Summaries

Synopsis

Arthur Bishop (Jason Statham), working as a "mechanic" (mafia slang for hit-man), sneaks into the lavish home of a Colombian Drug Cartel leader and drowns him in his own pool. The Cartel leader was extremely well protected, and his security won't let anyone even come close to him. Yet, Bishop was able to effortlessly evade security and hide inside the pool. When the cartel leader got into the pool for his swim, Bishop pulled him under the water and drowned him, while his security, protecting the pool, had no idea.Bishop escapes disguised as a member of the house staff.

Bishop is a meticulous planner, who charts out every possible detail of his attack. He takes his time planning the hit and then executes it to perfection. After the hit is executed, he burns all details of his planning in the boiler heater of his house.Upon returning home (which is an isolated cabin in the middle of a swamp and the only way to reach it is via a shallow water boat) to Louisiana, he meets with friend and mentor Harry McKenna (Donald Sutherland), who pays Bishop for his work. Harry is Bishop's handler and they both work for an agency that specializes in contract killings.

Bishop is given a new assignment: kill Harry. Bishop's employer confirms by phone that the contract is correct, whereupon he requests a face-to-face meeting with his employers. Dean (Tony Goldwyn) tells him about a failed mission in South Africa, in which 5 agency assassins were killed. Bishop recognizes one of the dead assassins whose name was Sebastian (David Leitch).Dean says that only himself and Harry knew the details of the mission, and that Harry had been paid for the contract details. Dean shows details of $29 million deposited in Harry's offshore accounts less than 2 weeks ago. Dean refuses Bishop's request to talk to Harry.

Bishop calls Harry and says that an attack in imminent on him. He gets Harry to circumvent his own security and to meet him in the basement car park of the building next to Harry's office. Reluctantly Bishop kills Harry with the latter's own gun and makes it look like a carjacking.

At his funeral, Bishop meets Harry's reckless son Steve (Ben Foster). Steve tells Bishop that the bank is going to take Harry's house as his accounts were empty. Steve is livid that a carjacker shot his dad, who was on a wheelchair. He believes that the man has to be without honor to kill someone on a wheelchair.

Steve hangs around in his car at a deserted street, hoping to run into a carjacker.Bishop stops Steve from trying to kill a would-be carjacker in a misguided attempt at cathartic vengeance. Steve convinces Bishop to train him as a mechanic. Bishop says that his craft requires a certain mindset and that a feeling of revenge will only lead to Steve getting killed.

Adopting a chihuahua, he instructs Steve to take the dog with him to a coffee shop each day at the same time for 3 weeks. In parallel, Bishop also gives weapons training to Steve. Bishop gives Steve a manual used by Insurance companies to assess the cause of death. It lists every single cause of death and its symptoms to look for on the body. As Harry's house is sold, Bishop takes him to his swamp cabin.As Steve settles into a routine, Bishop escalates training, taking him to observe a contract killing where Bishops strangles his target with his belt.Bishop is really paranoid about his turntable record player and his 1966 Jaguar E-Type, which he has been working on for 2 years as a passion project.

The target is a mechanic for another agency named Burke (Jeff Chase), who frequents the same coffee shop daily from 9 am to 10 am. Burke's only weaknesses are that he is interested in young men and small dogs. Burke makes his move on Steve and invites him out for drinks at a bar. Bishop instructs Steve to slip a large dose of Rohypnol into Burke's drink to cause an overdose. Steve ignores the instructions and goes with Burke to his apartment. Bishop had warned that Burke is 6 foot 7 inches tall and weighs 300 pounds and should not be taken lightly.

When Burke begins to undress, Steve attempts to strangle him with a belt as he had seen Bishop do on a former assignment. Burke fights back, using his size advantage and experience, but Steve manages to kill Burke after much effort and a lengthy fight. Dean expresses his disapproval of Bishop involving Steve, and that violated the rules of the contract arrangement, but Bishop says that Harry and his arrangement was for price only, and Harry left the details up to Bishop.

Bishop's next contract is to kill Christian Cult leader Andrew Vaughn (John McConnell). They plan to inject their victim with adrenaline to simulate a heart attack, for which the paramedics would administer a fatal dose of epinephrine. While Bishop and Steve are preparing for the hit, Vaughn's doctor arrives, and he sets Vaughn up with an IV of Ketamine, which will inhibit the epinephrine's effects. The hit men decide to suffocate him instead but are discovered after killing Vaughn and are forced into a shootout with the guards; they slip away and fly home separately.

At the airport, Bishop sees Sebastian, a supposed victim of the mission that Harry allegedly sold out. He confronts the other mechanic, who tells Bishop that he was paid by Dean to kill the other mechanics in South Africa and fake his death so that Dean could engineer the failed mission to cover up his own shady dealings; he also reveals that Dean framed Harry and that he tricked Bishop into killing his friend. The mechanic then attempts to kill Bishop and after a struggle between the two professionals, Bishop ends up killing him.

Bishop is later ambushed by a hit squad: after killing them, he discovers that Dean was behind the hit. Bishop goes home to call Steve, only to find that Steve has been ambushed. Bishop directs Steve to a hidden gun, which Steve uses to kill his attackers. Steve gathers supplies for their new mission while he plots how to get to Dean. In the process he finds his father's gun and realizes that Bishop killed Harry.

Bishop and Steve kill Dean in an ambush: on the way back, Bishop notices Steve carrying Harry's gun. When they stop for gas, Steve floods the ground with fuel while pretending to fill the tank. He walks a safe distance and shoots the gas, blowing up the truck with Bishop still inside. Steve returns to the house and performs two actions that Bishop told him not to do: playing a record on the turntable and taking the 1966 Jaguar E-Type.

As he is driving away, Steve finds a note on the passenger seat: "Steve, if you're reading this, then you're dead!" Moments later, the car explodes, killing him; at the same time, Bishop's house also explodes. Back at the gas station, a security video reveals that Bishop had escaped from the truck, seconds before the explosion. Bishop gets into a spare truck and drives away.