Locked in a high-tech English manor, bound in a deadly duel of wits, Andrew Wyke (Caine) and Milo Tindle (Law) come together as English gentlemen to discuss the matter of Wyke's wife: the woman both are sleeping with. But as wit becomes wicked and clever becomes cutthroat, Wyke and Tindle's game of one-upmanship spirals out of control in an escalating chess match that can have only one outcome: murder.