Petty-criminal-gone-straight Terry Leathers (Jason Statham) owns a failing car-sales garage being harassed by two debt-collectors. His old girlfriend Martine (Saffron Burrows) offers Terry a chance to earn enough money to never worry about debt again: a bank robbery in Baker Street, London. Terry gathers a bunch of petty-criminal friends to help execute the plan. They lease a shop two lots away from the bank and start digging a tunnel underneath the middle shop (a chicken fast-food restaurant) in order to reach the underground bank vault. Terry employs a "watchman" with a walkie-talkie to sit on the roof of the building opposite and keep a look out for trouble.
What they don't know is that Martine, who has been caught smuggling heroin into Britain and desperately wants to avoid jail, is setting them up on behalf of MI5, which wants the contents of a certain safe deposit box within the bank. This safe deposit box contains compromising photos of a female member of the British Royal Family (identified in the film as Princess Margaret). The photos are in a box belonging to a black militant who calls himself Michael X; he is using the photos to avoid trouble with the Metropolitan Police, and MI5 is desperate to keep the photos out of circulation.
As Terry and his crew dig, their radio chatter draws the attention of a local amateur radio operator, who listens in on the conversation and realises he's overhearing a bank robbery in progress. He calls the police, but with a 10 mile radius to search and a lack of concrete details, they fail to pin the robbery down.
After they have broken in and begin looting the vault, Martine goes for the deposit-box with the photos. A suspicious Terry opens the box with her and, upon seeing the pictures, knows that Martine has a hidden agenda. In addition to those photos, further photos of a number of high-ranking government officials are found, at the top a senior MP in compromising positions in a local S&M brothel. The robbers pocket these with the money and other valuables. Terry arranges for alternate transportation to throw off MI5, allowing them to escape.
Guy (James Faulkner) and Bambas (Alki David), leave with their share of the spoils. When Terry confronts Martine over the photos, she explains their predicament. Meanwhile, the robbery is discovered, and the police — both corrupt ones receiving payoffs and honest ones — start their investigation. MI5 is likewise searching. Lew Vogel (David Suchet), a local club owner, is worried about the contents of his ledger, which lists every payoff he's made to the police, which was stolen during the robbery. He also phones Michael X to inform him that his box containing the royal 'portraits' has gone missing. Michael X starts to get suspicious of a female British spy, who has befriended his brother and gone with the family to Trinidad and Tobago.
The club owner manages to find one of the robbers, Dave (Daniel Mays) and tortures him for information. When he eventually tells Vogel everything, Vogel goes to the garage where Terry worked and kidnaps a Eddie (Michael Jibson), who was the lookout during the robbery, taking him to the same secret location and tying him down. At the same time, the senior MP is shown the photos of himself in the brothel, and agrees to try to help absolve the robbers of all wrongdoing and give them safe passage out of the country. Meanwhile, MI5 issues a D-Notice forbidding the press from reporting on the heist any longer. Police simultaneously release recordings from the walkie-talkie conversations, in the hope that someone will recognize the voices. These recordings are heard on the radio by Terry's family.
The club owner goes on to shoot one of the robbers dead, around the same time as Michael X murders the British spy. MI5 makes an agreement with Terry, and agree to meet him at Paddington Station in London. Terry gives the same instruction to the officer in charge of the investigation, citing knowledge of corrupt officers under his control. He also convinces the club owner to go to Paddington Station at the same time, offering him the book with details of corrupt officers in return for the safe return of his mechanic. This results in a large meeting of all of the involved parties at the same time. During this time as well, Guy and Bambas are murdered by unknown people.
Terry stands on the platform waiting for the others, while Martine meets up with her original contact within MI5 on a bridge overlooking the scene. The club owner and his corrupt police accomplices arrive with the mechanic, but recognize MI5 agents present and run. At the same time, the head of MI5 arrives (with Lord Mountbatten), handing over the documentation and passports that Terry bargained for, in return for the photos of the princess. Terry then chases the fleeing club owner and his aides. He starts to attack the club owner, and then fights with one of the aides, knocking them both out. The second aide appears with a gun, but Terry manages to avoid the shots and knock him out with a brick hastily dislodged from a wall.
The police officer in charge of the investigation then arrives, and sees the robbers being arrested. He speaks with the MI5 officers present, who direct police to let the robbers go. When the officer approaches the car where Terry is being held to ask for the bribe payout ledger, Terry agrees to hand it over in exchange of freedom. Terry and the other robbers are then released, the policeman saying "I don't see any bank-robbers in here" upon looking in the car in which the robbers are sitting. The club owner and the corrupt officers are arrested, and the militant is arrested in Trinidad and Tobago. His house is then burnt down after orders from Tim Everett.
In the epilogue, we find out that many members of the government resigned from office due to the brothel, Scotland Yard started going through many of the corrupt officers, Michael X was hanged due to the murder of Gail Benson and his personal archives are classified until the year 2054, Vogel gets prisoned 8 years for crimes that were unrelated to the robbery, the murderers of Guy and Bambas have never been found, about $7 million (USD) worth of material and money was stolen from the robbery, people who lost their things in the robbery have never identified what was lost and the final note that shows on the screen explains that most of the people mentioned in this film were changed to protect the guilty.
Cast
- Jason Statham as Terry Leather
- Saffron Burrows as Martine Love
- Richard Lintern as Tim Everett
- Stephen Campbell Moore as Kevin Swain
- James Faulkner as Guy Singer
- Craig Fairbrass as Nick Barton
- Daniel Mays as Dave Shilling
- Alki David as Bambas
- Michael Jibson as Eddie Burton
- David Suchet as Lew Vogel, club owner
- Peter Bowles as Miles Urquhart
- Peter de Jersey as Michael X
- Keeley Hawes as Wendy Leather
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