Sascha Petrosevitch (STEVEN SEAGAL) is a car thief who's brought in by criminal Nick Frazier (JA RULE) to work for crime syndicate boss Sonny Eckvall (RICHARD BREMMER). When FBI Special Agent Ellen "E.Z." Williams (CLAUDIA CHRISTIAN) and her team show up to nab Nick, however, things go bad and Sascha ends up shot.
After eight months of recovery following his brief bout of being clinically dead from the shooting, Sascha is incarcerated along with Nick in the newly reopened Alcatraz prison. Run by the charismatic warden, El Fuego (TONY PLANA), the place is known for its new state of the art death chamber where the condemned can choose from five different ways to die.
Lester (BRUCE WEITZ) is the first prisoner scheduled to be executed. An older man, he stole $200 million worth of gold bricks in a heist that resulted in five deaths. Federal Bureau of Prisons head Frank Hubbard (STEPHEN J. CANNELL) and Supreme Court Justice June McPherson (LINDA THORSON) have arrived to watch the execution that's a result of her sentencing him.
Yet, she's not the only one interested in Lester. A small but well-equipped team of terrorists - the "49ers" - have parachuted onto the island and gained control of it. Led by 49er One, a.k.a. Donny Johnson (MORRIS CHESTNUT), Hubbard's assistant, and 49er Six (NIA PEEPLES), the team finds Lester and wants him to give up the location of his hidden stash of gold.
When he won't tell them, Donny shoots a nearby priest and threatens to kill others if the info isn't delivered. His plan is disrupted, however, when Sascha decides to step in and save the day. It seems that he's really an undercover FBI agent who's trying to use Nick to get to Sonny. When he rescues Lester, the 49ers grab Justice McPherson and threaten to kill her, all while Agent Williams and her team prepare their plan from the mainland.
From that point on and with the help of Nick and other inmates such as Twitch (KURUPT) and Little Joe (MICHAEL "BEAR" TALIFERRO), Sascha sets out to rescue the Justice and stymie the criminals' plan.