Frankie McCoy (Ken Shorter) is a born loser from the Sydney suburb of Newtown, and a gambler and a bit of an SP bookie. When he's conscripted into the army to fight in the Vietnam war, he deserts, but in pursuit of money, he falls into debt with SP bookies at the local pub. This film, shot at Kapooka camp, contains one of the only depictions in Australian cinema of soldiers training for Vietnam.