The film is a caustic portrait of a traditional English boys’ boarding school, where social hierarchy reigns supreme and power remains in the hands of distanced and ineffectual teachers and callously vicious prefects in the Upper Sixth. But three Lower Sixth students, leader Mick Travis (Malcolm McDowell), Wallace (Richard Warwick) and Johnny (David Wood) decide on a shocking course of action to redress the balance of privilege once and for all.