 In Los Angeles, a gang of armed thieves is hitting serious targets - major banks, vaults, and armored cars. These thieves are led by arch-criminal Neal MacAuley (Robert De Niro). One of their operations, an armored-car robbery, goes bad and the armored-car guards are murdered by the gunmen - putting LAPD homicide detective Vince Hanna (Al Pacino) on the trail of the thieves. Hanna knows it will take a lot to bring these dangerous, armed thieves down, and it will end in a horrifying gun battle when the thieves try to rob a major federal bank...