1969, a Jewish honor student in the Bronx is a school newspaper editor, the son of Holocaust survivors and the newest member of a Puerto Rican extortion gang. A strong inciting sequence puts a sixteen-year-old boy in a dilemma of possible violence. After angering the gang's leader Dave, at a neighborhood pizzeria, he reduces the bruise-planting consequences by sharp thinking and more importantly, by appearing to assimilate. It's a short leap from a call-out challenge to an affinity for Carlos Santana records, but the inward identity isn't altered. After the immediate crisis is managed, the cleanly demarcated goal is to quit the gang without repercussions. This is best done by brainwashing its tough but insecure leader.