An international heist crew, led by Cyrus Whitaker, race to lift $500 million in gold from a passenger plane at 40,000 feet.

Charlie Croker pulled off the crime of a lifetime. The one thing that he didn't plan on was being double-crossed. Along with a drop-dead gorgeous safecracker, Croker and his team take off to re-steal the loot and end up in a pulse-pounding, pedal-to-the-metal chase that careens up, down, above and below the streets of Los Angeles.

Joe Moore has a job he loves. He's a thief. His job goes sour when he gets caught on security camera tape. His fence, Bergman, reneges on the money he's owed, and his wife may be betraying him with the fence's young lieutenant. Moore and his partner, Bobby Blane, and their utility man, Pinky Pincus, find themselves broke, betrayed, and blackmailed. Moore is forced to commit his crew to do one last big job.

Two men are released from the Arizona Territorial Prison at Yuma in 1898. One, The Dutchman, is out to get both gold and revenge from certain people in a small mining town who had him imprisoned unjustly. The other, McBain, is just trying to go straight, but that is easier said than done once The Dutchman involves him in his gold theft scheme. Based on the 1949 novel The Asphalt Jungle by W. R. Burnett, the story is given an 1898 setting. It is the second film adaptation of the novel following 1950's noir classic The Asphalt Jungle.