A group of friends in their 40s live a rough life in a small seaport town. Their value system is rudimentary, their notions of friendship and human dignity primitive. They live a hardscrabble life stealing rocks from the local quarry. When one of the four goes to jail, his friends think nothing of having a go at his wife. Released from prison, the man learns of his wife’s infidelity but accepts the adultery as the price of existence. That price soon goes higher when their meagre plots of land are expropriated to make way for the construction of a resort village. Their backs to the wall, the men struggle to resist. One of the quartet sets off an explosive charge in the new harbour that is being built for the resort. In the cellar of his house, where the man stores his explosives, a rat has taken up residence. The rodent begins to gnaw at the dynamite...