In the city of Los Angeles, a bunch of police
officers are in the middle of a violent gunfight against four robbers who are holding up a
bank in Lincoln Heights. While two of the robbers are inside keeping
an eye on the hostages, the other two are fighting the cops with automatic rifles and
full body armor, which is allowing them to overpower the police and their puny pistols. Thankfully a SWAT unit soon arrives. Officers Jim and Brian rappel down from the
helicopter with two other men to land on the roof of the bank, where they tunnel their
way down to the storeroom and find a safe way to the lobby by using a special spying
camera. While a few SWAT snipers take a spot on the
roof of a building across the street, a third team approaches from the ground. At that moment, one of the robbers outside
tries to escape in a getaway car, but a sniper quickly takes him out with one shot. The other robber continues to fight the cops,
however the ground unit soon reaches him and takes him down too. The two robbers inside start to panic, and
the ground unit sends a secure phone for a SWAT negotiator to try to arrange the release
of hostages. While the negotiator deals with the robbers,
Lieutenant Velasquez calls his team inside the bank to ask them to wait, but Brian ignores
the order. He drops into the storeroom, and while Jim
has no choice but to follow him, Brian sneaks into the back of the main lobby to get in
a good position to shoot down the robbers. Velasquez keeps calling him but all the calls
are ignored. Getting more nervous by the second, one of
the robbers grabs a woman and aims his gun, ready to kill her. Seeing this, Brian shoots the robber through
the woman's shoulder, killing the guy but also wounding the woman in the process. Jim takes out the last robber, finally putting
an end to this. Afterward Jim checks on the woman and calls
for an ambulance, and when Brian wonders if the woman will be ok, Jim snaps, not happy
about what Brian did. Later at the precinct, Captain Fuller is furious
at Jim and Brian for disobeying orders, especially since the wounded woman will sue them for
negligence. Fuller fires them from the SWAT division,
but Velasquez cuts in and asks him to at least keep them on the team so they can eventually
get a chance to get their jobs back. Fuller agrees and relegates them to "cage
duty", a degrading position involving the maintenance and distribution of weapons and
accessories to other officers. Brian is insulted and tells Fuller off, but
this only makes it worse for himself and he storms off in anger. When Jim hesitates, Fuller offers him a chance
to get back on the team right away if Jim agrees to rat out Brian for recklessness. Meanwhile Brian has decided to quit and is
now packing his bag. Suddenly Jim reveals that he agrees with Fuller
that Brian was reckless out there and an argument ensues as Jim refuses to quit too. Brian assumes Jim ratted him out and hits
his head against the mirror before leaving. Six months later, Jim keeps training in his
free time, but at work he’s in the gun cage, performing menial tasks for other police officers. One day, Sergeant Hondo comes to the precinct
and asks Jim to fix his customized M-4 rifle. Jim notices the custom job and is impressed. Then Hondo meets with Velasquez to talk about
the number of scathing articles criticizing the LAPD, which has caused the chief to order
a reform of the department. Velasquez wants Hondo to form a new SWAT unit
for him to command and offers two of his own officers: T.J. and Michael. Hondo accepts them and decides to pick out
three more candidates from the personnel files, although Fuller will have the final say later. After finishing with Hondo's weapon, Jim goes
home to find his girlfriend trying to move out of their apartment. She claims things between them aren’t good
anymore and Jim hasn't been the same since he was taken off the SWAT team. She tries to kiss him one last time but he
turns her down and lets her leave. The next day at work it’s revealed that
while working at the cage, Jim has invented a new piece of equipment that he plans to
patent in the future: a gigantic hook and chain designed to take down walls or barricades
and end hostile standoffs, which he calls the "Key to the City". As he's explaining his invention to his gun
cage partner, Hondo comes in and appreciates Jim's idea. He retrieves his weapon and is impressed by
the improvements Jim has done to it. Sometime later, Hondo takes some of the officers
out for target practice on the firing range. T.J. manages to out-shoot Hondo, who bets $200
that Jim can beat T.J. Accepting the challenge, T.J. faces off against Jim, who ends up victorious
to everyone's surprise except Hondo's. Meanwhile French mobster Alex arrives at Los
Angeles, where the guards almost take away his knife but he manages to keep it by saying
it’s a family gift. After his men welcome him and give him a fake
passport for later, Alex goes to visit his uncle at a local restaurant while pretending
to be there as a birthday surprise. However Alex actually knows his uncle has
been stealing money from the family for a while, so after sharing a meal, Alex quickly
kills his uncle with the knife. Then Alex leaves the restaurant alone in the
car, and eventually he’s pulled over by the cops for a broken taillight. Since the car belongs to Alex’s uncle and
there is an arrest warrant out for him, Alex gets arrested for questioning and verification
of his identity. He tries to bribe the cops to get out of it
to no avail, so Alex ends up in a cell. Back to Hondo, he recruits Jim as his driver
for the day in order to look for some recruits. They first investigate officer Deke, who is
found in the middle of a foot pursuit with a suspect. As those two run through the streets, Hondo
and Jim decide to join the chase, running for a few blocks until they manage to bring
down the suspect. This angers Deke because he wanted to do it
alone, however he calms down when Hondo invites him to join the team. Then they visit another candidate who makes
a bad first impression on Hondo by being a vegetarian, too polite, and too much of a
stickler to last long in Hondo's unit. Next they move on to a Metro police officer
named Chris, who has apparently applied and qualified several times for SWAT but keeps
getting turned down because of several misconduct grievances from suspects filed with Internal
Affairs. They hear Chris is at the local ER and find
his partner keeping watch over a thug with multiple bruises on his face, which were a
gift from Chris. Hondo goes looking for the officer and discovers
Chris is a woman, because "Chris" is short for "Christina". This makes Hondo realize that Fuller probably
kept Chris off the SWAT roster because of her gender and the misconduct complaints were
an excuse, especially when Chris tells Hondo that most of the charges against her came
from resisting violent male perps that couldn't deal with the fact that they were manhandled
by a woman. Hondo likes her right away and offers her
a position on his team. When they return to headquarters, Jim asks
Hondo if he's planning on toying with him for another day or if he's actually gonna
tell him why he took him on this recruitment run. Hondo asks Jim if he wants to be on the team,
and when Jim hesitates because he knows Fuller won’t approve, Hondo asks if Jim gave up
Brian. When Jim says he didn’t, Hondo gives him
the last spot on the team. Later during the meeting to discuss the team,
Fuller rejects both Chris and Jim as expected, but Hondo refuses to back down. Fuller then offers a compromise: he’ll accept
the group as it is but if they fail the preliminary trials needed for SWAT, then Chris goes back
to her Subway routine and Jim and Hondo will both be taken off the force. Hondo agrees, confident his new team can do
it. Soon training begins and squad members get
to know each other. It's revealed that Jim's ex-girlfriend is
Michael's sister, and since Michael assumes Jim did her wrong, there’s some friction
between them and a fight must be stopped by the others before it gets nasty. Hondo puts the group through several tests
like infiltration, armor, weapons, physical conditioning, and long-range shooting, and
while there are some difficulties at first, eventually they are capable of performing
pretty well. When they have a sniper session that uses
cards as targets, the team shows to have exceptional marksmanship skills. They also infiltrate empty buildings in simulation
exercises to learn to work as a team and rescue hostages instead of getting them killed. A few days later it’s time for the team's
final evaluation, which consists of a simulated hostage situation. They’ll have to infiltrate an airplane taken
over by terrorists played by fellow officers armed with paintball guns. The goal is take back control of the aircraft
by taking out all the hijackers within eight minutes. While looking over the plane's schematics,
Jim notices that there’s an alternative entry point to the plane that nobody will
expect: a tiny elevator shaft meant for food trays which no man could fit, but Chris can. The team drives their vehicle underneath the
plane and begins opening a hole in it while one of them climbs over the roof so he can
use the window later. While Chris climbs into the elevator shaft,
the others find a hatch and detect a trap right before it activates. In a few seconds, they manage to defuse it,
and they count to three to attack at the same time. With the team split all over the plane, they
manage to take out all six hijackers with quick shots without losing any hostages, although
T.J. takes a hit that would've been fatal if it
had been real. To Fuller's annoyance, the new team sets a
new course record. That night, the group celebrates by eating
at a cafe owned by Deke's father. After a few hours of eating and drinking,
most of the group heads home except for Chris and Jim, who go to Jim’s favorite bar. While they share more drinks, they’re interrupted
by Brian, who exchanges passive-aggressive comments with Jim until he decides to leave. On his way back, Brian breaks a picture of
him and Jim on the wall. Back to Jim, he tries to make a pass at Chris,
but she turns him down before inviting him to her daughter's birthday party. Meanwhile, Alex tries hiring a lawyer, but
there’s nothing she can do for him, so soon he’s transferred away. The next day, the team enjoys their time off. T.J. goes on a date, Hondo and Velasquez go golfing,
Deke spends the day with his kids, Michael stays home with his wife, and Jim goes to
Chris’s daughter’s birthday party, where he entertains all the kids with a water rifle. However everyone gets their fun interrupted
when they get an emergency call. There’s a "Polish hostage" situation, where
a man has barricaded himself in his house and is randomly firing a shotgun out the window. The man claims to have wired all the entrances
with explosives, and while nobody believes that, Velasquez refuses to take the chance. Jim volunteers his "Key to the city" invention,
which they use to tear down the back wall of the house and neutralize the suspect, ending
the standoff in seconds. Later at the sheriff's department, a deputy
discovers some details about Alex's true identity. This information is sent to Velasquez, who
asks Hondo's unit to intercept and escort the prison bus carrying Alex. Meanwhile Alex's gang has also learned about
the transfer, so two men disguise themselves as cops and use a stolen police car to pull
the bus over. They then climb onto the bus and shoot the
deputies before releasing Alex. When they're about to drive off, Hondo's team
arrives and blocks the street, but the criminals respond by firing, so a shootout ensues. While civilians run away in panic, the team
quickly shoots down all the fake cops, and when Alex tries to escape on the stolen police
car, they shoot at it until it crashes and they recapture Alex. Afterward it’s revealed that Alex is an
international fugitive wanted in over a dozen countries on charges including murder, arms
dealing, and trafficking. Reporters are following the case closely,
so when he’s being led to a holding cell, Alex uses the chance to face the cameras and
offer $100 million as a reward for anyone who can break him out of jail. The newscasts of every channel repeat the
claim over and over as they confirm that Alex has the financial means to back up his promise,
attracting the attention of every outlaw in Los Angeles. Hondo's team is frustrated by this, knowing
it will make their job that much more difficult. Then Hondo's unit goes to the roof to evacuate
Alex by helicopter, but when the chopper is about to reach them, suddenly it gets shot
by an unseen sniper. The helicopter loses control and soon crashes
on the street, where it explodes. The team takes Alex back inside and makes
a new plan: they’ll lead the criminal away via a motorcade. They leave in cars and bikes, ignoring the
crazy fans that want to get Alex’s attention. They have to stop when they find a homeless
man crossing the street very slowly, but this turns out to be a trap, and a bunch of gang
members soon begin attacking the cops. While a few trucks crash against the police
cars, the other criminals open fire and throw smoke grenades, killing a motorcycle cop and
injuring two other officers in the process. However when they try to get Alex, they find
a doll instead. It turns out the vehicles were a decoy, and
Alex is being led down a private access area underground into unmarked cars parked several
blocks away from the headquarters while Velasquez keeps watch from the sky. For a few miles, Hondo's plan goes well, although
Alex keeps insulting them and offering them money. When they cross the second checkpoint, T.J. suddenly stops the car and points his gun
at his own team, having decided to accept Alex’s offer. Jim and Michael attempt to reason with him,
but T.J. is suddenly joined by Brian, who shoots Michael down and reveals himself as
the mastermind behind the operation to break out Alex. After handcuffing Jim to the car, T.J. and
Brian take Alex and flee into the subway. Soon the rest of the team arrives and rescues
Jim while calling the paramedics to treat Michael. Once again they decide to split and Hondo
and Jim chase after the group while Deke and Sachez rush to the next station. Sadly Hondo and Jim miss the train, however
Deke and Chris report that the train never made it to the next station, so both teams
head down the end of the tunnel to investigate. They find the train abandoned midway through
the tunnel, but Brian and his men are gone, only the terrified passengers are there. The driver points them to a storm drain opening
and the team enters it, which causes them to get cut off from the police frequency. Meanwhile Fuller finds out about T.J.'s betrayal
and Brian's involvement and suspects the whole team might be part of the operation to free
Alex, especially since they're no longer responding. When he finds out an unauthorized runway has
been lit up at Hawthorne airport, he suspects that's where Brian is heading so he sends
all available units there. While the team tracks down the criminals through
some sewer tunnels and dodges bats in the process, Brian sets up a booby trap made with
a claymore mine and smoke grenades, although T.J. doesn’t like it very much. Hondo's team ignores the smoke and keeps going,
and when Deke almost triggers the trap, Jim stops him just in time. While Jim disarms the claymore, Brian’s
group reaches the end of the tunnel, and they lock the door behind them before leaving the
area. Eventually Hondo’s team finds this locked
heavy gate, but fortunately Jim can just use the claymore to blow it open. Now their communicators are working again,
and Hondo explains what happened to Fuller, asking him to send vehicles to pick them up. However Fuller doesn't trust Hondo anymore
so he orders the team to quit the mission. Hondo ignores the order and his team ends
up taking over a passing limo. As they take off, Chris notices a low-flying
jet over the city, making them realize that the jet must be Brian's plan for evacuating
Alex and the airport is just a decoy. The team immediately follows the jet, which
is now landing on the Sixth Street bridge. Brian and his men immediately take the jet’s
terrified owners as hostages and board the plane, ready to escape. The team takes the limo to the bridge, and
when two criminals open fire to make the roadblock explode, Hondo just drives through it without
hesitation. The cops open fire to try to stop the plain
and when it doesn’t work, Hondo hits the plane’s landing gear right before it takes
off, causing it to crash. Another gunfight ensues between SWAT and Brian's
men, during which Chris gets hit on the shoulder. Alex tries to run away, but Deke chases him
on foot and immediately recaptures him. Brian leaves the plane safely by using a hostage
as a shield, then he rappels down from the bridge and Jim goes after him. Meanwhile Hondo confronts an injured T.J.,
who says he regrets his actions and asks about Michael. After Hondo confirms that Michael is expected
to recover from his injuries, T.J. pulls out his gun and self-deletes. Back to Jim, he rappels down from the bridge
too and lands on a train yard, where Brian takes him by surprise and stabs his hand before
running away. Jim goes after him, and after dodging a few
moving trains, he tackles Brian to start a hand-to-hand fight. They exchange a bunch of hits on top of the
rails, and when a train suddenly approaches, Jim kicks Brian's head into its path, killing
him instantly. After Jim rejoins his team on the bridge,
Fuller arrives and congratulates everyone for their excellent work, but he also points
out that the job isn’t finished yet. Alex is still in their custody and needs to
be transferred to a federal prison, so the team takes a SWAT truck to deliver Alex to
the authorities. Sometime later after successfully delivering
Alex, a report of a robbery in progress comes onto the police band. Hondo points out that their shift has technically
been over for twelve hours, but the tired team agrees to head out to their next mission
anyway.
