Plot

In Venice, Italy, John Bridger (Donald Sutherland), a professional safe-cracker, has just left the store and bought a necklace for his daughter, Stella (Charlize Theron). He later goes to the St. Mark's Square to meet with Charlie Croker (Mark Wahlberg), a professional thief and his protege, where they discuss about their latest plan; to steal 35 million dollars worth of gold plates from a group of Italian gangsters who stole them a few days ago. They arrive on a boat and rendezvous with Napster, their computer expert, Rob (Jason Statham), their wheel-man, and Left Ear, their explosives expert, to establish contact with Steve (Edward Norton), who's their inside man.

They arrive at a garage underneath the apartment in which the gangsters have the safe with the plates, and Steve is in the apartment just below and above the garage, where he plants a C4 plastic explosive on the ceiling underneath the safe, with Left Ear doing the same just underneath Steve, blowing out the floor and landing the safe in the boat. The gangsters follow and chase Rob and Napster through the Venice canals, but after Steve calls in for backup, they escape. However, they are revealed as a decoy to drag the gangsters out; John and Charlie are with Left Ear in scuba suits, with the safe actually in the water. John manages to open it, and they load the gold in the scuba vehicles and leave the scene just as the police arrive.

Some time later, in the Alps near the Austrian border, the gang is celebrating the heist with wine near a small cot, where they share stories about what will do with the gold and their future plans, while John and Charlie agree that they will part ways after this and will find peace. However, as they drive to the Austrian border, they are intercepted on a small bridge by an armed group in two Jeeps, who assault them with rifles and start to unload the gold. Steve points his gun on Rob, revealing that he paid off his backup and betrayed the group, intending to keep the gold for himself. As John tries to rebel, Steve kills him. Rob drives the truck in the lake while Steve is out, and Steve and his group grab guns and start firing at the bottom to kill the rest. Charlie pulls out several oxygen tanks to keep air, until Steve leaves with the group. Arriving on shore, Charlie mourns John, and they leave.

A year later, in Philadelphia, Stella Bridger, John's estranged daughter and a vault technician, is just finishing her latest job cracking a safe for the police, when she arrives in her office to find Charlie waiting for her. She is still furious with him for her father's death, but Charlie informs her that his contact, Skinny Pete, has found Steve, who has changed his last name to Frizelli and relocated to Los Angeles with the gold, which he is laundering for money, and that he wants her to help him to steal the gold. Even though Stella refuses at first, she looks at her father's memento, and also the necklace that John bought her in Venice, and she calls Charlie and agrees for the job.

After accepting the job, Charlie introduces Stella to the rest of the gang, and they arrive all together to Los Angeles and plan on how to steal the gold from Steve. Lyle monitors his home looking for weak spots, while Charlie goes to Skinny Pete with Left Ear to get the explosives for the security gates. After tapping his phone, they devise a plan to disable his electronics by shutting the power, and then they have Stella posing as a phone technician with a small camera in her shirt pocket to have a look at his house interior to find the vault, since Steve doesn't know about Stella. However, Stella charms Steve and he invites her out after "fixing" his modem.

The gang devises a plan to rob Steve as he is lured out to go on the date, and they arm themselves with the explosives and tools to break into Steve's vault, and also have three Mini Coopers tuned up with the help of Rob's friend and a mechanic, Wrench, but however, the initial plan fails when they discover Steve's neighbor having a party, which forces them to abandon the mission since there are too many witnesses and Steve could suspect them. Stella goes on the date with Steve to stall him, but she accidentally reveals herself to Steve after quoting her father's well-known line. When Steve threatens her, Charlie reveals himself to Steve with the gang, and informs him that he will get revenge for Steve for what he did, punching him in the face in the process.

The gang suffers problems with robbing Steve's house now that he knows that they are alive and ready to exact revenge, and Steve tries to speed up the process of laundering the gold, which he launders through a Ukrainian jewelry store owner named Yehven. However, as he visits him one night to launder several plates to Yehven, he accidentally exposes that he knows about the Venice heist, and even though he swears that he didn't tell anyone, Steve murders him. However, Yehven's cousin, Maskhov, who is a Ukrainian crime family member, plans revenge on Yehven's death, and finds Skinny Pete through one of his contacts, since Skinny Pete has been asking about the location of the plates for Charlie, and he informs Charlie about Mashkov after he pays him a visit.

After listening to Steve's calls, Napster discovers that Steve plans to reload the rest of the gold to Mexico to lure it away from Charlie, and they hear that he will transport it in an armored truck to the LAX. Charlie devises a plan to have the gold boosted in transit, and also recruits Wrench for the team. After obtaining equipment from Skinny Pete, they devise the final plan and prepare for Steve's departure.

On the scheduled day, Steve is in the helicopter monitoring the load-up, and Rob is with Left Ear in front of Steve's mansion waiting for the truck. However, they discover that Steve has not brought one, but three armored trucks as a protection. Napster, who is at the train station with his equipment, hacks into the L.A's traffic system to monitor the trucks. He analyzes the length of the back tires for the trucks, and correctly deduces that the one with the lowest length is carrying the gold. He disables the security grid of the traffic system, effectively giving him control, and creates a huge traffic jam to lead the truck at the Pre-planned route.

On the Plaza, Rob and Left Ear rendezvous with Charlie and Stella in the Mini Coopers, and they rush into the subway after Napster signals them. They jump into a subway tunnel, which Napster blocks with the oncoming train, and they arrive in a tunnel clearance underneath an avenue. Above them, the truck arrives, having been led there by Napster. Wrench is there, giving them the signal, and Left Ear, using set up C4 explosives, blows up a portion of the avenue and it falls below right into the tunnel, and Wrench blows a sign to cover the hole. Steve, in his helicopter monitoring the truck, orders his security guards on bikes to follow into the subway.

In the tunnels, after Rob subdues the guards, Stella discovers that the safe is not the same one she saw in Steve's mansion, but that he switched them with a professional Israel-built safe with a glass panel over it. Stella drills through, but the drill is stuck in, forcing her to open it by touch. She is stressed out, but she manages to open the safe. Napster calculates the number of the plates and figures that there is 27 million dollars' worth of gold, which they load into the cars. They drive through the sewer lines, but Steve's guards on bikes arrive, but they knock them after exiting the sewers in the flood control.

Steve arrives in his helicopter on the spot and follows them across L.A streets, and Napster navigates them and creates a green wave to help them cruise through the streets. They split up, with Rob, Left Ear and Stella driving to the Grand Central Terminal, while Charlie goads Steve to a parking lot, where he pulls a stunt which damages Steve's helicopter, forcing him to steal a truck to follow him.

At the train depot, Wrench is waiting and loads the cars in the train, and Steve arrives as well, bribing Wrench to let him in the train, but finds Charlie waiting. Charlie sarcastically applauds Steve for a brilliant plan to try to hide the gold but mocks him for failure. Furious, Steve brandishes a gun on Charlie, demanding the gold, but armed men corner Steve. Mashkov arrives, since Charlie contacted him through Skinny Pete and made a deal that he would provide backup in exchange for a portion of the gold and Steve. Even though Steve tries to defend himself, Mashkov's men take him away, and Stella also punches him in the face in revenge.

The gang boards the train to New Orleans, and they all celebrate in John's memory. Towards the end while the credits roll, it says that Rob got his Aston Martin, Left ear got his dream house in the South of Spain with a room just for his shoes, Lyle made the cover of wired magazine and he got the stereo he wanted and Charlie found someone he really cared about and held onto for dear life (Stella).