Anthony Stowe, Jean-Claude Van Damme, a New Orleans narcotics detective and heroin addict, is determined to bring down his former partner Gabriel Callaghan, Stephen Rea, who is tightening his grip on the city’s underworld.
A botched sting that should have toppled Callaghan instead leads to tragedy: Maria Ronson, [Rachel Grant], is killed, and her fiancé, Van Huffel, [Adam Leese], nearly comes to blows with Stowe over the fallout. Chief Mac Baylor, [Gary Beadle], confronts Stowe in blunt terms, which only fuels his cynicism. That night Stowe meets with his estranged wife Valerie, [Selina Giles], who reveals she’s pregnant but not with his child; she explains she’s been seeing Mark Rossini, [Mark Dymond], a gym teacher at the school she runs, and Stowe accuses her of carrying Callaghan’s child, she denies it and says she wants nothing to do with him.
But Stowe’s sole anchor remains his dogged pursuit of Callaghan. A planned course of action goes wrong, and Callaghan’s men ambush Stowe: he’s shot in the head by Jimmy Medina, [Stephen Lord], and slips into a coma. Months pass; Stowe awakens and is moved back into his home, where he must relearn basic movements and speech. The path back to the force is blocked by Chief Baylor, who refuses to reinstate him in light of his heroin addiction. Yet the coma ignites a change in him; he resolves to repair the damage he has done and make better choices.
He reconciles awkwardly with Valerie, and when he learns Walter Currie’s support for him—though Currie’s role in the investigation remains murky—Stowe accepts a share of the insurance money that helped him survive the coma. He visits the grave of Serge, [William Ash], the older officer who saved his life, now dead at the hands of an unknown assailant. Valerie contemplates leaving for Mark’s life, but after observing the transformation in Stowe, she eventually chooses to return home. Stowe’s friend Chad Mansen, [Wes Robinson], urges him not to let Valerie go, and in a tense moment they nearly reconnect, only to be interrupted by violence.
Callaghan’s men descend again; Chad is killed, and Valerie is kidnapped by Jimmy, who is waiting with Callaghan at a warehouse. Stowe fights his way back, seizing Jimmy’s weapon and eventually facing Callaghan, who is trying to escape with Valerie by helicopter. Van Huffel, revealed as Callaghan’s mole in the police, is killed along with Jimmy, as Walter arrives and battles through to help Stowe. Walter is wounded, but Stowe regains the initiative and tears after Callaghan.
In a climactic exchange, Stowe engages Callaghan near the helicopter; a desperate shootout ends with Callaghan and Stowe both firing. The final moments imply Callaghan’s defeat and Stowe’s fate is sealed as two shots ring out and the screen goes dark. Chief Baylor reinstates Stowe and shows him footage of Callaghan executing Ronson and the undercover officer in the botched sting, setting the stage for the next chapter. Van Huffel, implicated in the cover-up, tries to escape with the body camera that could prove his involvement.
Three years later, Stowe and Valerie share a quiet moment at home with their 3-year-old daughter, Nadia, [Sofia Leticia Morales]. The film notes that while the U.S. version ends with Stowe alive, some European cuts offer a grimmer final beat in which Stowe dies in the shootout with Callaghan.
