| Director | Boaz Yakin |
|---|---|
| Genre | action film, crime film |
| Runtime | 94 min |
| Country | United States |
| Budget | $30 million |
| Box office | $40.6 million |
Luke Wright, an ex-cop and cage fighter, unintentionally wins a fixed fight. Emile Docheski, the head of the Russian mafia, tells his son Vassily and his men to kill Wright's pregnant wife as punishment, then kill anyone Luke interacts with regularly. Luke thus leaves his life behind, becoming homeless and aimless.
Mei, a young mathematical prodigy in China, is kidnapped by men working for triad boss Han Jiao. He plans to use Mei as a mental calculator to eliminate his criminal enterprise's traceable digital footprint. Han sends her to NYC in the care of brutal gangster Quan Chang.
One year later, Han arrives from China, asking Mei to memorize a long number. On the way to retrieve a second number, their vehicle is ambushed by the Russian mafia. Mei is taken to Emile, who demands the number. They are ambushed by police sent by the corrupt Captain Wolf, who works for Han.
Mei escapes to a nearby subway station, where Luke is contemplating suicide. He pauses at the edge when Mei looks at him. Recognizing Chemyakin as one of the men who killed his wife and seeing that they're chasing Mei, Luke boards the train and kills Chemyakin and the other Russians. Mei flees, only to be stopped by two corrupt detectives, working for Wolf.
Luke incapacitates them, convincing Mei that he is good, and grabs a car, escaping with her. Hiding in a hotel, Mei explains the number and her situation to Luke. Luke guesses that it is a combination to a safe. Quan tracks Mei down through her cell phone and escapes with her as Luke fights through his men.
Across town, Captain Wolf meets with Mayor Danny Tremello, who cautions Wolf, explaining that Luke was not a regular cop, but a black ops hitman. He was lent as a favor to Tremello by friends in the CIA after 9/11, along with Luke's former partner Alex Rosen. The two had assassinated crime bosses in an effort to impose order, but Luke quit after exposing Wolf's detective squad as dirty cops.
Luke now regrets the things he did for the government. Using Chemyakin's phone, he kidnaps Vassily. Emile reluctantly accepts a deal for his son's life, explaining that Mei's number unlocks a heavily guarded safe in Chinatown with $30 million, though he does not know the contents of the second safe. Needing a team to get to it, Luke recruits Wolf and his detectives, enticing them with the money.
Together, they fight through triad gangsters to reach the safe. Wolf attempts to betray Luke, but he kills the remaining detectives and takes Wolf hostage. Using the money, Luke bribes Alex, now the mayor's aide and boyfriend, into rescuing Mei. Alex reveals the second safe belongs to the mayor, containing a disc with incriminating data on every crime syndicate in New York. Alex kills Quan and his men in order to take Mei.
Luke attacks the mayor and retrieves a copy of the mayor's disc. Meeting Alex, he refuses to surrender the money and suggests that they settle it with a fight. However, Mei shoots Alex, wounding him, and letting Luke finish him off.
In the aftermath, Luke gives $50,000 to Wolf for his troubles and instructs him to return Vassily to his father. He sends the remainder of the money to Han to buy Mei's freedom, threatening to ruin his operations should he try to recover Mei. Luke makes multiple copies of the disc and stores them in bank safe deposit boxes throughout the city as his security to ensure that no one can come after him or Mei again without risking being exposed.
Luke decides to leave New York and head to Seattle, where Mei can enroll in a school for gifted children. When she asks if they are finally safe, he responds that they will take it one day at a time.