Kilo's childhood is spent in the streets of East Los Angeles, cruising in low riders with his father, Manny (Ismael Carlo). Starting off small, Kilo discovers the illegal business to be very profitable.
With a little help from Sabeva (Jennifer Tilly), the well-connected and seductive daughter of a Colombian gangster, he becomes a dealer with a nationwide monopoly. While conquering the illegal world, Kilo falls in love with a local Latino girl who quickly becomes pregnant.
Shortly thereafter, Kilo is involved in a deal with a wired frat boy that goes bad and imprisoned. Prison life does not stop Kilo from running his operation; he is also hired by the Governor (Stacy Keach) to murder a child-killer inmate (Gary Busey) in return for an early release. Kilo is now a free man and a new father with a franchise covering both coasts.
Several years after his release, his addict father Manny comes back into his like and Kilo reluctantly welcomes him back with a job overseeing all of his runners. Everything is perfect.
The feds are now determined to bring Kilo's operation down. Arrests of his posse are piling up and profits are plummeting. Everything has taken a turn for the worse and Kilo can't seem to stop it. In a world where a man wants everything, he may end up with nothing..
