Con artist Marcus Pendleton has just been released from prison for embezzlement. He has emerged into a world increasingly reliant on computers. He convinces computer programmer Caesar Smith to follow his lifelong dream of hunting moths in the Amazon rainforest. Assuming Caesar's identity (how he does this is not explained in the film), he gains employment at the London offices of an American conglomerate called Tacanco. While Marcus fools executive vice president Carlton Klemper, another Tacanco executive, vice president Willard Gnatpole, is suspicious. As Caesar Smith, Marcus uses the company's computer systems to send claim cheques to himself under various aliases and addresses all over Europe. For his Paris company, the cheques go to 'Claude Debussy' and his cheques to Italy go to 'Gioachino Rossini', both famous (but conveniently dead) composers. He meets and marries Patty, an inept secretary and frustrated flautist. As Caesar, he now has the problem of hiding his hot money. Beating discovery of his fraud by Gnatpole, he and Patty flee to Brazil when Klemper and Gnatpole fly to Rio after Patty invited them. In a twist, it seems that a now-heavily pregnant Patty found the loose change from his foreign visits money and invested it in companies Marcus mumbled about in his sleep, thus making a profit for Tacanco. Patty offers to sell the stock back at a reduced price, repaying the money stolen by her husband. Wanting to have the baby back in England, she has invited Klemper and Gnatpole to 'visit'. She persuades Klemper to rehire Marcus as Taranco's treasurer: the reformed embezzler could easily spot fraud, and would not steal from his own company. Though unhappy about his new legal status, Marcus agrees. The film ends with Marcus conducting an orchestra (one of his dreams) as Gnatpole and Klemper sit in the audience. Patty, still expecting, is the solo flautist. As she finishes her solo, she realizes the baby is on the way, to which a concerned Marcus whispers, "What, now?"

In 1950s New York City, Lionel Essrog works at a detective agency alongside Gilbert Coney, Danny Fantl, and Tony Vermonte. Their boss, Frank Minna, rescued them as children from an abusive orphanage. Nicknamed "Motherless Brooklyn" by Frank, Lionel has Tourette syndrome and OCD, often alienating him from people, but his strong verbal and photographic memory make him a good detective. Working a secret case, Frank asks Lionel and Gilbert to shadow him to a meeting. Lionel listens over the phone as Frank presents documents that threaten a business deal for a man named William Lieberman, who's there with his assistant Lou and an extremely large henchman. When Frank tries to negotiate a high price, the men force him to take them to the originals. Lionel and Gilbert follow in their car, arriving just as Frank is shot. They take him to the hospital, but Frank dies. Frank's widow Julia leaves Tony in charge of the office. Lionel begins wearing Frank's hat and coat, and a matchbook in Frank's pocket leads Lionel to an African-American owned jazz bar in Harlem. He realizes that Frank's findings involve Laura Rose, who works for Gabby Horowitz fighting urban renewal; poor and minority neighborhoods are being bought out and demolished, forcing out their residents. Lionel goes to a public meeting where Moses Randolph, a commissioner of several development authorities, is loudly contested by Horowitz and the audience. Stealing a reporter's credentials, Lionel talks to a man named Paul who raged against Moses at the meeting and tells him Moses is the real power in the city government, even beyond the mayor. Under the guise of reporting on the urban renewal story, Lionel gets to know Laura. She takes him to a club Frank was investigating, where her father Billy – assuming Lionel is one of Moses' men – has him beaten unconscious. Lionel is rescued by a trumpet player, and discovers that Paul is Moses' brother and an engineer. He realizes Lieberman is receiving kickbacks on many of the housing deals, and that the housing relocation programs are scams. Paul presents Moses with a huge renovation plan to improve the city. Billy calls Lionel, apologizing for the attack and offering to meet with information. However, Lionel arrives to find Billy murdered – with his death staged as a suicide. Staying the night with a distraught Laura at her house, Lionel admits his true identity and that he believes she is in danger. Finding photos of Paul meeting with Billy on his own, Lionel confronts Laura, who explains that her "Uncle" Paul is her real father. Paul denies this to Lionel, and explains that Frank and Billy planned to get more money out of Randolph's goons, against Paul's protests. He begs Lionel to find the evidence. Lionel is brought to Moses, who invites him to join his team and stop snooping, with 24 hours to decide. Inside Frank's hat, Lionel finds the key to a Pennsylvania Station storage locker, containing a property deed and Laura's birth certificate, which reveals Moses is her father. Lionel gives the key to Paul and runs into Tony, who has been working surveillance for Randolph. Tony admits he has been sleeping with Julia, and tells Lionel to take Moses’ deal since Laura will soon be killed. Lionel races to save Laura, stopping her before she enters her apartment, and they flee. Laura knocks the large henchman off the fire escape, and Lou corners them with a gun but is hit in the head with a trumpet by the trumpet player, who drives Laura out of town. Lionel meets Moses, who reveals that he raped Laura's mother, a hotel employee. Paul forged Moses' signature on the birth certificate and exposure of this secret threatened Moses. Lionel warns Moses to leave Laura alone or he will release the information. He informs Moses that Lieberman is on the take and asks that when Moses has Lieberman killed, to tell him it is for Frank. Moses tells Lionel to tell Paul that his plans for the city will proceed. The next day Paul learns that Moses denied his plans out of spite while Lionel mails the information about Lieberman to the reporter whose credentials he stole. Lionel drives to the seaside property Frank left to him where Laura is waiting for him.

Veronica Guerin, a neophyte crime reporter for the Sunday Independent, becomes aware of how much Dublin's illegal drug trade is encroaching upon the lives of its working class, especially the children, and vows to expose the men responsible. Guerin begins by interviewing the pre-pubescent addicts who "shoot up" on the street or in abandoned sections of the Dublin housing estates. Her investigation requires her to establish a relationship with trafficker John Traynor, who provides her with a great deal of information about the criminal underworld. Traynor is willing to assist Guerin but is not above misleading her in order to protect himself from Dublin mob boss John Gilligan. Notably, he manages to convince her that Gilligan's rival Gerry Hutch, a gangster known as "The Monk", is running heroin. Guerin pursues Hutch, wasting time and resources before discovering that he has no involvement in drugs. Guerin and her family soon become targets: a bullet is fired through their window and Guerin is shot in the leg by a gunman on her own doorstep. Despite being urged by her loved ones to halt the investigation, Guerin personally confronts Gilligan and is harshly beaten, with Gilligan threatening to rape and kill her son if she doesn't back off. Rather than press charges, which would necessitate her removal from the story, Guerin forges ahead with the investigation. On 26 June 1996, Guerin appears in court to respond to parking tickets and speeding penalties that she had ignored. She is given a nominal fine of IR£100. En route home, she calls her mother and then her husband to report the good news. She is speaking to her office while stopped at a traffic light on the Naas Dual Carriageway when two men riding a motorcycle pull up beside her. The driver breaks the window of her car and shoots her six times. The two flee and dispose of the bike and gun in a nearby canal. Guerin is mourned by her family, friends, associates and the country. Her violent death results in the establishment of the Criminal Assets Bureau, and Gilligan, along with several of his men, are tried and sentenced to lengthy prison terms. The epilogue states that "Veronica Guerin's writing turned the tide in the drug war. Her murder galvanised Ireland into action. Thousands of people took to the streets in weekly anti-drug marches, which drove the dealers out of Dublin and forced the drug barons underground. Within a week of her death, in an emergency session of the Parliament, the Government altered the Constitution of the Republic of Ireland to allow the High Court to freeze the assets of suspected drug barons."

Jane, an operative for private intelligence firm Hiller Brood, is assigned by her boss, Sharon, to infiltrate The East, an underground activist, anarchist and environmentalist organization that has launched a vandalistic attack against a corporate leader and threatens two more as retribution for ecological crimes. Calling herself Sarah, she joins drifters in hitching train rides. When one drifter, Luca, helps her escape from the police, she identifies the symbol of The East hanging from Luca's car mirror. Sarah self-inflicts an arm injury that she tells Luca was caused in the escape so he can get her medical attention. He takes her to a seemingly abandoned house in the woods where members of The East live and one of them, Doc, treats her. Sarah is given two nights to recover before she must leave. At an elaborate dinner involving straitjackets, Sarah is tested and fails, exposing how selfishly she and many others live their lives. Sarah is caught spying one night by Eve (a group member who is deaf) and signs to her she is an undercover agent, threatening Eve with jail if she stays; Eve leaves the next morning. Sarah is recruited to fill the missing member's role on a " jam ", a term for protest by subversive means. Sarah reluctantly participates in The East's next jam and learns that the group's members have all been damaged by corporate activities. For example, Doc was poisoned by a fluoroquinolone antibiotic and his neurosystem is degenerating. The East infiltrates a party for the antibiotic company's senior executives and adds the antibiotic to the champagne. The East announce this via YouTube: one executive's health begins to fail, revealing the drug's side effects. After seeing the jam's effectiveness, compounded by her attraction to charismatic Benji, Sarah questions the morality of her job. Another member, Izzy, is the daughter of a petrochemical CEO. The group uses this connection to gain access to him and forces him to bathe in the waterway he has been using as a toxic dumping ground. This goes wrong when security arrives and shoots the fleeing Izzy. At the squat, Doc's hands tremble too much for him to perform surgery. Working under his guidance, Sarah manages to remove the bullet but Izzy dies. This is the catalyst for Sarah and Benji's romance and they have sex. Sarah implores Benji to leave, but he insists they participate in a fourth and final jam. Sarah initially refuses but gives in. When she awakens after sleeping in the car, she realizes that Benji is driving her to Hiller Brood's headquarters. He reveals that he has always suspected her of being a spy, as did Luca, who brought her in as a test. Benji wants Sarah to obtain a non-official cover (NOC: unofficial espionage agents) global list of Hiller Brood agents, to "watch" them. Having copied the list onto her cell phone's memory card, Sarah runs into Sharon and confronts her about the firm's activities, revealing her new allegiances. Sharon has Sarah's cellphone confiscated as she leaves. As Hiller Brood had been sharing information with the FBI, The East's hideout is raided and Doc is arrested but sacrifices himself to ensure that the remaining members can escape. Sarah tells Benji she has failed to get the NOC list, which Benji reveals he meant to use to expose the undercover agents, even though that meant they could be killed. Sarah chooses not to go on the run and they part as Benji heads out of the country. In truth, Sarah still has the list because she had swallowed the memory card. The film ends with an epilogue of her contacting her undercover former coworkers and informing them of the corporate crimes Hiller Brood's clients want to protect, peacefully furthering The East's goals.

Christopher Boyce, an expert in the sport of falconry and the son of a former FBI special agent, gets a job as a civilian defense contractor working in the so-called "Black Vault," a secure communication facility through which flows information on some of the most classified US operations in the world. Boyce becomes disillusioned with the US government through his new position, especially after reading a misrouted communiqué dealing with the CIA 's plan to depose the Prime Minister of Australia. Frustrated by this duplicity, Boyce decides to repay his government by passing classified secrets to the Soviets. Daulton Lee is Boyce's childhood friend, a drug addict and minor cocaine smuggler nicknamed "The Snowman", who has frustrated and alienated his family. Lee agrees to contact and deal with the KGB 's agents in Mexico on Boyce's behalf, motivated not by idealism but by what he perceives as an opportunity to make money with plans to settle in Costa Rica, a nation that at that time had no extradition treaty with the United States. As the pair become increasingly involved with espionage, Lee's ambition to create a major espionage business coupled with his excessive drug use begins to strain the two from each other. Alex, their Soviet handler, becomes increasingly reluctant to deal with Lee as the middleman because of Lee's periods of irrationality. Above all, Boyce wants to end the espionage so that he can resume a normal life with his girlfriend Lana and attend college. Boyce meets with Lee's KGB handler to explain the situation. Meanwhile, Lee is desperate to regain the Soviets' regard after realizing that the KGB no longer needs him as a courier. Lee is observed tossing a note over the fence at the Soviet embassy in Mexico City and is arrested by Mexican police and a US Foreign Service officer accompanies him to the police station. When the police search his pockets and find film from a Minox camera Boyce used to photograph documents along with a postcard used by the Soviets to show Lee the location of a drop zone, they produce pictures of the same location that was on the postcard, showing officers surrounding a dead policeman on the street. The Foreign Service officer explains that the Mexican police are trying to implicate him with the murder of the policeman. The police then take Lee away and interrogate him violently. Hours later, Lee reveals that he is a Soviet spy. Told by the Mexican police that he will be deported, Lee is offered a choice of where to be sent. Lee suggests Costa Rica, where he owns a house paid for with drug money, but the choice is merely between the Soviet Union and the United States. Lee reluctantly agrees to go back to America and is arrested as he walks across the border. Realizing that he too will soon be captured, Boyce releases his pet falcon, Fawkes, and then sits down to wait. Moments later, US Marshals and FBI agents surround him. In the closing scene, Lee and Boyce are seen being escorted to prison.

In 2004 Houston, Jack Harris leaves home with several million dollars in a duffel bag, to pay Russian mobsters. Harris is worried about the safety of his wife Diana and their children. Flashback to 1997 in Los Angeles, where Jack helps a sick friend managing a nightclub. Nearby, Wayne Beering and Buck Dolby are best friends renting together. The drug-addicted friends are watching porn movie reels when Wayne asks why there is no porn on the internet. Buck, a former NASA scientist, takes 15 minutes to create a program to allow online credit card transactions to charge people for looking at dirty pictures on their website. They quickly earn thousands of dollars. Needing more porn content they approach Nikita Sokoloff, a Russian mob boss who owns a local strip club; Sokoloff agrees to 25% of their business in return for letting them photograph and film his strippers. Within a month Buck and Wayne's website is hugely successful. They party in Las Vegas while neglecting payments to Sokoloff. Jack has made the LA nightclub a success and attracts the attention of Jerry Haggerty, a crooked lawyer hired by Wayne and Buck to sort out their problem with Sokoloff. Jack meets the friends and becomes a partner in the business, paying Haggerty $200,000 to get out, knowing Haggerty is under federal indictment and thus a threat to the business. Sokoloff's nephew comes to collect his $400,000 profit, but when he threatens to kill Jack's family, one of Jack's body guards punches him so hard that he falls dead. Jack and his partners dump the body in the ocean and fabricate a story that Sokoloff's nephew took the money and ran. Sokoloff is skeptical, but agrees to let it pass in return for an increase to 50% of the partnership. Jack expands the business by dropping their porn site and focusing on the online credit card billing services. They create a billing company called "24/7 billing.com", becoming the titular Middle Men for other internet-based porn providers. The billing business is making hundreds of millions of dollars within a year. Jack becomes addicted to the money, sex and power of his new L.A. lifestyle, spends little time with his Houston family and starts a relationship with porn star Audrey Dawns. Haggerty, bitter that Jack cut him out of a multimillion dollar partnership, schemes to take over the company. He easily manipulates the foolish Wayne and Buck to work with Denny Z, providing billing services for Denny's numerous child pornography websites. Audrey's live stream porn site is watched by an international web of terrorists, which the US Government uses to track and arrest or kill the terrorists. The FBI asks for Jack and Audrey's help to expand their terrorist hunt, but Wayne and Buck fear that Jack is meeting with the FBI to turn them in for the murder of Sokoloff's nephew and the child porn. The two confide in Haggerty about killing Sokoloff's nephew, which Haggerty uses to incite Sokoloff to make a move on Jack. Jack's life is further complicated when Sokoloff's men kidnap his maid's son, who they believe is Jack's son. Jack gathers up several million dollars and goes to meet Sokoloff, as seen at the start of the film. Jack is told that the boy will be released if he signs a contract giving his partnership share to Wayne, Buck, Sokoloff, and Haggerty. Jack signs the agreement but backdates it to before Denny Z's child porn business was added. Sokoloff shoots Haggerty dead but lets Jack go as thanks for all the money he has made him. Jack's FBI friend charges Sokoloff, Wayne and Buck with providing billing services for child porn. They turn states evidence against Denny Z for a reduced sentence. Sokoloff flees the country and is alleged to be in Moscow. Jack and the maid's son return home, where Diane welcomes Jack back into their family.

Annie Cameron is gifted a laptop by her parents, Will and Lynn, for her fourteenth birthday. She soon meets a boy online named Charlie, who initially claims to be 16 years old, but later confesses that he is actually 20, and eventually 25. Though disconcerted by his dishonesty at first, Annie comes to believe that the two of them are in love. After two months of communicating electronically, Charlie invites Annie to meet him at a local mall. Upon arriving, she discovers that he is actually in his late thirties. Though she is distraught, Charlie eventually convinces her to accompany him to a motel, where he makes her try on lingerie he bought her before raping her, filming the ordeal. The next day, Charlie fails to return any of Annie's calls or texts, upsetting and confusing her. Annie's best friend Brittany confronts her, having seen her with Charlie at the mall. Annie confesses that she and Charlie had sex, but dismisses Brittany's concerns. Brittany notifies the school administration. Police arrive and depart with Annie, drawing attention from other students. After Annie's parents learn what happened, an investigation begins, led by FBI agent Doug Tate. The FBI have Annie call Charlie in an attempt to identify him, but he figures out the ruse and blocks her number before they can trace his location. Will hires a private investigation firm from New Jersey to catch Charlie, but this proves fruitless when they realize Charlie masks his IP address so that his location appears as the Czech Republic. As Will grows obsessed with catching Charlie, his relationship with his family becomes strained. He begins having nightmares of Annie's assault and questioning his work at an advertising firm, which often uses provocative images of teenagers. Annie begins seeing hospital counselor Gail Friedman, to whom she confides that she loves Charlie and believes he loves her too. When Annie returns to school, Brittany tries to apologize to her, but Annie orders Brittany to never speak to her again. DNA evidence proves that Charlie has previously sexually abused several other pre-teen girls. After seeing photos of Charlie's other victims, Annie flees her home and seeks consolation from Friedman, breaking down in tears as she finally admits to herself that she was raped. Hoping to regain a sense of normalcy and fall back into a routine, Annie participates in a school volleyball game. Will sees a father in the crowd taking pictures of the girls, whom he mistakes for one of the men from a list of registered sex offenders and violently confronts. Though the man declines to press charges, a humiliated Annie lashes out at Will at home and asserts that he is ruining her life. Annie learns from Brittany that other students have been ridiculing her online, photoshopping her face onto pornographic images and publicly exposing her cellphone number and address. She rushes home and attempts suicide by overdosing on pills. After a panicked phone call from Lynn, Will finds Annie in the bathtub and forces her to vomit. Brittany spends the night to keep Annie company, mending their friendship. Annie wakes up and finds Will sitting outside. He admits that he blames himself for failing to protect her and pleads for her forgiveness, though he believes he does not deserve it. Annie tearfully embraces him. During a post-credits scene, it is revealed that "Charlie" is actually a high school physics teacher named Graham Weston, who is married and has a young son.

A gang of violent young neo-Nazi skinheads from Footscray, Victoria, Australia, attack three Vietnamese Australian teenagers in a tunnel at Footscray Station, brutally beating two of them. The gang is led by Hando, a violent, reckless, and unpredictable psychopath with strong white nationalist beliefs and homicidal tendencies, with his friend and second-in-command, the quiet, reserved, but similarly violent Davey. At their local pub, Hando and Davey meet Gabrielle, who suffers from poorly controlled epilepsy, the day after her sexually abusive, affluent father, Martin, has her drug-addicted boyfriend arrested. Gabrielle begins a romantic relationship with Hando, which, despite a strong start, quickly becomes dysfunctional as he becomes increasingly abusive towards her. After the gang vandalises a shopping mall, friends of the gang visit from Canberra, one of whom has joined the Royal Australian Navy. A party at the warehouse follows. The next day, two boys go to the pub, which has just been sold to a Vietnamese businessman by the owner. Upon seeing the new owner and his sons, they inform Hando, who arrives with his gang, and they savagely beat two of the new owner's sons, while the third son escapes and calls for help. Fed up with the gang's antagonism and violence, a large mob of armed and angry Vietnamese men, led by Tiger, arrives and descends upon the skinheads. The Vietnamese outnumber the skinheads by droves, and in the ensuing brawl and chase, several skinheads are beaten by the angry mob, among them Magoo, Luke, Champ, and Brett. The rest of the gang are chased back to their rented warehouse, from which they narrowly escape as the Vietnamese mob breaks in and ransacks the building before burning it down. The skinheads soon find a new base at a nearby warehouse, after evicting a pair of squatters, and plan retaliation against the Vietnamese. When the gang agrees to acquire firearms, two female friends of the gang depart in disgust. Gabrielle suggests the gang burgle her father's mansion for the guns. After beating and tying up Martin, the gang ransacks the house, smashes one of his cars, and raids his wine collection. The youngest skinhead, Bubs, steals a deactivated revolver from the house during the burglary. Gabrielle tells Martin the burglary is revenge for his years of abuse, then reveals to Davey her plan to take Hando away from his violent life. Martin eventually frees himself and uses a handgun to scare away the gang, who flee in the trashed vehicle and leave behind most of the stolen goods. Due to this incident, Davey begins to question his violent lifestyle. Agitated by Gabrielle's criticism of the poor outcome of the robbery and their living conditions, Hando abruptly hits, berates, dumps, and then evicts her. Davey, unable to tolerate the excess violence and Hando's cruel and unpredictable nature any further, declares his departure from the gang and gives Gabrielle his German grandmother's address, where he will be staying. Gabrielle informs the police of the gang's location and spends the night with Davey, where they confess their feelings for each other. Davey also reveals his doubts about his violent lifestyle to Gabrielle, having removed the racist patches from his flight jacket out of concern for his grandmother. The morning after, the police raid the warehouse where the skinhead gang is hiding. Bubs is shot in the head after pointing the stolen deactivated gun at the police, and what remains of the gang is beaten and arrested. Hando, who was returning to the warehouse and fled when he spotted the police, successfully evades capture as the last remaining member of his gang. Arriving at Davey's granny flat, Hando finds his friend in bed with Gabrielle. Hando accuses her of informing the police, but Davey says they were together the whole time since leaving the squat. However, Hando convinces Davey and Gabrielle to come with him by claiming the police will soon raid the residence, and the trio goes on the run. They rob a service station, where Hando strangles the Asian attendant to death; and, after driving all night, they stop at Point Addis, Bells Beach, the next morning. There, Gabrielle overhears a conversation wherein Hando tries to convince Davey to abandon her. Feeling betrayed, Gabrielle sets their car on fire and admits to tipping the police off about the gang's whereabouts. A bus of Japanese tourists arrive and the passengers taking pictures and video, while the tour guide and the driver stop the fire. Hando, infuriated beyond sense, attacks Gabrielle and attempts to asphyxiate her, first by strangling her and then by drowning her in the surf. Davey attempts to fight Hando several times and successfully disrupts each attempt on Gabrielle's life, but he is quickly fought off and beaten down each time. Eventually, Hando attempts to smother Gabrielle in the sand, before Davey, desperate to save Gabrielle, stabs Hando in the neck with his Hitler Youth knife. Hando staggers away before finally collapsing. As the Japanese tourists look on, a weeping Davey attempts to comfort a petrified Gabrielle as Hando's corpse gazes lifelessly out at the ocean.

A 15-year-old drifter named Gary asks Joe Ransom, the even-tempered tattooed chain-smoking boss of a Texan tree-poisoning crew, for a job, and impresses him with his industriousness. The next day, Gary brings his alcoholic father, Wade, to work, but Wade's poor attitude and laziness get them fired. Joe witnesses Wade beat Gary and take his money. Gary later goes to Joe's house to ask for his job back, swearing he'll make up for his father's behavior. Joe agrees, and Gary begins working for him, hiding his money from Wade. Willie Russell, a criminal with whom Joe has a long-standing feud, shoots and wounds Joe as he leaves a friend's house. Later, Gary meets Willie and asks for a ride home; when Willie makes lewd comments about Gary's younger sister, Dorothy, Gary beats him up. Later, Wade beats to death a homeless man, stealing his liquor. Willie confronts Joe at a bar and asks where Gary lives in order to seek revenge. Joe does not answer and, when Willie presses him, beats him up. Joe tells the bartender to call the police before fleeing to a brothel but leaves after getting spooked by a guard dog. He goes home, getting his dog Faith and returns to the brothel, setting it on the guard dog, and has a prostitute give him oral sex. He leaves with his dog, who has killed the guard dog. Two police officers stop him at gunpoint, and Joe challenges them to a fight. Joe is arrested but released. Wade asks Gary for money, but Gary denies having any. Wade finds food in the cupboard and questions how he can afford food. They get into an argument that ends with Wade pulling a knife. He leaves but threatens to return and find Gary's money. Gary visits Joe, who tells him that he served 29 months for assaulting police officers. Gary agrees to help Joe look for his missing dog. After spending hours together and bonding, they find the dog and Joe gives Gary his lighter as a keepsake. Joe finds Wade walking and offers him a ride. They do not get far before Wade insults Gary and accuses Joe of not paying him. Joe grabs him by the collar and threatens to hurt him if anything happens to Gary. Later on, Gary tells Joe that he has enough money to buy his truck, and Joe takes him to the dealership where he has bought a new one. Joe tells Gary to keep the money he was going to use to buy Joe's truck and use it to obtain insurance. When he questions what insurance is, Joe promises to help him with it. As Joe drives home, a patrol cop stops him and tries to make him take a breathalyzer, but Joe refuses and drives away. After an altercation, Joe beats up the officer. A senior officer, a friend of Joe's and a fellow ex-con, visit Joe and says the patrol cop had it coming but warns him to keep his nose clean. Gary arrives at Joe's house, his face bruised, and asks to borrow his truck. Gary reveals that Wade beat him up, stole his truck, and left with Dorothy, intent on pimping her out to Willie and his goon. They go after Wade. Meanwhile, Willie pays Wade $60, and prepares to rape Dorothy first. Joe arrives and subdues Willie, and Gary leaves with Dorothy for help. Willie begs an unmoved Joe for his life, but as Joe prepares to kill him, one of Willie's thugs shoots him in the side and accidentally shoots Willie as well. Joe kills the thug then finishes Willie off before limping towards Wade, who is standing on a nearby bridge. He tries to shoot him, but misses. He attempts to shoot Wade again, but finds he is out of bullets. Wade asks Joe if he is his friend, and when Joe doesn't answer, leaps to his death. Joe then collapses and looks at the gaping wound in his side. Gary arrives with the sheriff and embraces Joe as he dies. He looks down and sees his father's body. Later, it is shown that an untold amount of time has passed. Gary is seen driving Joe's car with Joe's dog. He arrives at a job interview to replant the woods Joe and his crew had originally torn down.

At the Los Angeles port, a heist crew driving three heavily modified Honda Civics hijack a semi-truck trailer carrying electronic goods and escape into the night along the Terminal Island Freeway. Meanwhile, LAPD officer Brian O'Conner is sent undercover as part of a joint LAPD- FBI task force to locate the crew responsible.Brian investigates Toretto's Market & Cafe managed by Mia, sister of notorious street racer Dominic “Dom” Toretto. When Dom's crew arrives — Vince, Leon, Jesse, and Dom's girlfriend Letty — Vince becomes suspicious of Brian and picks a fight with him. As a result of the fight, Dom threatens to fire Brian from his undercover job at Harry's garage and ban him from the market, but Harry manages to reason with him and keep Brian employed. Brian brings a modified 1995 Mitsubishi Eclipse RS to a car meet, hoping to find a lead on the heist crew. Dom arrives in his Mazda RX-7 and initiates a race. Without credibility, Brian wagers his car; he, Dom, and two other drivers race. Brian's car malfunctions and Dom wins the race, but LAPD officers arrive, forcing Dom to flee. Brian rescues him, helping him escape, inadvertently venturing into territory held by a rival racing gang led by Johnny Tran and his cousin Lance. Tran and Lance destroy the Eclipse, and the two are forced to return to Dom's home on foot. Dom reiterates that Brian still owes him a ten-second car. Brian delivers a decrepit MK4 Toyota Supra to Dom's garage, and the crew begins the process of restoring it. At the same time, he begins dating Mia and looks into Tran's finances. Hector comes to Harry’s garage and speaks to Brian with the intent to buy performance parts for Honda Civics. While Brian is investigating one of Hector's garages, looking for the Civics that have been involved in the heists, Brian is discovered by Dom and Vince; he convinces the latter he is researching Tran's gang's vehicles in preparation for Race Wars. In the process, the three discover a large number of electronic goods, which Brian reports to his superiors, LAPD Sergeant Tanner and FBI Special Agent Bilkins. Tran is arrested, but is found to have acquired the goods legally. An enraged Bilkins berates Tanner and Brian. Bilkins then informs Brian that the truck drivers have begun arming themselves to kill the hijackers and notifies him that he has 36 hours to find them, whom the former believes was Dom all along. Brian and Dom attend Race Wars, where Jesse wagers and loses his father's MK3 Volkswagen Jetta in a drag race against Tran driving his Honda S2000. Jesse flees upon losing, resulting in a confrontation between Dom and Tran. Tran accuses Dom of being a narc, and the two fight before being broken up. That evening, Brian witnesses Dom leaving with his crew to carry out the heist. Brian reveals his identity to a distraught Mia, convincing her to help him knowing their danger. Dom, Letty, Vince, and Leon attempt to hijack the truck; the driver fires on Vince, critically injuring him and running Letty off the road in the process. Brian and Mia catch up to help, but Brian is forced to reveal his identity when he calls for MEDEVAC to save Vince. Dom, Mia, Letty, and Leon flee the scene before the police arrive. Later, Brian arrives to arrest Dom, but the latter demands he leave in order to save Jesse from the danger he's in from Tran's gang. Jesse arrives, pleading for help, but he is gunned down by Tran and Lance on motorcycles. Brian foregoes his arrest of Dom and gives chase to Tran and Lance, with Dom getting into his father's 1970 Dodge Charger R/T to pursue Tran and avenge Jesse. During the chase, Dom runs Lance off the road before Brian accidentally kills Tran. Brian then pursues Dom, and the two agree to a quarter-mile race over a railroad crossing. The race narrowly ends in a draw, but Dom is t-boned by a passing truck. Instead of arresting him, Brian hands over the keys to his Supra, reminding Dom he was owed a ten-second car. He walks away as Dom drives off. In the post-credits scene, Dom is seen driving through Baja California, Mexico, in a 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle SS.

In 2018, Programmer Pan Sheng is lured overseas by a supposed high-paying job and is trafficked into a Canaan slave-camp-like fraud factory, where he is threatened by violence into committing online fraud on behalf of the controlling syndicate. In the camp, Sheng encounters model Liang Anna, who was similarly recruited under false pretenses, and who works on-camera as a dealer in the online gambling section. Sheng offers to help Anna reach her sales target, after which she will supposedly be allowed to leave and can send a message on Sheng's behalf to his loved ones. Sheng uses Anna's identity to catfish Gu Tianzhi, a young man who becomes addicted to online gambling. Sheng baits Tianzhi with "tips" to encourage increased betting, which pulls Tianzhi into debt. Tianzhi's girlfriend Song Yu goes to the police, and is told by officer Zhao Dongran that Tianzhi is likely the victim of a scam. During the 2018 FIFA World Cup final, Tianzhi sits at a bar and bets a large amount of money on the winning team, and is euphoric watching the game's end on television, thinking he has made a fortune. Instead, he finds Yu has cancelled the bet at the last minute. Tianzhi obtains more money from his grandmother, who has dementia, and is tricked into performing a direct transfer of ¥ 8 million to "Anna", which is detected by but cannot be stopped by Zhao's online monitoring taskforce. The money is quickly withdrawn by the syndicate, who celebrate the success while Tianzhi tries to commit suicide by falling out his apartment window. Anna is told by the camp's manager Lu Bingkun that her sales target has increased and she cannot leave. Sheng offers to build an app for Lu to run scams efficiently, and is given new privileges for his efforts. Sheng writes "SOS", "12308 " on a bank note seeking rescue, but it is intercepted, and Sheng and Anna, voluntarily admit, are both tortured as punishment. While being transferred in a bus, Anna jumps out and runs to a police station, but the officers work for the syndicate. Cai, Lu's enforcer, stages Anna's murder but lets her escape. Zhao meets Song Yu again, and is able to connect the messages on Tianzhi's phone with Anna's real identity. Anna manages to return home, where she is picked up by the police but refuses to explain where she's been. Anna is made to attend a scam awareness seminar and is taken to see Tianzhi in the hospital in a vegetative state. This compels her to share what she knows about the syndicate. A large-scale anti-fraud operation is launched. Lu and Cai become persons of interest and multiple raids are carried out. When Zhao and the officers investigate the camp, they find it empty and the computers removed. The taskforce is about to leave the country when they receive a call from Sheng's friend who has just realized that Sheng has been sending coded messages to him asking for help. Using those messages, Zhao and the taskforce are able to locate the syndicate's hiding place in an elementary school, which they successfully raid and arrest everyone except Cai, who is killed in a shootout. Although Lu has all the computers destroyed, the app Sheng built for Lu's phone retains information of the scams and victims, which is used as evidence against the syndicate. In an epilogue, Zhao leads an anti-fraud conference with Song Yu, Sheng and Anna as speakers. In the audience, a member of the syndicate watches them.

Michael Lander is a Goodyear Blimp pilot who flies over National Football League games for network television coverage. Secretly deranged by years of torture as a POW in the Vietnam War, he had a bitter court martial upon his return and a failed marriage. He longs to kill himself and to take with him as many as possible of the cheerful, carefree civilians he sees from his blimp each weekend. Lander is desperately in love with Dahlia Iyad, an operative from the Palestinian terrorist group Black September, who controls and manipulates him. They conspire together to launch a suicide attack using a bomb composed of plastique and a quarter-million steel flechettes. They plan to mount the bomb on the underside of the gondola of the Goodyear blimp and detonate it over the Miami Orange Bowl during Super Bowl X, killing over 80,000 spectators, including the President of the United States, in order to call attention to the plight of the Palestinians and to punish the United States for supporting Israel. During a raid on a Black September safehouse in Beirut, the Israeli counter-terrorist Mossad agent David Kabakov surprises Iyad while she is showering. His mission was to kill everyone in the unit; however, seeing her unarmed and naked, he spares her life and turns his attention to clearing the rest of the safehouse, and she escapes. When the raid is complete, Kabakov finds a recorded message which Iyad had planned to publish after the terrorist attack. The recording explains the motive for the terrorism, but does not include any specific information about the attack plan itself. Collaborating with FBI agent Sam Corley, Kabakov and his partner Robert Moshevsky try to learn the details of the plan. Meanwhile, in Long Beach, Black September bribes freighter captain Tekiaki Ogawa to transport the plastic explosives, disguised as statuettes. Ogawa puts the explosives aboard Iyad and Lander's motorboat, but the two terrorists are discovered by the Coast Guard and forced to flee. Ogawa is interrogated by Kabakov and Moshevsky, only for a bomb Lander had secretly planted to explode, killing Ogawa and hospitalizing Kabakov. Iyad disguises herself as a nurse to infiltrate the hospital and assassinate Kabakov, only for Moshevsky to discover her before she kills him and departs. Kabakov questions Muzi, a local businessman and uses a contact in the Egyptian government named Riaf to discover her identity, and Corley tracks Iyad and her superior Mohammed Fasil to a hotel in Miami. They attempt to capture them, but Iyad retreats, while Fasil is killed by Kabakov in a shootout. After searching Iyad's room, Kabakov realizes that they are targeting the Super Bowl. Corley and Kabakov form a security detail to search the crowd for any sign of suspicious activity. During the Super Bowl game, Kabakov figures out that Iyad and Lander have mounted the bomb on the Goodyear blimp. He and Corley commandeer a helicopter and set out in pursuit of the blimp, accompanied by a police helicopter. Loaded with the bomb, the blimp approaches the stadium. Lander pilots the blimp while Iyad exchanges deadly gunfire with policemen in the pursuing cars and helicopters. From his place in one helicopter, Kabakov sees Iyad's face, and they both recognize each other from the Black September raid in Beirut, where he spared her life. This time, Iyad hesitates, but Kabakov does not and he shoots and kills her. Lander has been mortally wounded, but he lives long enough to succeed in flying the blimp straight into the Super Bowl, causing mass chaos and destruction in the stadium. Just before dying, with the electronic detonator destroyed, Lander lights the backup fuse of the weapon. With the weapon just minutes away from detonation, Kabakov lowers himself from the helicopter to the blimp, and hooks it up with a cable to the helicopter, which hauls it out of the panicked stadium and over the ocean. Kabakov unhooks the cable from the blimp, and clings to the cable as the helicopter moves away to a safe distance. A few seconds later, the bomb detonates, destroying the blimp and firing the flechettes harmlessly into the sea.