Plot
After serving a five-year sentence for 14 bank robberies, Jean Lucas (Depardieu) is released from prison. He intends to end his criminal lifestyle. On his release day, when he goes to the bank to open an account, François Pignon (Richard), who takes too much time robbing the bank, allowing the police to appear, kidnaps him and accidentally shoots him in the leg. However, Lucas' former nemesis, police commissioner Duroc (Maurice Barrier), doesn't believe he is a hostage, given his record. Lucas forces François to go to the police and confess to so that Lucas would be cleared but, once they arrive, the police mistake Lucas as the robber, forcing him to escape. François follows, and ends up taking him to Dr. Martin (Jean Carmet), a senile veterinarian friend of his late father, to treat his wound.
François was a former chief of sales at a textile factory which went out of business three years previously, leaving him unemployed, and his daughter Jeanne (Anaïs Bret) has refused to speak since the death of François' wife around that time. Not wanting to leave his daughter, he asks for Lucas' help to create a new identity for him so that he can leave the country. Reluctantly, Lucas contacts his old friend Labib (Jean Benguigui), asking him to provide one. Upon meeting, Labib informs François that his price for a new passport has now changed from 2,500 Francs to 500,000. As François only made away with 84,000 Francs from the robbery, Labib calls Lucas, threatening to take François to the police if Lucas doesn't get him the money within 24 hours.
With Jeanne in tow, Lucas steals a van and crashes into Labib's bar, rescuing François. François then signs a confession for Lucas to present to the police to show Lucas' innocence. Lucas suggests to François that he turn himself in, as he could get away with just one year in prison. As he prepares to leave, Jeanne, who has come to care for Lucas, asks him to stay and, when Lucas refuses, runs off. François and Lucas chase her and see her run into a park, where a stranger takes her to the police. Witnessing the police take away his daughter, François decides to kidnap her and leave the country. Lucas suggests that he turn himself in and face the one-year jail time, promising that he'll visit Jeanne in the meantime.
Lucas meets up with Duroc and presents to him the written confession, and is vindicated. He takes a job as a locksmith, and goes to visit Jeanne in the orphanage, where she has relapsed into a catatonic state, refusing to eat and speak to him. Later that night, François attempts to rescue Jeanne, joined by Lucas. Lucas takes the wrong girl and, when she screams, the police officer guarding Jeanne is alerted. However, the officer trips on toys and drops her revolver, which François uses to force her to lead him to Jeanne. Lucas and François escape from the orphanage with Jeanne, who is suffering from lack of food. Lucas gets a new client in the middle of the night - an intoxicated doctor who, after a night of partying, has lost his keys. After the doctor examines Jeanne, he discovers she has very low blood pressure, gives her a pill of tonicardiaque, and advises the men to feed her normally.
Lucas and François break into a house where the owners are on vacation. Later that night, when he goes to make preparations for helping François and Jeanne leave the country, Lucas runs into Duroc, who informs him that the police have set up road blocks across the country. Realizing that he will not be able to get them across the border, Lucas hatches a plan after finding the family's passports in the house. They dress up and pretend to be the vacationing family - Lucas being the father, François the mother, and Jeanne, after Lucas giving her a haircut, as their son, Jean-Claude - and leave for a supposed cross-country road trip in a stolen Renault 25. To get past a police roadblock, Lucas lies to the policeman that his "wife" is pregnant and about to go in labor. The policeman in charge assigns two motorcycle police to escort them to the hospital, but they don't leave until the orderlies arrive to ferry François inside. However, as soon as they are gone, François jumps up from the stretcher and runs for the car, with Lucas covering it up as a "nervous pregnancy".
Eventually, Lucas, François and Jeanne arrive at the Franco-Italian border, where Lucas points out the way to Italy and promises to visit them one day, intending to stay in France and continue his own life there. As François and Jeanne leave, Lucas watches them disappearing from a distance. However, after seeing François nearly trip on the dress he's wearing as a disguise, Lucas decides to join them.
