Maurice Lalubi, a rebel leader in an African country, has fallen into the hands of a group of white mercenaries. Lalubi can reclaim his freedom only by agreeing to sign a written retraction of his ideas. He doesn?t give in, not even under torture; meanwhile the heads of the local government try to find a way to dispose of him. Lalubi dies in the desert of a knife wound. From the suggestive title, and especially the nail torture sequence, Zurlini?s film presents the viewer with a double reading of third-world Catholicism. On the whole, seen today, the film risks seeming a bit dated.