The last detail. Hal Ashby is a bit "as John Schlesinger, Midnight Cowboy, two road movies and travel friend films. They are friendship, forged in extreme circumstances, and that is the life experiences each character.
In particular, an unlucky sailor named Meadows (Randy Quaid) to prison for eight years for a crime he could not even finish. Having reached into the bag after only forty dollars, is transported from a naval base in southern prison Navy in Portsmouth, Maine. The final thing a couple of senior officers of the navy, including Billy "Bad Ass" Buddusky (Jack Nicholson) and "Mule" Mulhall (Otis Young) are carrying eighteen, which soon will catch up with the East Coast .
Three gentlemen have never met before, and they all seem to have different interests. Billy and Mule are a few welcome break in the stifling life of a naval base, while the Meadows is to drown their depression. Billy is a relaxed presence, while the Mule apparently wants to take responsibility first, and then relax. Soon the men are a bond. This bond and the relationship is one that see the movie. Meadows is an innocent, unassuming teenager found its way into the fleet as the problem of shoplifting. But after hearing his story, and spend time with a guy realizes the two officers and ridiculous accusations that have been such a military accident.
They take pity on him and decides to make his last days of freedom between them, where it will cross the right to spend more to discover and update them, he will never forget. As they gradually open up to each other, they give the prisoner a certain degree of freedom begins with the abduction of the wrist at the beginning of the film. They get him drunk in Washington, DC, involved in his first game in New York and help her lose her virginity in Boston. In addition to these rights, any agent deal with the emotional aspect of Meadows. They allow him to visit his mother. What the police do not know is that the journey they would take would be mutual. They end up taking all their vigilance.
