Upon arriving in Cartagena, Colombia, American pilot Benjamin Grey’s passport and money are stolen leaving him stranded. Shortly after he receives a call from his son’s doctor, who informs him that he is his Leukemia-stricken son’s only chance for survival, and the clock is ticking

Based upon Bruce Chatwin’s 1980 novel, The Viceroy of Ouidah, the film depicts the life of a fictional slave trader named Francisco Manoel da Silva (known as ‘Cobra Verde’) played by Klaus Kinski.

Bud Spencer plays Banana Joe, a brawny yet friendly man who lives in a small rainforest village called Amantido with a huge number of his own children and regularly delivers bananas to a South American river port (hence his name). One day, the henchmen of a local gangster boss named Torsillo come ashore in Amantido to initiate the construction a banana processing plant. Of course, Joe (in typical direct-approach manner) evicts the goons, who promptly return to their boss. Torsillo finds out that Joe is trading bananas without a license and decides to exploit it. Upon his next delivery, Joe is apprehended by the police and given the choice of either acquiring a legal license or getting his boat taken away and himself arrested for illegal shipment. Joe travels to the nearest city, which to him is a new world, as he grew up in the rainforest.

A New York University professor returns from a rescue mission to the Amazon rainforest with the footage shot by a lost team of documentarians who were making a film about the area’s local cannibal tribes.