Snake Eyes

A boisterous and corrupt Atlantic City police detective, Rick Santoro (Nicolas Cage) attends a heavyweight championship boxing match. Also there is his best friend, U.S. Navy Commander Kevin Dunne (Gary Sinise), who is part of a group at ringside that includes Defense Secretary Charles Kirkland.

With the fight in progress, a woman named Julia Costello (Carla Gugino) sits beside Santoro to speak, furtively, to the Secretary of Defense. Suddenly there are gunshots, wounding her and mortally injuring Kirkland. There is chaos in the arena as the fight is stopped and fans stampede toward the exits.

During his investigation, Santoro realizes gradually that the assassination was planned by a conspiracy which includes his friend Kevin. Kirkland, a politician, was killed because he intended to cancel a missile project of which Kevin approved strongly and which was contracted to a corporate executive who was also part of the conspiracy. The plan included the death of Julia Costello, who had been trying to warn Kirkland that some of the project test results had been falsified. Santoro has been bullying people and accepting payoffs for years, and is offered a million-dollar payoff from the conspirators to conceal the evidence and tell them the location of Julia so she can be killed, but Santoro chooses instead to risk his life to rescue Julia and publicize the conspiracy. He does this, and the publicity resulting causes scrutiny of his behavior which results in his being charged with crimes. At the end of the story Julia finds him on Atlantic City's boardwalk: he has been convicted and will have to serve some prison time, but she asks him to meet her after he is released.