Plot
Cosimo (Luis Guzmán) and Toto (Michael Jeter) attempt to steal a car and Cosimo gets caught. In jail, he meets an old man who tells him about a Bellini - a perfect heist -- which he cannot pull off because of his jail sentence. Cosimo wants his girlfriend/fiancée, Rosalind (Patricia Clarkson), to find a "Mullinski" (a first time crook to take the fall for his crime of grand theft auto) so that he can get out of jail and pull off this Bellini. After talking to Toto, Basil (Andrew Davoli), Leon (Isaiah Washington), and Pero (Sam Rockwell) - and telling them the basics of the "Bellini" in the process - Pero is paid $16,000 to confess to Cosimo's crime. In jail, he gets Cosimo to tell him what the Bellini is, and then lets him know that his sentence was suspended so that he walks out a free man, leaving Cosimo to rot in jail. When he gets home, Pero is confronted by Cosimo's girlfriend, Rosalind, and some of the other people she asked to take the fall for Cosimo, including: Riley, whose wife is in jail and he to take care of his baby (or get $1000 to pay her fine), Leon, and Toto. Pero tells them he used the money to pay off his debts, but reveals the Bellini.
A brick building on Chester used to be a flour factory. Later it was converted, half into apartments and half into a jewelry store. The old man in jail was hired to work on the renovation. He created a small false wall between one of the apartments and the room with the jewelry store safe. Pero, Riley, Leon, Toto, and Rosalind all agree to go in on the heist together. Riley sold all of his camera equipment to buy baby supplies, but goes to a street market and steals a video camera so that they can record the owner opening the safe and get the combination. After many failed attempts to record the combination, they hire a safe cracker, Jerzy, to teach them how to crack the safe. The gang have to watch out for Sgt. Babitch, who is keeping a close eye on them. They are shocked to find that a pair of maiden aunts and a young woman named Carmela have moved into the vacant apartment. Leon and Basil pretend to accost Carmela and Pero comes to her "rescue." He gets a date with her and takes her to the street carnival. In the meantime, a guard watching over Cosimo suddenly falls down dead. Cosimo takes the guard's uniform and uses it to escape from jail. He confronts Pero in the funhouse at the carnival, and then the gang and a fight breaks out. Cosimo doesn't want to share the Bellini, and hits Rosalind for betraying him. They try to convince him that they can split the take equally, but Cosimo threatens to kill anyone who tries to pull off his heist. Rosalind leaves the group, no longer interested in the heist.
Pero finds that he is falling for Carmela. She reveals that the aunts will be out of town for several days. That same night Cosimo dies in a bus accident. Basil meets Leon's sister, Michelle, and they begin dating even though she's engaged; Michelle tells Basil that she wants an "honest man". Pero, having lied about the $16,000, gives it to Babitch to let them do the job. The night of the heist, Riley leaves his baby with Rosalind, but on his way to meet up at Pero's apartment he gets his arm broken by the men he stole the video camera from. His arm is in a cast and he's taken almost a bottleful of Vicodin (narcotic painkillers). Leon, having found out about Michelle and Basil, confronts him. Basil admits that he can't pull the heist because he got an honest job in order to be worthy of Michelle. He leaves. During the heist, everything that can go wrong, does. Riley is completely drugged, Toto loses his pants, Pero bites off the tip of his tongue, the janitor comes in to check on the apartment while the guys are there, and they realize that the floor plans they got were incorrect. They break through the wrong wall (into the kitchen) at 3am and realize there is not enough time to get it right and crack open the safe. Toto finds $1,000 in the cookie jar. While reheating dinner on the stove in the aunts' apartment, they accidentally blow up the stove. The end scene is the group after the explosion standing at the bus stop. Riley suggests that they shouldn't see one another again. As he is getting on the bus, Pero looks at Leon and Toto, and all agree to give Riley the $1000 to get his wife out of jail. Leon heads home to apologize to his sister and tells Pero to let him know when he gets another Bellini. As Pero leaves, Toto asks him about Carmela, and tells him that it's important to have someone to walk with, more so than money.
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