| Director | Albert Hughes, Allen Hughes |
|---|---|
| Budget | $10 million |
| Box office | $24.1 million |
In 1968, Anthony Curtis, a soon-to-be high school graduate in The Bronx, chooses to enlist in the United States Marine Corps rather than go to college. He deploys to Vietnam, leaving behind his middle-class family, his girlfriend Juanita, and small-time crook Kirby, who is like a second father. Anthony's close friend, Skip, later joins Curtis' Recon squad after dropping out of Hunter College. His other friend, Jose, is drafted into the United States Army. Once in Vietnam, Curtis and his squad lose several fellow Marines during combat, and commit several atrocities of their own, such as executing enemy prisoners and beheading Viet Cong corpses for war trophies.
When Anthony returns to the Bronx in 1973, he finds returning to "normal" life impossible. Skip is now an Agent Orange victim and heroin addict; Jose, forced to wear a prosthetic hand, is a pyromaniac who works as a postman at the James A. Farley Building, and Cleon, the squad's religious but homicidal staff sergeant, is now a devoted minister in Mount Vernon.
After being laid off from his job at a butcher's shop, on the verge of alcoholism, and suffering from heavily induced PTSD nightmares, Anthony finds himself unable to support Juanita (who is having an affair with a pimp) or his infant daughter. After an argument with Juanita, Anthony meets her sister, Delilah, who is now a member of the "Nat Turner Cadre", a militant Black power Marxist group. Anthony, Kirby, Skip, Jose, Delilah and Cleon devise a plan to rob an armored car making a stop at the Noble Street Federal Reserve Bank.
The next day, the group strategically position themselves around the street, armed with weapons and disguised with face paint, ready to ambush the truck. The plan goes awry when Cleon is approached by a New York Police Department (NYPD) officer who unknowingly stumbles upon the robbery, leading to Kirby being shot in the arm and Skip killing the officer. At the same time, Anthony and Jose are spotted by the truck's driver, causing a shootout with the security guards.
Jose plants an explosive device on the escaping truck to blow off the door, but instead it destroys the entire vehicle. Delilah saves Anthony's life by killing one of the guards. A second guard appears and shoots Delilah multiple times, killing her. As the group collects what cash they can from the burning wreckage, they flee and split up to escape the police. Jose gets cornered in an alley by an approaching police car. When he shoots the officer, he is hit by the car and killed as the car crashes into a wall.
Not long after the heist, Kirby hears that Cleon has been giving out $100 bills and purchased a new Cadillac. Anthony drives over to Cleon's church to speak to him, only to find him being led out of the front door in handcuffs by two detectives. Cleon gives up the other robbers as part of a plea bargain. NYPD officers storm Skip's apartment to arrest him, but find him dead from a heroin overdose. As Kirby and Anthony prepare to flee to Mexico, police raid the bar. Kirby tries to fight the officers to allow Anthony to flee, but it is to no avail, as multiple officers corner and arrest Anthony.
In court, Anthony's lawyer pleads for a fair sentence, noting that he served his country in the Marines and earned a Silver Star. Anthony also pleas for leniency, expressing remorse for the deaths of those involved, and that he did what he did out of desperation and hardship. However the judge, a Marine and Battle of Guadalcanal veteran, proclaims that Anthony has forgotten his values and shouldn't use the Vietnam War as an excuse for his actions, sentencing him to fifteen years to life. Anthony, furious at his sentence, throws a chair at the judge. He protests in vain about everything he's done for his country, before being escorted away by bailiffs. The final scene shows Anthony looking out of the window of his prison bus.