Johnny Kovak (Sylvester Stallone) is a trucker for a large and abusive company in the 1930s. He gets involved in union organizing for Mike Monahan (Richard Herd), a representative of the Federation of Insterstate Truckers (F.I.S.T., for short). When Mike is killed by company thugs, Johnny seeks out Vince Doyle (Kevin Conway), the local mob leader, to get some rough justice for his fallen colleague. Once his alliance with the Mob is sealed, Johnny swiftly rises to prominence in the union, becoming more and more ruthless as he goes. Having risen very high in worldly power, he now wonders if his sellout was worth it, even though he accomplished a few good things. This expensive film, in which Sylvester Stallone abandons the "type" he played in earlier films, was moderately well-received by critics but was a resounding failure at the box-office.
