Jorge, a military police captain in Rio de Janeiro, hallucinates about his own death in a dream. Deeply shaken, he jeopardizes the fate of his fellow officers. In a period of 24 hours, the captain and his lieutenant, Cristino, sergeant Tião, and soldier Marcelo clash in a tangled web in which good and evil become indistinguishable. By committing a series of abuses, the four policemen are victims of the population's revolt and vengeance. The film portrays the state of exception, in which a man is a wolf to another man.