MATT and ANNA are a young couple living in London. Anna is starting her career and knows what she wants, whilst Matt is still struggling to find his purpose in life. On the surface they are happy but tensions are beginning to mount. Then one morning masked thugs break into the flat and kidnap Anna before assaulting Matt, locking him into a mysterious vest and leaving him a mobile phone. Matt is told the vest contains a package which he must deliver by following instructions issued to him via the mobile phone. If he fails, tries to seek help, or deviates from their instructions, they will kill Anna. Over the course of one day Matt has to make his way across London in a desperate bid to save his girlfriend as a host of characters attempt to derail him from his mission.

In England, retired marine Harry Brown spends his lonely life between the hospital, where his beloved wife Kath is terminally ill, and playing chess with his only friend Leonard Attwell in the Barge pub owned by Sid Rourke. After the death of Kath, Len tells his grieving friend that the local gang is harassing him and he is carrying an old bayonet for self-defense; the widower suggests him to go to the police. When Len is beaten, then stabbed to death in an underground passage, Inspector Alice Frampton and her partner Sergeant Terry Hicock are sent to investigate. They pay Harry a visit but don't have good news; the police have not found any other evidence, other than the bayonet, in order to arrest the hoodlums. This mean that should the case go to trial the gang would claim self-defense. Harry Brown sees that justice will not be granted and decides to take matters into his own hands.

In a daring attempt to end the war by Christmas, Winston Churchill and the British High Command hatch an extraordinary plan - Operation Market Garden. 35,000 British troops are dropped behind enemy lines in German occupied Holland. In the midst of the largest airborne invasion in history, one small unit of men, codename "Matchbox" has it's own agenda. When Matchbox are shot down short of their landing zone, the odds of their success seem hopeless. Seven very different British soldiers find themselves separated from the Allied invasion, on a collision course with three renegade German soldiers who also want to lay claim to the horde.