Plot summary

After nearly being caught on a routine burglary, master safe-cracker Nick Wells (Robert De Niro) decides the time has finally come to retire from his illegal activities and focus on running his jazz club. Nick's flight attendant girlfriend, Diane (Angela Bassett), encourages this decision, promising to fully commit to their relationship if he does indeed go straight. Nick, however, is lured into taking one final score by his fence Max (Marlon Brando). The job, worth a $4 million pay off to Nick, is to steal a valuable French scepter, which was being smuggled illegally into the United States through Canada but was accidentally discovered and kept at the Montréal Customs House.Max introduces Nick to Jack Teller (Edward Norton), an ambitious, albeit foolhardy, thief who has infiltrated the Customs House and gained access to information regarding the security by pretending to be an intellectually disabled janitor named Brian. Nick hires his associate Steven (Jamie Harrold) to hack into the Custom House's security system to obtain the bypass codes, allowing them to temporarily manipulate the alert protocols of the system during the heist. Steven is caught, however, by a systems administrator who extorts Nick for $50,000 for the information. More complications arise when they're forced to move up their time-table after the Customs House becomes aware of the true value of the scepter and adds extra CCTV cameras to monitor it while preparing to return it to its rightful owners.Nick uses a sewer tunnel to enter the Customs House basement as Jack uses the bypass codes to rig the cameras to shut off while Nick sneaks into the storage room. One of the janitors stumbles upon Jack as he is working and realizes that he is not really Brian, but Jack locks him in a closet. Meanwhile Nick fills the enormous in-floor safe containing the scepter with water before inserting and detonating a depth charge to blow off the door. He quickly packs up the scepter in a carrying case to depart, but Jack double crosses him and at gunpoint demands he hand over the scepter. Nick reluctantly gives up the carrying case and seconds later the alarm, rigged by Jack, alerts the entire security team to the heist. Nick darts for the sewer entrance he came in as Jack heads back upstairs, tucking the carrying case inside his janitor jumpsuit and slipping past the incoming police units responding to the burglary. Nick escapes the security guards chasing him through the sewer tunnels.After making it to a bus station to flee the city, Jack calls Nick to gloat but is shocked to discover that Nick has anticipated Jack's actions. He opens the carrying case Nick gave him and discovers it contains a steel rod weighed down with bushings. Brushing off Jack's threats of vengeance, Nick advises Jack to flee as "every cop in the city" will now be looking for him. Nick hangs up and boards a boat with the real scepter as a shocked Jack broods over his situation. Later, Max smiles as he watches a news broadcast reporting a massive manhunt being organized to find Jack, the prime suspect, and an unidentified accomplice. Nick then meets Diane at the airport as she returns from work, and she happily accepts a kiss and hug from him