After assuming his dead cell-mate's identity to get with the other man's girlfriend, an ex-convict finds himself a reluctant participant in a casino heist.
After being imprisoned for six years on a grand theft auto charge, Rudy Duncan (Ben Affleck) is days away from release as is his cellmate Nick (James Frain) who is is serving a two year sentence on a separate charge. Nick has a number of pictures from a romantic correspondence with a woman named Ashley he has never met but is waiting for his release. Rudy is looking forward to returning to his family and having a fresh cup of hot chocolate. Nick is killed defending Rudy during a prison riot. When Rudy Is released the next day from prison he recognizes Ashley waiting outside the prison for Nick and Rudy takes his place and pretends to be Nick. Nick had spoken of his previous employment in security with an Indian casino and Rudy finds himself involved with Ashley's criminal gun runner brother Gabriel (Gary Sinise). Rudy is violently coerced to cooperate with a Christmas Eve casino robbery scheme that Gabriel and his gang have been planning with Nick's casino knowledge as the key. Things don't go as planned with a number of plot twists and double crosses.—Brian Orndorf
With two days away from his release, all the professional car thief, Rudy Duncan, wants is to get his life back on track, reunite with his family for Christmas, and above all, start afresh with his new girlfriend, Ashley--the compassionate soulmate he had fallen in love in prison via correspondence. However, having read their fervent letters, Ashley's volatile arms-trafficking brother, Gabriel, and his ruthless gang of trigger-happy criminals jump on the opportunity to get vital inside information from Rudy, for a daring casino heist on Christmas Eve. Under those circumstances, to stay alive and have a chance with Ashley, Rudy must play along and continue his con game; nevertheless, is all as it seems?—Nick Riganas
In Michigan, the car thief Rudy Duncan and his cellmate Nick Cassidy, who killed a man protecting his girlfriend Millie Bobeck, are to be released in a couple of days. Nick is in love with his pen-pall Ashley Mercer that he never personally met and has known her through a magazine, letters, and photos. He expects to spend the next days locked in a motel room making love with Ashley while Rudy expects to return home and drink hot chocolate with his family celebrating Christmas. During a riot in the mess room, Nick is stabbed and murdered by a dangerous inmate trying to protect Rudy. When he is released, Rudy sees Ashley alone trying to find Nick and he poses to be his dead friend. They go to the motel, but Rudy is surprised by Asley's brother Gabriel and his four-men gang. Soon he learns that Gabriel has read Nick's letters to Ashley and knows that he had worked as security guard in the Tomahawk Casino managed by Jack Bangs. Gabriel and his gang are arms traffickers and truck drivers with no experience in heists and they force Rudy to plot the robbery of the casino based on his previous experience in the Tomahawk. What will Rudy do? If he confesses that he is not Nick, he will be expendable and killed by the criminals.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Rudy Duncan is a reformed car thief who's just a day away from being released from prison. His cellmate and best friend, Nick is also due for release at the same time with Rudy. Nick continually brags about the female pen pal Ashley he's been writing to and has a large number of photos on his wall. But stabbed during a food riot Nick ends up out of the picture, and Rudy meets Ashley waiting outside the prison and assumes Nick's identity and ends up spending time with Ashley. Ashley's brutal sibling Gabriel and his crew of gun running thugs knew Nick used to work for a casino and want his assistance on a Christmas Eve robbery of the casino. Rudy attempts to explain the truth about his identity but must continue to act as Nick to save his life. Rudy is coerced to reluctantly aid Gabriel and his thugs to rob the casino. But things aren't what they appear and the robbery doesn't go quite as planned.—monkeykingma
Nick Cassidy (James Frain) and Rudy Duncan (Ben Affleck) are cellmates in prison two days away from release. Nick has been corresponding with a young woman named Ashley Mercer (Charlize Theron), who is waiting for him on the outside.
All Rudy wants is to go back to his hometown of Sidnaw to have a piece of pecan pie with hot chocolate and spend time with his family for Christmas. After Nick dies in a prison fight (there were roaches in the gelatin & Nick was stabbed by Alamo (Dana Stubblefield), who was a fellow prisoner and was looking for Rudy as he thought Rudy was a snitch), Rudy gets released (as his prison time is over) alone along with the other prisoners and assumes Nick's identity so that Ashley will think he is the one who has been writing to her. They go to a diner to get to know each other, then they have sex in a cabin. Rudy wants to tell Ashley the truth, but the sex is too good and he flushes his driver's license down the toilet.
Gabriel (Gary Sinise), the leader of a gang and Ashley's brother, kidnaps Rudy and Ashley in their cabin and tells Rudy that the gang, composed of Pug (Donal Logue), Merlin (Clarence Williams III), and Jumpy (Danny Trejo), will rob the casino that Nick used to work at, with Nick's knowledge of the place. Rudy reveals that he is not Nick, but Ashley believes that he is. She reveals that she wrote to him knowing that Gabriel was going to force Nick to assist in the robbery. Gabriel has selected Christmas time for the robbery as half the security staff is also on holidays.
Using the information from the real Nick's prison cell stories, Rudy is able to devise a robbery plan and informs Gabriel that the biggest loot is hidden inside a safe in the manager Jack Bangs's (Dennis Farina) office, calling it the "PowWow safe." Gabriel shows Rudy a hand-drawn map of the casino, but Rudy claims that the casino has been remodeled. After Gabriel leaves Ashley and Rudy alone, Ashley tells Rudy that Gabriel only ran guns and has never robbed a place before. She convinces Rudy that her life is as much as stake as his own.
They go to the casino the next day, with Rudy dressed as a cowboy, to snoop around to see any changes. Rudy chats with Nick's old boss, Jack Bangs at the bar. Merlin finds out from a cigarette girl that the casino was never remodeled and has been the same since it opened. Merlin attacks Rudy in the toilet, But Rudy escapes by impersonating a college student by switching clothes with him in the bathroom. Bangs is under pressure from the Indian owners of the casino that many of his ideas are not bringing in any revenues. Other Indian casinos have much higher profits.
Rudy takes Ashley on the run with him (After she risk her life to save Rudy from Gabriel's fire) as Gabriel and his thugs pursue them to a frozen lake, firing guns at them. One of the bullets causes Ashley to fall through the ice. Forcing Rudy to jump in and rescue her. Gabriel and the thugs pull them out and are then spotted by an ice fisherman, whom Gabriel shoots dead through the man's shanty after getting suspicious. Frustrated by Rudy's escape attempt, Gabriel throws darts at him to get some answers and rants at him about his life as a truck driver, knowing that Jack Bangs doesn't know anything about the planned robbery. So Gabriel gives Rudy a second chance at drawing the map.Rudy convinces that Gabriel needs 6 people to make the robbery, including Ashley. Rudy also convinces Gabriel to give him a gun during the robbery.
One night, Rudy breaks out of his hotel room and stumbles upon Gabriel and Ashley in the pool area, learning that they are lovers and not siblings, but he is forced to return to his room when he is almost caught by Merlin.
The group robs the casino, each dressed as Santa Claus. Rudy, forced to take part in the robbery with only a squirt gun, hides the fact that he knows Ashley's secret. The robbery doesn't go according to plan due to confusion of inaccurate details of Rudy's plan (He told them there were no guns in the counting room) which gets many of the Santa killed. Ashley drives into the Casino (when 2 cops enter and start shooting at the Santa) and lets Rudy know she is in on the heist.
All surviving meeting in the manager's office, Gabriel introduces Rudy to the casino manager as Nick but the manager only recognizes him as the cowboy from earlier and not Nick Cassidy. Rudy finally confesses. Gabriel, furious at Rudy's deception, spares him for a moment when he demands to know where the "PowWow" safe is. When the manager opens the safe, he grabs guns from inside and kills one of the robbers as the rest flee. The casino manager dies during the shootout. Rudy kills Merlin via flame combustion from Rudy's alcohol-filled squirt gun hitting the cigarette lighter, causing him to fall out the window, plummeting to his death below. Rudy is then grabbed out the back door by Gabriel and Ashley who tie him up in their 18-wheeler truck.
They plan to drive him off the edge of a cliff in a burning vehicle with a little of the money so that officials will guess all the stolen money had been burned. After accidentally revealing too much information during an argument with Rudy (That she knew that Nick died taking a shiv for Rudy, when Rudy never told her how Nick died), Ashley shoots and kills the now suspicious Gabriel. Shortly after, Nick appears, having staged his death at the prison (he paid Alamo a $100 to stab him). It is revealed that Ashley's real name is Millie Bobeck and Rudy learns that the two had collaborated to rob the casino using Rudy, Gabriel, and Gabriel's gang. Millie had known the entire time who Rudy truly was. Nick also informs Rudy that the prison stories were part of a set-up.
After they tie Rudy to the steering wheel to drive off the cliff, he produces a knife he had gotten earlier, cuts his bindings, hot wires the car, sets it to reverse and crushes Nick's legs. With Millie firing at him, he rams the fiery car into her and dives out as the car and Millie go over the cliff. Nick, who is still alive, tries to convince Rudy that they can share the money, but Rudy locks him in the truck and also sends it over the cliff. Rudy picks up the stolen cash and begins distributing it in mailboxes he comes across on the way home to his family, and he eats a Christmas dinner with them. The film closes with Rudy smiling.
