Mark Taffin, Pierce Brosnan a debt collector in the small town of Ballymoran, uses his smarts and martial arts to help locals reclaim what they are owed. He beats up a restaurant owner to collect a debt, and he helps a trio of young men who have been sold a faulty van. He also helps Charlotte, a local barmaid, Alison Doody, who is having trouble with her employer, and the two become involved in each other’s lives as the town’s problems grow deeper.
Through his investigations, Taffin uncovers a deeper conspiracy: councillor Gibson, Jonathan Ryan, is conspiring with landowner Henderson, Liam O'Callaghan, to obscure who owns the meadow so the local sports field will be sold off instead of the meadow itself, paving the way for a chemical plant. Taffin confronts Gibson, but cannot move the system, until he intimidates Henderson by blowing up his outhouse, setting off a chain of retaliations that spread beyond his initial skirmishes.
The corrupt business group backing the chemical plant hires thugs, including Conway, Jim Bartley, to intimidate the townspeople. The thugs beat up Taffin, who withdraws from town and chastises Charlotte for wishing he could do more for the world, until Conway and his men beat up Taffin's brother, Mo, Patrick Bergin. This brutal blow hardens Taffin’s resolve and pulls him back into the fight.
The trio of young men who aided Taffin, along with Taffin’s friend Ed, Gerard McSorley, help him take down two of Conway’s thugs, and Taffin himself defeats Conway after a high-stakes car chase between Conway’s Jaguar and Taffin’s red Ford Mustang through winding rural roads. When one of the syndicate’s operatives, Mr. Martin, is accused of rape by Charlotte at Taffin’s urging, Taffin uses the situation to blackmail Martin into halting the building of the chemical plant, pressing his leverage to a breaking point.
Yet the plan seems to be working only briefly, because the head of the syndicate, Sprawley, Alan Stanford, hires a hitman named Deacon, Ronan Wilmot, who sets fire to Martin’s house, killing him and his wife and framing Taffin for the crime. With the town’s faith in him eroding, Taffin faces a rising mob mentality as the townspeople turn on him, just as he warned they would.
Sprawley then orders Deacon to finish the job—killing Mark Taffin. Taffin attempts to flee the town to find Sprawley, but Deacon catches up with him and enlists Conway to hold Taffin hostage in his car, forcing him to follow to a remote spot where he can be killed. In a final confrontation, Taffin overpowers his captors, shooting both Deacon and Conway dead; a distant shot shows his car exploding, and Taffin is presumed dead.
Charlotte’s anger at the townspeople’s cowardice echoes as she contemplates leaving the country, but Taffin, masquerading as Deacon, tracks Sprawley to a deserted beach in Dublin, where he shoots Sprawley when he refuses and pulls a gun on him. As Charlotte queues to leave, Taffin appears behind her and delivers a chilling, knowing line that lingers in the air: >Be cool, Charlotte. Be cool.
