In 1970s Mexico City, El Elvis, a criminal who works for an organization called “the Hawks,” is on a team that is tasked with disrupting a demonstration of communist-sympathizing students and stealing any cameras being used by journalists to cover the demonstration. Elvis and the other men on his team—El Güero, El Gazpacho, and the Antelope—successfully infiltrate the protest and begin their work. Things go wrong, though, when machine gun fire wounds El Gazpacho. El Güero and the Antelope insist on following the orders of their enigmatic boss, El Mago, by leaving El Gazpacho and finishing the job of robbing a nearby cameraman; Elvis thinks that El Gazpacho will die without immediate intervention. Elvis convinces the Antelope to help him steal a car and take El Gazpacho to the hospital; El Güero, nervous about disobeying El Mago, decides to finish their job alone.

Maite, a lonely, romance-serial-obsessed secretary at a law firm, has a boring day at work while student protests rage nearby. She is needled into contributing to the office’s shared cash pool by a co-worker named Laura; Maite resents having to contribute because she is financially unstable. Maite goes to her mother’s place where she, her mother, and her sister, Manuela, celebrate Maite’s 30th birthday.