Snake looks at Brain. He knows this guy, Harold Helman. Brain puts down his book and stands up. Maggie is curious that Snake calls him Harold and didn't know that Brain knew Snake. Cabbie chimes in asking Brain for some gas if he can spare some. No one pays attention. Snake advances on Brain. Brain sits down. Snake tells him a man should remember his past. Kansas City, four years ago. Brain ran out on Snake, left him sitting there. Brain claims Snake was late, but Snake says they were buddies along with Fresno Bob, he should have waited.

He suddenly kicks Brain's chair into the wall, points his gun, and demands the President's location. Maggie draws a knife and starts advancing on Snake, but stops when he threatens to shoot Brain. Brain claims he doesn't know. Snake threatens to beat it out of Maggie, but Brain claims she Maggie doesn't know exactly where he is. Snake takes his gun away. He contemplates Brain. Snake tries another approach, he offers to take him out of the city if he can bring him to the President. He tells Brain about the jet glider. Everyone realizes the importance of this.

Maggie explains that the Duke, a powerful gang leader, the self-proclaimed "Duke of New York", and the leader of the Gypies, is taking everybody out of here. Snake says that will never happen. He continues that they do not have long before Mr. President won't mean a whole lot. Brain accuses him of lying, but Maggie is doubtful. Snake plays along, sure he's lying he states, so he might as well have some fun and keep looking by himself. He cocks his gun and points it at Brain again. Maggie implores to Brain to talk to Snake or he will kill both of them. Brain finally relents. Snake lowers the gun.

Snake, Maggie, Cabbie and Brain all walk out. Brain tells Snake he works for the Duke. Make gas and figure out things for him like how to get across the 69th street bridge -- it's mined. Brain knows where they're planted, they got a diagram from a guy that got all the way across before they shot the poor bastard. They have a crew up there now clearing the way across the first barricade. The three of them cross into the street. Cabbie panics, he recognizes the sound of the Duke's car engine. We get one glimpse of the Duke's car.

Then we realize that Cabbie is gone and his cab is racing away. The Duke's car heads right for us. The two of them run off. After a while, Snake follows. The three of them hide. The Duke's car is an old Chrysler with chandeliers suspended over the headlights. It's in a caravan of three, leading the way. A fourth car comes up later. The Duke is sitting in the passenger seat of a car with Romero in the back. The Duke gets out of the car, Romero at his side. The Duke is wearing a cowboy hat, sunglasses, a snazzy jacket, bluejeans, and boots. He looks tough.

He sends Romero to knock on the door. Maggie realize they are looking for Brain. Brain figures the Duke wants his diagram of the bridge. The Duke plans to lead a mass escape across the mined and heavily guarded 69th Street Bridge, using the President as a human shield and hostage. Snake insists they should get to the President now, while the Duke is busy, but Brain says they have no wheels and it's on the other side of town. Snake forces Brain and his girlfriend Maggie to lead him back to The Duke's compound.

After stealing a car from one of the Duke's henchmen, Snake, Brain, and Maggie drive through Skulls gang country along Broadway, bearly escaping. Snake finds the President whom is being held in an abandoned railroad car in what was the Grand Central Train Station, but his rescue fails and he is captured after Brain apparently betrays Snake.

The next day, Snake is forced to fight with a giant power-house brute (Ox Baker), Brain and Maggie trick Romero and the Duke's men into letting them have access to the President. After killing Romero and the guards, they free the President and flee to Snake's glider hoping to escape with the President.

Meanwhile, Snake defeats his huge opponent, impressing the crowd. When the Duke learns the President has escaped with Brain, he is furious, and he rounds up his gang to chase them down. In the confusion, Snake slips away and manages to catch up with Brain, Maggie and the President at the glider, but during their attempted getaway, a gang of inmates, called the Indians, push it off the building. Snake and the others soon find Cabbie, and Snake takes the wheel of his cab, heading for the bridge.

When Cabbie reveals that he has the nuclear fusion tape (traded to him from Romero who guarded the President and stole it), the President demands it, but Snake takes it. With the Duke chasing them in his Cadillac, Snake and the others drive over the mine-strewn bridge. After the cab hits a land mine, the cab is destroyed and Cabbie is killed. As the others flee on foot, Brain is killed by a mine and Maggie refuses to leave him.

She attempts to hold off the Duke's car by firing at him with a handgun, and she succeeds in forcing Duke's car (a distinctive vehicle with ornate chandeliers mounted on either side of the car's hood) to crash, but he crashes into her, killing her, and he continues his pursuit on foot. Snake and the President reach the containment wall, and the guards raise the President on a rope.

The Duke then attacks Snake, but the President shoots the Duke with a submachine gun, killing him (this is indicated to be done in revenge for the torture The Duke put him through). Snake is then lifted to safety, and the mini-explosives implanted in his neck are deactivated with X-rays with seconds to spare.

At Liberty Island, as the President prepares for a televised speech, he distractedly thanks Snake for saving him. Snake asks him how he feels about the numerous men and women who died saving his life, but the President only offers half-hearted regret that visibly disgusts Snake as he sees the President, a trembling and helpless captive, revert back to his self-assured personality.

After Snake is pardoned, he decides he will not kill Hauk at this time and leaves the prison. Hauk thanks him for the rescue, and offers the incredulous anti-hero a job of working for the government in other top secret missions. Snake, alienated with the nation he once served with honor, refuses. Hauk tells Snake to think about the offer and notes: "we make quite a team, huh, Snake?"

Snake replies: "the name's Plissken!" The President's speech commences and he offers the content of the cassette to the summit. To the President's embarrassment, the tape has been switched for a cassette of the swing song "Bandstand Boogie" (the theme from American Bandstand), Cabbie's favorite song. Snake had apparently switched tapes during the chase across the bridge.

At the base, Snake keeps limping. He pulls a tape out of his pocket, yanks the `all-important nuclear fusion magnetic tape out (the only thing to save mankind from nuclear war), winds it around his hand, rips it to shreds, and throws the tape away. Smiling as he walks off into the night.