At the beginning of the 1913 Mexican Revolution, greedy bandit Juan Miranda and idealist John H. Mallory, an Irish Republican Army explosives expert on the lam from the British, fall in with a band of revolutionaries plotting to strike a national bank. When it turns out that the government has been using the bank as a hiding place for illegally detained political prisoners — who are freed by the blast — Miranda becomes a revolutionary hero against his will.

The story of Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata, who led a rebellion against the corrupt, oppressive dictatorship of president Porfirio Diaz in the early 20th century.