Policeman Karl Jørgensen was once a prominent detective, but his violent temper has demoted him to checking out passports at the airport and smuggling stout to work in his Thermos every day. Then his daughter's boyfriend Kaj is suddenly killed by a heroin overdose injected by hooded gangsters. It turns out he was spying on their organization for his brother Frank, whom they framed while he was smuggling narcotics. When Frank hears about Kaj's death, he escapes from prison to get back at the killers. Meanwhile, the same gangsters threaten Karl Jørgensen's daughter, involving Karl in a major drug-smuggling case. Frank and his buddy rob a bank and shoot a police officer. A country-wide manhunt ensues while Karl is having trouble with controlling his daughter's vigilante activities, with finding out who killed Kaj, with the police detectives on the case, and with his own meager alcoholic existence.
