The two friends Laranjinha and Acerola, who grew up together in the favela on Pool Hall Hill in Rio de Janeiro, come of age and face the first difficulties of their adult lives.

With a two-year-old son, a job as a night guard and a hasty marriage to his girlfriend, Cristiane, Acerola misses the fun and freedom of his younger days. Laranjinha, who drives a motorcycle-taxi and is a big hit with the girls, suffers from the absence of his father, who he has never met. The month they both turn 18, the two of them each make a decision: Laranjinha wants to meet his father. Acerola, liven up his love life. But war breaks out in the favela and complicates matters for both of them. Madrugadao, the drug lord on Pool Hall Hill, loses his supremacy to Nefasto, his ex-right-hand man. Laranjinha, Madrugadao's cousin, must go into hiding, as does Acerola, who instigates Nefasto's wrath during a moment of bad luck. In the midst of the confusion, Cristiane tells Acerola she is going away to work in Sao Paulo, leaving him to take care of their young boy. And, with Laranjinha's father, a bitter resentment is revealed, which threatens to bring the sound friendship between the two to an end.