Haskell (Michael Caine) is assigned a job by his boss, the aristocratic Landon-Higgins (James Fox), to highjack a high security van in broad daylight while it's in the shadow run (out of radio contact with the main security firm). He assembles a team to carry out the heist, but things don't go according to plan and Haskell begins to think his boss might be double crossing him. Add to this, a teenage boarding school pupil has already witnessed some of the meetings of the team and Haskell's in real trouble.

In 1879 South Africa, the administrators of the British Cape Colony have designs to eliminate the Zulus as a hindrance to their colonial economy. To that end, the British present King Cetshwayo with an impossible ultimatum to provoke a war they are sure they can win easily with their rifles and artillery against native spears. However, that war proves more difficult than the arrogant British commander, Lord Chelmsford, expects as his overburdened army fruitlessly searches for the elusive enemy. However, in the shadow of a hill called Isandlwana, the overconfident British army learns to its sorrow just how badly they have underestimated the tactical skill and might of the Zulu nation.