Two detectives, Jack Welles (Matt Dillon) and Eddie Hatcher (Jay Hernandez), investigate a daring heist by a group of well-organized bank robbers. The crew, led by Gordon Cozier (Idris Elba), consists of John (Paul Walker), A.J. (Hayden Christensen), and brothers Jake (Michael Ealy) and Jesse (Chris Brown) Attica. The crew is without a former member, Ghost (T.I.), who was caught during a previous robbery 5 years ago. In his absence, Jake has begun a relationship with his former girlfriend Lilly (Zoe Saldana), who has accepted his proposal.Ghost surprises the crew after getting paroled. He insists he harbors no ill feelings toward the crew for abandoning him and draws them into a heist of an armored car for a $20 million dollar payoff. Meanwhile, Welles begins to zero in on some of the members of the crew and comes up with evidence that a second heist is in the making. Welles finds that a crew is looking for a large amount of C4 & tracks the sellers & has to shoot them dead in a gunfight. In the crime scene evidence, he finds a photo that links Ghost to the suppliers of the C4. Welles starts tracking Ghost which leads him to the entire crew. Welles is convinced that the crew conducted the bank heist & now Ghost is engaging the crew again for a another job.Jake does not like that Ghost is pushing the crew into a job so soon after they conducted the bank heist, but is forced to go along when the other crew members rule out possibility of foul play from Ghost.On the day of the 2nd heist, Welles finds out that Hatcher is a crooked cop & has released convicts in exchange for drug money. The same day Welles & Hatcher trace Ghost to Gordon via the marked money that was stolen from the bank. Surveillance tapes of the bank place Gordon inside the bank a few minutes before the heist. Welles and Hatcher go in to arrest Gordon, not knowing that the 2nd heist is in progress.They create a subway and call it "The Subway". The plan is to rob the cash from an armored car by blowing up a hole in the street when the car passes over that spot. At the last minute the boy on a bike passes in front of the armored car & it brakes just when the explosives go off and create a hole in the ground. The armored car stays at street level as it stops just short of the crater created. John takes the initiative and captures one armored car & pushes the one with the money into the crater. The crew open the armored car & escape with the money via sewer tunnels into subway stations.Welles & Hatcher are on their way to arrest Gordon when they hear the broadcast on radio & head to the crater site. Welles figures out that the crew is using subway stations & locates the nearest one. A protracted chase ensues during which Jesse is cornered and he is forced to shoot Detective Hatcher in his escape. Despite his partner's best efforts, Hatcher dies from his wounds.Jesse reconvenes with the rest of the crew at a hotel room and admits to the shooting of Hatcher and this almost results in a confrontation between Jesse and Gordon. Russian gangsters immediately storm the room and attempt to gun down everyone present except for Ghost, who earlier climbed out through a window. Ghost had previously cut a deal with the Russian gangsters to kill his former crew-mates in exchange for half of the heist's take. A.J. dies in the ensuing firefight but Jake manages to kill the Russians. Jake and Jesse return home where, to his horror, Jake finds Lilly's lifeless body. The police surround their home and shoot the two when they make a suicide charge outside.Gordon and John separate to make their escape but realize Ghost intends to take all of their money, which is being held by Scott (Johnathon Schaech), a well-connected fence. Ghost sneaks onto Scott's private plane and kills him, taking their laundered money in two large suitcases. Gordon and Detective Welles arrive and a three-way Mexican standoff results in which Ghost hits both Gordon and Welles. As Ghost prepares to finish off Gordon, John arrives and shoots him dead. He and an injured Gordon take the money and drive off, with Gordon's sister Naomi (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) in tow. A gravely-wounded Welles manages to call 911 for help on his cell phone.As John and Gordon drive off, John asks Gordon "Are we good?" and Gordon replies by saying "All signs point to it." (a reoccurring dialogue between the two characters, usually used before a job). The film ends without revealing whether either Gordon or Welles survive their injuries.