Plot
Two U.S. Diplomatic Security Service agents are gunned down while trying to intercept a briefcase exchange taking place in a United Nations parking garage. The murders are caught on a CCTV camera but the killer escapes with the top secret information.
Six months later, tow truck driver Mark Warren (Wesley Snipes) is arrested for a weapons violation after a firefighter finds a pistol in his truck after a car accident, enabling the Chicago Police Department to discover he is the federal fugitive Mark Roberts wanted for the double-homicide. Roberts boards a prisoner transport back to New York, sharing the flight with Deputy U.S. Marshal Samuel Gerard (Tommy Lee Jones), who is escorting prisoners unrelated to Roberts' case. Roberts thwarts an assassination attempt by Chinese prisoner Vincent Ling with a zip gun, but the bullet pierces the window and depressurizes the cabin, forcing a crash landing. Gerard discovers Roberts has fled the crash site and DSS Special Agent John Royce (Robert Downey Jr.) is assigned to join Gerard's team to hunt Roberts. Later, Roberts hijacks a truck and runs a police car off the road before escaping. Gerard's team track him in the woods and while looking, Roberts takes Royce Hostage. Gerard finds them and a stand off occurs which ends with Roberts shooting Gerard and escaping into the swamp.
Roberts makes it to New York City, secures money, weapons and fake ID, and begins conducting surveillance on Chinese attaché/spy Xiang Chen (Michael Paul Chan). In Chicago, Gerard and the marshals pursue several leads, including Roberts' girlfriend Marie Bineaux (Irène Jacob) as well as the airplane mechanic who hid the zip gun, the latter of whom the marshals find killed by Chen. Gerard and team watch the UN surveillance footage of the murders in the parking garage and realize that Roberts acted in self-defense and was wearing gloves; thus couldn't have been identified by fingerprints at the scene as was claimed. Confronted with the evidence, DSS Director Bertram Lamb (Patrick Malahide) informs Gerard that "Mark Roberts" is in fact Mark Sheridan, a highly-trained covert operative that went rogue during an investigation to find the mole within the U.S. State Department that had been selling secrets to China. Chen was the contact delivering the money to Sheridan for the information and when DSS agents tried to apprehend him, Sheridan killed them and disappeared.
Eventually, the team catches up with Sheridan in the Bohemian National Cemetery where Sheridan meets with, and threatens to expose, DSS Special Agent Frank Barrows (Rick Snyder) as one of the conspirators who framed him. Chen tries to snipe Sheridan as he leaves the cemetery, but inadvertently kills Barrows instead. Sheridan flees to a retirement home followed by Gerard, Royce and Deputy Marshal Noah Newman (Tom Wood), while Chen is caught and detained by Deputy Marshals Savannah Cooper (LaTanya Richardson) and Bob Biggs (Daniel Roebuck). At the retirement home, Gerard and Royce chase Sheridan to the eighth floor and search for him, room by room. Royce walks in the room of an emphysemic patient where Sheridan jumps on him and the two fight. Newman overhears the fight and walks into the room where he witnesses Royce holding Sheridan at gunpoint. Royce suddenly shoots Newman with his Taurus PT945 pistol and later lies to the team, claiming Sheridan got a shot off and Newman walked into it. Sheridan escapes by jumping from the building onto the roof of a passing Metro-North train. Newman is mortally wounded, and dies during the ambulance ride to the hospital, with a devastated Gerard by his side.
After finding empty motion sickness pill containers in a stolen car, Gerard tracks down Sheridan on a freighter bound for Canada. During a brief scuffle, Sheridan gains the upper-hand and grabs Gerard's gun, aiming it at him but then lowering it without taking the shot. Sheridan is then shot from behind by Royce who fires rather recklessly, almost hitting Gerard. The Marshal notices the D.S.S. agent now carries a Glock 22. Sheridan is taken into custody.
Gerard begins to suspect Royce may be associated with the mole within the U.S. State Department when Royce hands him the pistol he used to kill Newman (Gerard is tipped off because Royce has filed off the serial number, but he still remembers Royce showing it to him when they first met). Left alone to guard Sheridan's hospital room, Royce wakes Sheridan up, releases him from his restraints and plants a knife to claim an attempted escape and therefore justifiable self-defense in shooting Sheridan. Gerard interrupts Royce before he can shoot a weakened Sheridan with his Glock and tricks him into revealing his status as the rogue agent, before revealing that he has also removed Royce's magazine to disarm him. Royce pulls his concealed backup firearm but is shot by Gerard on warning from Sheridan. After leaving the hospital, Sheridan's charges are dropped and he is released. Gerard then takes his team out to drink a toast as a tribute to Newman.
Read more about this topic: U.S. Marshals (film)
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