曾负威望的纽约警探康纳斯（杰森·斯坦森 Jason Statham 饰）不料在一次执行任务中，意外射杀了人质，因此被停职。就在他复职后不久，棘手的劫持事件又发生了，5名训练有素的歹徒控制了一家银行，歹徒头目与康纳斯通话，并用折磨人质来刺激他，康纳斯才意识到对方正是自己曾经误杀的人质的兄弟，形势变得紧张而复杂起来。就在康纳斯与一名年轻警察德克尔（瑞恩·菲利普 Ryan Phillippe 饰）准备潜入银行之时，歹徒引爆了炸弹并趁乱逃走。然而令人意想不到的是，这一切只是开始，更大的迷局还在后面。随着案件调查深入，董事长也牵扯进来，甚至康纳斯本人与歹徒的复杂关系也渐露水面，一切看似无关而混乱的事件，已悄然编织成一张大网，笼罩着众人……
Seattle PD Detective Quentin Conners (Jason Statham) apparently kills a car hijacker called John Curtis and the young woman the hijacker is using as a shield. Newspapers and reporters blame Detective Conners and his partner York. After a fellow police officer, Callo, testifies against them, Conners is suspended, and York is fired. York tried to kill John, but York accidentally killed the hostage. John tried to kill York, but Conners killed John in self-defense.
In the present day, Lorenz (Wesley Snipes) and four other criminals take hostages in a bank. Lorenz has only one demand, to negotiate with Conners. Conners is reinstated but put under the surveillance of a new partner, the young Inspector Dekker. Conners is given control of the negotiations, and after a bank teller is shot, he orders a SWAT unit to cut the building's power and go in. During an explosion, the criminals flee during the ensuing panic and chaos.
Dekker and Conners learn more about each other at a local diner, slowly building a friendship, but Dekker disapproves of Conners' cowboy methods. Dekker explains that during negotiations, Lorenz was making many cryptic references to chaos theory. As they leave to examine new evidence, Conners pays with a ten dollar bill and says he does not like to tip. Dekker swaps the ten for a twenty of his own.
A TV camera caught a shot of one of the criminals, who is arrested together with his girlfriend at her home, where banknotes are found with a scent used to mark evidence collected by the police. The banknote serial numbers did not come from that day's robbery, but had been placed in police storage and signed out a two weeks earlier by Inspector Callo. He is found shot dead in his home, together with incriminating evidence linking him to the heist.
When reviewing video footage from the bank, Dekker notices one corner of the bank is deliberately shielded from view. In that corner, they find the bank regional manager's computer. Fingerprints on the keyboard reveal the identity of a hacker that Conners himself had arrested, but whose conviction was overturned after the shooting on the bridge. Conners and Dekker want to question the hacker, but he is shot dead by Lorenz, and a gun fight ensues. Lorenz escapes.
Dekker questions the hospitalized bank robber identified in the news TV footage and finally breaks him when he casually explains the impact of a massive overdose of morphine while slowly injecting something into the suspect's drip. An amazed Conners watches and later calls him a hypocrite. Dekker responds by explaining he only injected more saline solution.
The suspect reveals Lorenz is Scott Curtis, the brother of John shot earlier, and Conners leads a stakeout at an address where all the gang are to meet that night. It is Scott's house. Forced to go before Scott arrives, a shootout results in both suspects' deaths, and a bomb blows up the building while Conners is inside.
Dekker is devastated but realizes that Callo's signature requesting material from the evidence storage was forged by the evidence custody officer, who reveals that Scott is actually York. In a flashback, York stands on the bridge and fires the first shot, killing the woman hostage in the opening sequence. Tracking Lorenz/York's mobile phone, Dekker surprises York at a diner, and York takes a woman hostage in a reversal of the standoff on the bridge. Dekker chases and eventually kills York.
