- A nonconformist San Francisco cop is determined to find the underworld kingpin who killed the witness under his protection.
- San Francisco Police Lieutenant Bullitt's tasked by ambitious Walter Chalmers, to guard Johnny Ross, a Chicago mobster who's about to turn evidence against the organisation. Chalmers wants Ross' safety at all cost, or else Bullitt will pay the consequences.—Huggo
- Frank Bullitt, a police detective who works for the San Francisco Police Department, is assigned to protect a witness for 40 hours, issued by the ambitious politician, Walter Chambers. Before the night is over,two hit men break into the witness's room and kills him and wounded a police officer. Knowing this, Bullitt gather up information about the incident and opens up a investigation on his own after his police captain gives him the permission to investigate the crime. When Bullitt opens up the investigation, people around start to ponder about his behavior and his antics on pursuing those who are responsible of the crime.—blazesnakes9
- Senator Walter Chalmers is aiming to take down mob boss Pete Ross with the help of testimony from the criminal's hothead brother Johnny, who is in protective custody in San Francisco under the watch of police lieutenant Frank Bullitt. When a pair of mob hitmen enter the scene, Bullitt follows their trail through a maze of complications and double-crosses.—Jwelch5742
- Lt. Frank Bullitt is selected by Walter Chalmers, a politician with ambition, to guard a Mafia informant. Bullitt's friend and underling is shot and the witness is left at death's door by two hit men who seemed to know exactly where the the witness was hiding. Bullitt begins a search for both the killer and the leak, but he must keep the witness alive long enough to make sure the killers return. Chalmers has no interest in the injured policeman or the killers, only in the hearings that will catapult him into the public eye and wants to shut down Bullitt's investigation.—John Vogel <jlvogel@comcast.net>
- It is a Friday night in April 1968 in Chicago. Johnny Ross works with his brother Pete; both are involved with organized crime, and "the Outfit" is after Johnny Ross because he siphoned off $2 million of their money. Johnny escapes a mass of gunmen outside his office, then greets Pete in the garage of their office building. The two exchange brotherly greetings and go on their way - Johnny drives past yet another attempt on his life while Pete telephones his higher-up and tells them that Johnny escaped.
Saturday afternoon in San Francisco. A man goes to a hotel and asks the desk clerk for a message for "Johnny Ross", and seems surprised that no message is there. The man takes a cab and has the driver stop by a phone booth, where the man makes a pair of calls, one of them long-distance. At that point, Sgt. Don Delgetti of the SFPD awakens his partner, Detective Lt. Frank Bullitt, at his apartment. Bullitt has been trying to get some sleep after a case that stretched to 5 AM that morning and grumpily chats with his partner.
After showering and getting dressed, Frank Bullitt is driven by Delgetti and another policeman, Sgt. Carl Stanton, to the plush mansion of politician Walter Chalmers, who is entertaining a vast pool of guests at a function. Chalmers tells Frank of a star witness who will testify against the mob - Johnny Ross - and who needs protection through his appearance to testify on Monday morning. Chalmers clearly hopes to use Ross as well as Bullitt to the benefit of his political career, and leaves Frank and his two partners to guard Ross at the Hotel Daniels, a flophouse on the Embarcadero near a highway overpass.
Frank, Delgetti, and Stanton meet the man who had inquired about a Johnny Ross letter, and the man is puzzled about Chalmers putting him up in such a cheap hotel. After phoning his boss, Captain Samuel Bennett, Frank arranges three shifts to guard Ross, with Delgetti going first, then Stanton, then Bullitt.
Around 1am the following morning Stanton gets a call from the front desk claiming that Chalmers and a friend want to see them. Stanton has the two men wait, then calls Frank, who realizes something is wrong and rushes to the Hotel Daniels. Stanton then notices the door to their room is unchained, just as the two men - one white-haired, elderly, and fairly short, the other dark-haired, wearing glasses, and tall, - kick the door open and shoot both he and Ross. Stanton is hit in the leg, crumples to the floor and is kicked in the face by one of the hit men. Ross is shot in the upper chest, neck and head and is thrown back into the wall next to the bed.
Delgetti and ambulances arrive before Frank does, and Frank accompanies Stanton in the ambulance ride to the hospital, where the injured officer describes the gunman, identifies the gun brand (a Winchester pump-action shotgun), and relates that Ross unchained the door, to the puzzlement of Frank.
Captain Bennett arrives at the hospital after getting a report on the hotel from the SFPD crime lab, and after getting what he can from Frank warns him that Chalmers is livid upon learning of this fiasco and will try to lay the blame on the department in general and Bullitt in particular. For his part, Bullitt is ready when Chalmers arrives and questions him; Chalmers demands to know how Bullitt fouled up the protection detail and Frank pointedly asks Chalmers about Chalmers' deal with Ross, but the oily politician vows to ruin Frank's career if Ross dies - even to the point of requesting a different doctor be assigned to Ross.
A white-haired man - the shotgun killer - appears at the hospital and asks a doctor about a friend of his with a gunshot wound; the doctor tells him that it might be the man on the second floor (Ross), then phones Bullitt. Frank has a policeman guard Ross' room, and when a nurse spots the shotgun killer untaping an ice pick from his leg, Frank chases him through the hospital. Bullitt nearly corners the man in the physical therapy wing in the basement, but the killer eludes him and escapes.
More bad news arrives when Ross suddenly goes into respiratory failure and dies. Frank tells the doctor not to confirm Ross' death, as Chalmers will ruin them both. Bullitt also believes that the killers, upon knowing they've succeeded, will disappear; the doctor agrees to misplace Ross' medical chart and Frank has Delgetti take Ross' body under the name John Doe to the coroner's office.
While Frank goes home to shower and get some rest, Chalmers, accompanied by a posse of assistants and police Captain Baker, arrives at the hospital and immediately demands to know Ross' location. The supervising nurse tells Chalmers that Ross' file has been misplaced. He telephones Bullitt and gets the runaround, and tells Baker to punish Bullitt for the mishap.
Frank and Delgetti, meanwhile, question the Hotel Daniels desk clerk -- he'd been hit & knocked unconscious by the killers. They get a description of the cab Ross arrived in as well as a description of the driver; Frank deduces who drove Ross and rides with the cabbie in question and learns about Ross' phone calls -- the cabbie has a sharp recollection of Ross' stops during the ride & is able to point out that Ross had made a long distance phone call at a phone booth. Frank telephones Eddy, an informant, and they arrange a meeting near Enrico's restaurant, where Eddy tells Frank about the Outfit's pursuit of Ross and what they're after him for.
Chalmers, meanwhile, intercepts Captain Bennett while he and his family are going to mass and serves him with a legal writ, duly witnessed by two of Chalmers' aides-de-camp, requiring Bennett to turn in Ross by Monday morning.
After being dropped off at his own car at the cabbie's garage - a Ford Mustang - Frank notices that a black Dodge Charger has been following him around the city. He drives around some of the hilly side streets and eludes his pursuers enough to become the pursuer himself. The two mob assassins, realizing they've been outmaneuvered, make a break and a mad high-speed pursuit ensues through the hills of the city and eventually spilling onto a two-lane freeway. The shotgun man finally opens fire on Frank but Frank bumps the Charger as they approach a gas station/repair shop; the Charger flies off the road, plows through the gas station, and explodes as pumps are sheared off, killing both gunmen.
Frank and Delgetti are now angrily questioned by Bennett and Baker and Frank reveals Ross' death, and that a check of phone records shows that Ross called a woman, Dorothy Simmons, staying in a San Mateo hotel hours before his death. Bennett holds the legal writ until Monday morning, giving Frank one day to prove the two men killed in the gas station were Ross' killers. He is driven to the San Mateo hotel by his girlfriend Cathy, but he finds the woman dead. Cathy follows Frank into the room, and is horrified by what she sees there. As they drive back to San Francisco, Cathy confronts Frank about his work, expressing a fear that he is becoming as inhuman in his own way as the criminals that he pursues, and wondering what will happen to them.
Later, Frank and Delgetti search the victim's luggage and discover a travel brochure for Rome and books of travelers checks worth tens of thousands of dollars, made out to Albert Renick and Dorothy Renick, the latter being the real name of the dead woman. Delgetti calls Chicago to fax their passport applications to the SFPD while Frank gets a fingerprint check on Ross at the coroner's office. The fax printout comes through and Bullitt shows that Chalmers had the wrong man the whole time - the man that the police had been guarding was actually Albert Renick, a used car salesman from Chicago - and realizes that Ross has been playing Chalmers by using Albert as a double, in order for Ross to flee the country on Sunday night.
Frank and Delgetti must now comb the San Francisco Airport to find the real Ross while Chalmers, determined to take in the real Ross himself, follows. Renick was originally booked on a flight to Rome, however, after he arrives at the airport, he switches to an earlier flight to London. Frank, going on a hunch when Renick doesn't show at the Rome check-in, gets the airport controllers to order the London plane to return to the terminal, then boards the plane himself to search for Ross, and identifies him by his expression and actions. Ross jumps off the plane through its rear cabin door and runs across the runway, with Frank pursuing. Ross runs back into the terminal as Delgetti arrives with a security guard. Trapped between two automatic doors, Ross tries to shoot his way out and kills a deputy sheriff before Frank shoots Ross dead. Chalmers arrives at the scene and is disgusted that he's lost his star witness, but he leaves without saying a word.
Frank returns home, where Cathy is sleeping, and looks at his reflection in the bathroom mirror as he starts to wash his hands. He begins to wonder if she may be right about him becoming as inhuman as the criminals he pursues. He puts his badge on a table and joins her in bed.
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