Synopsis
Longtime friends Sonny (Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson), Vincent (Ryan Phillippe), and Dave are petty thieves, but Vincent has planned a job that will set them up for life. Sonny’s tired of the life of crime, his conscience eating at him to find a better way of life. Dave wants to build a new life with his wife Valerie. And Vincent is under the gun to pay off some gangsters whose protection is keeping his father out of prison general population.
Sonny and Dave are unaware of Vincent’s desperation, and they never see his betrayal coming. In dire need of the entire take from their successful robbery of a diamond courier, Vincent turns on his friends and shoots them both. Dave leaves his wife a widow, but Sonny miraculously survives.
Sonny wants nothing more than to find Vincent and kill him, but his near death experience only intensifies his hunch that it’s time to put his life of crime behind him. His first stop is a hair salon, where his friend JOEY works. No one has ears to the street like Joey. He patches Sonny up and refers him to a group of gangsters who might know Vincent’s whereabouts. Sonny confronts the gangsters, then robs them, drawing the attention of the city’s most feared crime boss, BIGGS (Bruce Willis).
Fortunately, Biggs takes a liking to Sonny and asks him to accompany an associate named PETEY on a collection. The task goes smoothly, until Petey accidentally shoots himself. Sonny knows that Biggs will never believe the truth, so he lays low and continues to search for Vincent. Sonny tracks Vincent to a nightclub, but Vincent manages to escape. Vincent hasn’t had time to convert their score into hard cash, and the gangsters are after him to pay protection money. To make matters worse, Roth, the owner of the diamonds they stole will stop at nothing to recover his property.
Seeing Valerie at Dave’s graveside increases Sonny’s feelings of guilt and shame and intensifies his moral dilemma. He wants a clean conscience and he wants Vincent to pay with his life. But which does he want more?
He comes up with a plan to pit Biggs against Vincent. The confrontation doesn’t go as planned, but at least it brings Vincent out of hiding and sets up a man-to-man finale. Sonny confronts Vincent and learns the hard truth: that Vincent never thought their friendship was never more to Vincent than a means to an end.
Exploring themes of friendship and betrayal, set against the backdrop of the Detroit underworld, “Setup” is an action packed ride featuring towering performances from Bruce Willis and Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, together for the first time on-screen.