Based on a real life event, Qui non è il paradiso tells the story of the profoundly unsatisfying life of a Italian postal employee called Renato Sapienza (Fabrizio Gifuni) and his best friend, Walter (Valerio Binasco). The two decide that the only way they can ever change their lives for the better is by robbing a postal van and escape to Costa Rica.
Their plan would be perfect were it not for an especially determined police commissioner called Lucidi (played by Antonio Catania) for whom honesty is a way of life. Lucidi retraces Renato and Walter's steps and reconstructs Renato's miserable life bit by bit. The policeman finds out that Walter lives way above his means and spends every night looking for something new that will distract him from the mundane life he detests.
Renato Sapienza has a family that loves him but that is not enough. He just cannot cope with a life in which every day is the same as the one before and he is scared of getting old. Together with Walter, he plans and carries out a most elegant heist without the slightest trace of violence. Unfortunately Lucidi considers Renato and people like him parasites who are convinced they can make fools of everyone.
There is no such thing as a perfect crime: Lucidi finds that Renato and Walter are also subject to rules and conditions and that the Costa Rican paradise will always be an unfulfilled dream.