Build a movie plot around this: Why did Tyler throw the fight? To pay his gambling debts.
Set during one long night, corrupt, flamboyant Atlantic City police detective Rick Santoro (Nicolas Cage) attends a boxing match at Gilbert Powell's (John Heard) Atlantic City Arena between heavyweight champion Lincoln Tyler (Stan Shaw) and challenger Jose Pacifico Ruiz. He meets up with his best friend since childhood, Kevin Dunne (Gary Sinise), who is a US Navy Commander working with the Department of Defense to escort Defense Secretary Charles Kirkland (Joel Fabiani) and Powell at the fight after a trip to Norfolk, Virginia. As the first round begins, Dunne is distracted by an attractive redhead named Serena (Jayne Heitmeyer) who wears a ruby ring, and leaves his seat, which is then taken by Julia Costello (Carla Gugino), a mysterious woman with silver-lined eyeglasses, platinum blonde hair and a white satin suit.When Tyler is unexpectedly knocked out by Ruiz, gunshots ring out, mortally wounding Kirkland and grazing Julia Costello's left arm, who loses her glasses and blonde wig, revealing her naturally dark hair. Dunne kills the sniper, and Santoro orders the arena to be locked down. Despite the lock down, Costello escapes into the casino, covers her wounds in pieces of cloth from her blouse and after stealing a blue satin jacket, disguises herself as a hooker.Santoro becomes suspicious when he notices that the "knocked out" Tyler woke up instantly when the shots rang out, and after studying the fight tape, realizes the knockout punch didn't connect. Tyler confesses that he threw the fight in order to pay gambling debts, but he was never told that anyone would be killed, and reveals that he was paid to take a dive by Serena, the same woman in red who tricked Dunne into leaving his post.With the involvement of Tyler, Serena and the sniper - in addition to the man who signaled Tyler to go down and whoever gave him the go-ahead - Santoro suspects a conspiracy and reveals everything he has learned to Dunne. Dunne confesses that the trip to Norfolk was for a test of the AirGuard missile defense system, which...