Bob Stevens (Robert Ayers) leads a pack of hooligans on a crime spree through Reconstruction-era London. One day he meets the young and sultry Rene (Joan Collins). He courts her and is able to maintain her interest for a while, but she grows tired of his criminal ways and breaks his heart, sending him into a further miscreant rampage.

A groundbreaking film that documents the pitfalls of lower-class youth, TOUGH GUY sets the mold for later juvenile delinquent films such as QUADROPHENIA and ROMPER STOMPER. One of Lewis Gilbert's earliest films, the dark and raw TOUGH GUY exhibits the struggle of living as a young adult in postwar Europe.