Plot
Joe Moore runs a ring of professional thieves, which includes Bobby Blane, Donnie "Pinky" Pincus and Joe's wife Fran. During a robbery of a New York City jewelry store, Joe's takes off his mask in a successful effort to distract the store's last remaining employee, allowing his face is captured by a security camera; he is unable to retrieve the video evidence before they have to flee. As both the picture and a witness can identify him, Joe retires from crime and plans to disappear on his sailboat with Fran.
This does not sit well with Joe's fence, Mickey Bergman, who runs a garment business as a front. Having accrued significant expenses in setting up another robbery, Bergman decides to withhold the payment of the jewelry heist from Joe and his crew, so that they go through with the next job –robbing an airplane carrying a large shipment of gold. Bergman further insists that his nephew, Jimmy Silk, be a part of the crew. Joe accepts, but a series of shifting loyalties changes the complexity of their task, including Jimmy's interest in Fran, along with Bergman and Jimmy's belief that Joe's skills are declining.
While setting up an element needed for the robbery, they are stopped by a passing police officer. While Joe and Bobby talk the officer into leaving, an agitated Jimmy draws his gun but is stopped by Pinky. Joe forces the team out of finishing the job after he finds out that Pinky did not destroy the getaway car, covered in the team's fingerprints. Bergman does not accept the team's departure and forces them to finish the job.
The plane robbery is a series of misdirects. Pinky poses as a guard while Joe, Bobby and Jimmy pose as airport security personnel. They stop the jet, pretending to be responding to an emergency. They fill a van with what they take from the plane, then move the van to a rented garage on the airport grounds, where they re-brand it and call for a tow truck to have it hauled away.
Jimmy betrays the others to steal the gold and Fran. He knocks out Joe and tells Fran he knows Joe has changed the plan. He and Fran take the van, but Jimmy finds out that the hidden compartments are filled with metal washers. Joe avoids arrest and returns to the plane in disguise. He and Bobby remove a shipment of goods they had booked on board the same Swiss flight, which they insist now must be driven to its destination due to the plane's delay. Inside the shipment is the stolen gold, which Joe and Bobby melt into numerous 7-foot-long rods.
Bergman apprehends Pinky, who is walking his niece to school. Pinky discloses the plan in order to save his niece, but he tips off Joe with a code word during a phone call and is killed. Bergman and his crew arrive at Joe's sailboat along with Jimmy and Fran, where they hold Joe at gunpoint. They assume that the boat's golden railings are the gold. Fran leaves with Jimmy, pleading with Bergman to let Joe go. Just as Bergman discovers that the railings are not the gold, a hidden Bobby opens fire. They kill Bergman's men, then Joe kills Bergman. Bobby gives Joe the address to send his share.
Joe waits to meet Fran with a truck filled with black-painted rods, but Fran, having switched sides, holds up Joe with Jimmy, taking that truck. Joe gets into a second truck to leave. A black bar in the truck scrapes the garage door, revealing gold underneath. Joe lifts a tarp in the truck bed, revealing the gold rods. He covers the rods with a tarpaulin and drives away.
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