On July 30, 1975, Jimmy Hoffa and his longtime friend, Bobby Ciaro are impatiently waiting in the parking lot of a roadhouse diner. Moving in vignettes from his early years when Hoffa was a Teamsters union organizer who was working to organize the various trucking firms and laundries around Detroit, Michigan, Hoffa's life over the preceding four decades gradually unfolds. In 1935, a young Hoffa approaches a parked truck, inside of which driver Ciaro is taking a nap. Hoffa pitches the benefits of joining the Teamsters and gives Ciaro a business card, on which he has written: "Give this man whatever he needs." A few days later, Ciaro reports to work to find Hoffa attempting to organize the workers. Hoffa blurts out they'd ridden 85 miles together, and Ciaro is fired. Ciaro later accosts Hoffa with a Bowie knife, but Hoffa's associate Billy Flynn pulls a gun and Ciaro drops the knife. Ciaro joins the pair in the arson bombing of a laundry whose owner has refused to cooperate with the Teamsters. Flynn is badly burned and dies. Ciaro succeeds him as Hoffa's right-hand man.