay with other friends. There, he learns those friends had left town the day before and ends up hitchhiking toward Cincinnati.
Ultimately, Mooney discovers that the paintings have been recovered and returned to the museum. He phones Terri, attempting to justify his actions and asking for money, but she hangs up. Unable to afford the bus fare to Toronto, he steals an elderly woman’s pocketbook and melts into a crowd of anti-war protesters. The police crack down on the rally, and Mooney is arrested after protesting—and despite his protests—being placed in the back of a squad car.
