After unsuccessfully hitting on his co-worker and other women at a soiree, Dante (Roberto Benigni) meets Maria after she nearly runs him over with her car. Maria is taken aback by Dante's striking resemblance to her husband Johnny Stecchino, an Italian mobster wanted by the Sicilian Mafia for killing head mobster Cozzamara's wife and despised by the locals of Palermo for treason.