Five middle age men share a hospital room because of their different ailments. Adriano is a clerk, Ciro a greengrocer, Guido a professor, Antonio a bank employee, Luigi a wine merchant. They come from different worlds with very little in common, but day by day, they develop a brotherhood, a friendship born out of their common life in hospital. Their conversations are usually about food. They are all obliged to eat the saltless food provided by the hospital, and this situation stimulate even more their hunger for life and rich meals.
Their daily routine is made up of invasive tests, incompetent nurses and arrogant doctors who tread on their dignity. Time never seems to move on. The diagnoses are very slow to come. The patients must live in complete ignorance and wait. A discussion between the professor and the head physician, who scolds him for asking an external consultation, produces in the men of room 104 the plan for a dinner to be organized on Saturday when the staff is reduced, after weeks of imprisonment they can finally do whatever they want, in complete freedom. The dinner becomes the ground of their rebellion. Their plans are discovered, but they do not give up, they lock themselves in, barricaded in their room. Soon they are besieged by the head physician, the nurses, the director of the hospital department, even by the police and the press. Doctors and relatives repeatedly appeal to them to get out: at least two of them, because of their illnesses, will die if they continue eating to the end. Do they understand it? However, the men in room 104 hold on, they claim their right to choose. Neither life, nor death is more important than completing their dinner. In addition, many more things will happen before the end of the night.