Ok I'm stupid, someone please explain it all to me

For starters, the lock box had nazi papers, ring in box and a bunch of black baggies with diamonds. The prize the bank robbers got were those diamonds. The papers are insurance, the ring in the box is to expose plummer.

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Bank owner got his wealth through Nazi's

Robber was going to steal the money and out him as a Nazi.

In the ending montage he says if he stole the money then he'd be just like the CEO.

So instead he left the ring so that it would be found out that the CEO got his wealth through Nazis by whoever goes through his box.

It wasn't about money, it was about not letting the CEO live his life as 1%er based on Nazi life.

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Well, one would assune that clive owen's character may have, but more likely bernard rachelle's character's family was directly affected by plummers loyalty and bigotry during ww2. So there was a personal motive for the robbery and the 'holding onto the paper trail' of plummers transgressions during the war is just possible future ransom and payoff.

This is a BRILLIANT movie! One of the most underrated films of the millennia. Just awesome. And we could assume that denzel used the 'charity' diamond dropped in his pocket to propose to his girlfriend. All a result of their talk in the bank. The whole thing is truly brilliant. Well -acted masterpiece imho

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What I'm really confused about was the motive for the whole thing. Did Clive Owen do the whole thing just to expose Plummer? But in the end, Denzel keeps the secret and takes his promotion, right? So what was the point? Or Clive Owen knew about the diamond and wanted to steal it, but sees the Nazi paper and figures he'll turn the diamond over to Denzel to expose Plummer, except that by the end, Denzel is basically on Plummer's hush-money payroll. Or does Denzel expose Plummer in the end? I swear I can not make heads or tails of any of it.

At the end of the movie, when Clive Owen exits the bank, he gets into the SUV and there's an older guy sitting in the back behind the passenger seat. He rifles Clive's backpack and says "Where's the ring?"

Now, flash back to earlier in the movie when Plummer is explaining his guilt to Jodie Foster in the barber chair. He says that Nazis stripped the assets from a Jewish banking family, including the ring, and he got it all, and the banking family all died in the concentration camps.

It was never explicitly stated, but here's my take:

The old guy was a relative of the banking family who didn't die in the camps. He hired Clive Owen to steal the contents of the box so that the Jewish family could get revenge against Plummer, knowing that there was evidence of his complicity with the Nazis in that box. How they know any of this I can't explain, other than maybe there was years of surveillance and snooping.

The diamonds taken from the box were just a bonus to Clive, the real task were the incriminating documents. If a family relative could use the documents to prove Plummer's involvement in Nazi plunder, they probably would have a major financial claim against Plummer that could strip him of untold millions -- far more than the $5-10 million a vintage 10 carat Cartier diamond ring, which is why Clive was able to get away with leaving it in the box. Its value was ultimately sentimental, and if Denzel "followed the ring" it would ultimately get returned to the person making the claim against Plummer anyway.

Denzel never liked the ending of the robbery -- it didn't add up and he kept digging, ultimately getting the warrant to open box 392 where he found the ring. "Follow the ring" led him to Plummer as hiding something.

It's not made clear how he tied the ring and Plummer to the Nazis, which was necessary to make the War Crimes play with Foster & the Mayor at the restaurant. The ring was prominently displayed on screen in a vintage Cartier box. I don't know, but I'd guess that the ring could probably be traced to its original owner through Cartier or possibly even because the stone was so large and well known -- diamonds of that cut and size I think leave a trail in the diamond biz.

Denzel's play with Foster and the Mayor was his way of protecting himself and going at Plummer. He had the ring entered in police evidence and let Foster know he knew that she was protecting a Nazi collaborator. I don't think Denzel meant to take it any further, he was only doing it as insurance against Foster so the he wouldn't see any blowback. It's open speculation whether Denzel himself had already called the War Crimes office, but I doubt he did.

The loose diamond in his pocket was planted by Owen when he bumped Washington leaving the bank. It was one of the bag of loose diamonds from the safety deposit box, not the large Cartier ring from the safety deposit box.

Bottom line is that it was never a "bank robbery" at all, it was a heist of Plummer's Nazi records. The bank robbery was just a misdirection.

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You're not stupid. You're simply not a) currently unemployed and b) an obsessive compulsive. Thankfully, I'm both and I'm here to make sense of it all. I watched and re-watched scenes, and even compared them to a scene summary on the internet. Here's everything you need to know and nothing more.

First, here's the list of the five gang members with brief bios:

-Chaim. He is Jewish, his nephew is in the diamond business, and he tells another hostage that he used to be a lawyer but now he teaches courses at Columbia Law in "genocide, slave labor, and war reparations claims." We should infer that he is the one who knew about Arthur Case's theft of the ring and that it was probably his idea to carry out the heist. Also, he is a well-known customer at the bank -- at the start of the film, he's seen sitting and chatting with a bank employee as though they are old friends. He's might be the one who knows the bank layout and communicated the details to Dalton.

-Steve-O. The character's name is Darius Peltz. He is the guy who, while pretending to be a hostage, takes off his mask and gets dragged away and beaten. His last name is German, and it means "furrier." We can infer that he might be Jewish. Coincidentally, he has the same first name as the head cop.

-Steve. The character's name is Ken Demurjian. He's Armenian, born in New York. Thousands of Jews immigrated to Armenia during WW II, then thousands left the country starting in the early 1980s. Ken might be the American-born son of Armenian Jews. Both Darius and Ken are the right age to be Chaim's students, which may be how they got involved. When Frazier tours the inside of the bank, he sees both Steve and Stevie bound and gagged as hostages.

-Dalton Russell. The narrator, who figured out the plan for the heist. It's implied that he may have been hired -- possibly by Chaim. Dalton's name is English and Scottish, so although he may be Jewish, it's less likely than it is for the other gang members. He says he's doing it for the pay and "because he can," which could imply that he's motivated by the intellectual challenge rather than by a personal stake in righting wrongs. That said, he does seem to be ethical.

-Stevie. Dalton's girlfriend. We don't ever learn her name. She might be involved simply because she's Dalton's girlfriend, but she does know how to pick locks. Conversely, she may be Jewish and/or one of Chaim's students, and she is the one who connected them to Dalton. Near the end, she says, something like, "He did it. Just like he planned," implying that she's proud of him for carrying this off. That could mean she's the one who recommended him to the others.

Okay, so now you know that the gang is led by a Jewish expert on war reparations, and may have at least two other Jewish members, and that Dalton is probably a hired hand. Also, Chaim is a bank customer familiar with the bank.

What is the gang's motive?

The have two goals:

They want to steal the diamonds and see Arthur Case publicly exposed for his crimes. They may intend to use most or all of the diamonds to help Holocaust survivors, minus whatever they pay Dalton.

The loose diamonds are evidence of nothing, but the ring can be identified as the one stolen from the wealthy French Jewish family whom Case sent to their deaths. That's why Chaim says, "Where is the ring? That's the whole point." Dalton tells him the ring is in good hands, and Chaim accepts that answer. If they wanted to sell the ring, that answer wouldn't have been acceptable.

Why does Dalton leave the ring for Frazier to find?

During the heist, Madeline White (played by Jodie Foster) enters the bank to talk to Dalton. This is how Dalton finds out that Arthur Case suspects the bank robbers might find his secret (although Case probably thinks they are simply trying to rob the bank, not expose him). Dalton sees that Case is able and willing to hire someone to protect his interests. And that the person he hired is powerful enough to work her way through the police to retrieve the contents of the safety deposit box.

Later, he meets Frazier. He sees how smart and dedicated Frazier is. He trusts Frazier to figure out what Case is guilty of.

The fact that he trusts Frazier to do the ethical thing and expose Case -- well, I confess that's a bit of a mystery to me. Either he has a gut feeling or he's heard something while bugging the cops that makes him understand that Frazier wasn't in on the "check cashing scheme" but is being blamed for the missing $140,000. Earlier, Madeline said he's being blamed because he "wasn't diplomatic enough," which implies that some cops were in on the scheme and Frazier might've called them on it. So maybe Dalton heard something (I don't recall) or maybe trusting him is just an instinct.

So here's what Dalton is thinking:

-If we go ahead as planned and expose Arthur Case ourselves, Madeline will find a way to thwart us. It also makes me more vulnerable to being caught.
-On the other hand, if we leave the ring for Frazier, he'll solve the mystery and Arthur Case will be exposed without risk to ourselves. It's also more likely to succeed because the entire police department will become aware of the ring. It doesn't hurt that Frazier is a nice guy who needs a promotion. Solving the mystery of this ring could help him do that, whereas it doesn't do anything for us.

So Dalton leaves the ring in the safety deposit box, along with the gum that shows he opened the box (otherwise the ring could be seen as the complete original contents of the box -- Frazier doesn't know that there were diamonds and Nazi documents in there earlier) and a note to "Follow the Ring."

Remember that Dalton didn't expect the Nazi documents to be in the box -- just the diamonds and the ring. Probably the only people who know about those documents are Dalton, his girlfriend, Arthur Case, and Madeline (after he shows them to her). He says he's keeping them to exchange for Arthur Case's help if he gets caught. This is another clue that Dalton is in this mostly for the pay and the mental challenge, not mainly to expose Case. Dalton doesn't want to get caught, so he leaves the ring to allow Frazier to do the work of exposing Case.

Why does Frazier bring the ring to the Mayor and Madeline White?

To understand this, let's go over what Madeline knows and when she knows it.
When she meets Arthur Case, she tells him "no guarantees" and if she finds something dangerous, the deal is off. He agrees. At this point, she thinks this is a simple bank robbery but that Arthur Case doesn't want to risk the robbers (or later, the police) opening the safe deposit box. So when she tells him she can make sure no one touches it, she thinks that all she needs to do is offer them 2 million dollars in exchange for letting her take the contents of the box.

When she meets Dalton, she finds out that Arthur Case worked with the Nazis. This is the first she hears of this. And remember, she is somewhat ethical herself. When she meets with Bin Laden's nephew, she says, "You haven't seen your uncle in 9 years?" She's clearly done research before agreeing to work with him, and it sounds like she wouldn't work with him if she thought he was involved with terrorist activities.

She's also finding out during her meeting with Dalton that the robbers knew about Arthur Case's past and that Dalton is keeping this document as insurance. That's a much trickier situation. She can't solve this as easily. But Dalton explains that he'll give Arthur back the documents in exchange for his help if Dalton gets caught. So at this point it seems like Arthur is safe as long as the robbers don't get caught. And even if they do, they'll bring the documents to Arthur instead of the police. So all is well enough.

To make sure the robbers aren't caught, she uses her influence with the police for them to bury the case. Only it doesn't work on Frazier, who goes to the judge to get a search warrant for the safe deposit box. Madeline hears about this through her connections and she is waiting for Frazier when he leaves the judge's chambers. She thinks she has the upper hand because Frazier can still be blamed for the missing $140,000. But that's when Frazier explains that he recorded her and the mayor trying to both bribe and blackmail him to do something unethical. So now he has the upper hand and she has to let him go ahead and inspect the safe deposit box.

During her conversation with Frazier, he asks her what Arthur Case is trying to hide. He's figured out that only Arthur could afford to hire her, could omit that safe deposit box from the police records, etc. She tells him that Arthur made money from other people's misfortunes during WW II. She doesn't tell him Arthur worked with the Nazis.

After that, as a safety measure, she uses her influence to get Frazier promoted to First Class Detective and clears him of the check cashing scheme, hoping that will convince him to abandon the bank case. After all, he no longer needs to prove himself in order to be promoted. All he needs to do is play along. Plus she kinda needs to promote him so that he won't blackmail her with his recording.

She collects her pay from Arthur. At this point, she's recently found out that the robbers didn't take anything else. (Before this, she assumed they were going to take money from the bank, too.) So she's figured out that there must've been diamonds in the box. Diamonds are pretty much standard wartime currency, so her hypothesis makes sense.

Now this is when Arthur tells her there is also a ring that can be traced back to him. He tells her partly as a confession for something he deeply regrets, but partly because he still might need her to protect him if the ring surfaces. She thinks the robbers have the ring, and so she probably still thinks they just want it as insurance. So she reassures Arthur.

But! When Frazier gets his promotion, it doesn't dissuade him from looking in the safe deposit box. When he finds the ring, he knows it's Arthur's but he doesn't know what it means. So he goes to see Arthur to see if he can get him to break down and confess to something. Arthur doesn't.

So Frazier's next step is to go to the mayor and Madeline. Frazier could try to solve the mystery himself, but he knows that Madeline has the details already -- or at least, he suspects she knows more than he does. He brings them the ring and says "somebody has to go to jail," implying that he will turn them in with his recording unless they turn Arthur in. Immediately, Madeline says, "How would you like to be on the front page of the New York Times?" This means she's saying yes, that she'll turn Arthur in. Frazier says great and then gives her the recording back. In other words, he's saying that's all he wanted: he has his promotion, he's cleared of wrongdoing in the check cashing scheme, and he's solved the crime and caught Arthur." He's giving her the recording in exchange for her turning in Arthur.

Madeline has already told Frazier that Arthur made money during the war, so that's how he knows to give her the war crimes phone number.

Why doesn't Frazier just turn Arthur in himself?

He knows that Arthur is being protected. If he turns Arthur in, it will probably be just like the check cashing scheme. Everyone will be pressured, from the top down, to cover this up and Frazier will be the fall guy. Only Madeline has the power and influence to out Arthur as a criminal. So Frazier goes to her.

Frazier hasn't kept Arthur's crime a secret. He's exposing Arthur's crime. And he didn't cooperate with the mayor and Madeline that night because they offered him a promotion -- he cooperated because they told him they'd make things worse for him if he didn't. When he gets the promotion, he still goes forth to solve the bank heist -- in other words, he's committed to earning his promotion.

But when Frazier discovers that Dalton bumped into him and left a diamond in his pocket, it's implied that Frazier will keep the diamond and won't pursue Dalton (not that he has much to pursue him on -- just a description of him in street clothes). However, it doesn't really hurt anyone for him to keep the diamond.

It's a great use of doing wrong to accomplish right. I hope this explanation helps.

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It was well planned out. There were no loose ends. They were probably planning it for years.

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