Asphalt Jungle is one of those films that involves a trigger or mistake that causes everything else to tumble over. Erwin Riedenschneider hires three men, specifically with individual capabilities such as an expert opening a safe, a driver, and a hooligan. Erwin had asked Alonzo Emmerich (a rich lawyer) for money to pay the three men for their service, and he agreed. The plan was to rob a store with expensive jewels. As the story moves forward, things start to unravel itself. When the crime is almost done, the explosion used to open the safe seems to have set off the alarm. This causes the police to scatter and search, and in the process Louie, the safecracker, gets hit by a bullet and later dies.

It’s revealed later on, that Alonzo never had the money in the first place, in fact that he owes money. So he ends up planning a double cross which involves leaving the stolen jewels with Alonzo, but Erwin and the hooligan, Dix, oversee the double cross, and while Dix shoots the detective working alongside Alonzo, he himself gets wounded. At the end, Gus, the driver gets arrested, Alonzo kills himself when the police visit him at home, and Louie dies. Erwin eventually gets caught by the police, and Dix reaches his homeland, where he collapses and I assume he dies.

A miscalculation the explosion caused the alarm to set off, and from there after, it was a chain of events that happened. If the plan had went well, I’m sure they would’ve gotten away with it, but then again, there was still the double cross.