An angelic-looking but selfish and ruthless young man wanders from crime to crime without the slightest remorse. In the Russian film "Satan," the devil is a delicately handsome young man whose murderous opportunism is too easy to understand. While the film registers shock at its protagonist's absolute amorality, it also presents him as part of a bitterly divided and pessimistic culture. The world of "Satan" is one in which nothing really works, and therefore anything goes.

The plot structure of the film is based on a commonplace situation from the practice of foreign trade organizations - the conclusion of a trade agreement with a foreign company.