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Terry (Jason Statham) owns a failing car-sales garage, and after numerous threats, he is eventually confronted by two debt-collectors who cause damage to a number of his cars. At the same time, Martine (Saffron Burrows) arrives telling Terry that she has a job for him; a plan that needs putting into motion. Terry gathers a bunch of petty-criminal friends to help execute the plan that involves robbing a bank on Baker Street, London. What they don’t know is that Martine is setting them up on behalf of MI5, who want the contents of a 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 under the name of Michael X; he uses the photos to avoid trouble with MI5, who will do anything to avoid the photos going into circulation.

Terry and his criminals purchase a shop two lots away from the bank and start digging a tunnel underneath the middle shop (a chicken fast-food restaurant) to reach the floor of the bank vault. During construction, it is revealed that the house is being watched by two MI5 officers, making sure that the bank-robbers are uninterrupted in doing their dirty work for them. However, vibrations from jackhammers arouse suspicion amongst the inhabitants of the middle building. This eventually leads to a policeman coming to the building whose basement the crooks are building a tunnel from. Terry is able to convince the policeman that all is well, and he leaves. Terry, however, is still worried, and employs a “watchman” to sit on the roof of the building opposite and keep a look out for further trouble.

This lookout is equipped with a walkie-talkie, which he uses to contact the gang building the tunnel. However, a local amateur radio operator receives the transmission, and manages to listen in on the conversation. When he realises that he’s listening to a bank robbery in progress, he calls the police, who arrive and listen in as well. The police try to determine the location of the robbers by parking an ambulance outside all the banks within a 10-mile radius of the amateur radio operator’s location, to see if the lookout reports it to the villains, but luckily the lookout drops the walkie-talkie just as the ambulance parks outside Lloyds Bank. The robbers remain undetected, even after the owner of the bank is called by the police to check for a break-in.

Meanwhile, Martine has found the deposit-box that she knows contains the photos, and opens it separate from the others claiming that its number “118” is her ‘lucky number’. Terry opens the box with her, and upon seeing the pictures knows that Martine has a hidden agenda. Other photos, meanwhile, are found which show a senior MP in compromising positions in a local brothel; the robbers pocket these with the money and other valuables, and leave. MI5 is watching and intercepts the van; the robbers have set up a decoy however; Terry hired a passer-by to drive the empty van out of the bank’s underground car park to Heathrow airport. The hoax has given the robbers a chance to escape.

In a garage nearby, they begin to rifle through the takings. Two of the six robbers leave with their share of the spoils; leaving the other four to debate. Terry confronts Martine over the photos, and how she knew their location, and she admits to having been blackmailed by MI5 after entering the UK with drugs in her suitcase. Panic sets in. The remaining robbers, including Terry and Martine, leave the garage with what they have; but events quickly turn against them.

The police start to gather evidence, and slowly begin to identify the culprits. They search the locations where they believe the robbers to be, but it appears that MI5 has reached all of the locations first, with the robbers nowhere to be seen.

Meanwhile Lew Vogel (David Suchet), a local club owner, admits to two corrupt policeman that his paying-in book (containing records of all the money he had given to them and other corrupt officers over the years) was stolen along with the contents of his safe deposit-box during the raid. 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, and tortures him for information. When he eventually tells Vogel everything, Vogel goes to the garage where Terry worked and kidnaps a mechanic, 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 and help to clear the robbers’ names in return for a safe return of the photos. Terry demands passports for himself and his accomplices to leave the country, and an agreement that they will not face prosecution. 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 dead one of the robbers, around the same time as Michael X murders the British spy. MI5 make 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.

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, and 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 was held to ask for the bribe payout ledger, Terry agreed 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.

Excellent movie.

Rating: 5 out of 5 jalapenos