Will Sawyer, a Marine veteran turned Federal Bureau of Investigation 's Hostage Rescue Team (HRT) leader, loses his left leg below the knee when he and HRT colleague Ben Gillespie encounter a hostage taker with a suicide bomb. Ten years later, Will, now a private security consultant, is recommended by Ben to review security for "The Pearl", a 3,500 feet (1,100 m) skyscraper located in Hong Kong that comprises 225 floors and is the tallest in the world. His wife Sarah and twin children Henry and Georgia stay with him on the not-yet-opened residential floors. Meeting with Ben, the Pearl's owner Zhao Long Ji, security director Okeke, and head insurance underwriter Pierce, Will reported that the computerized fire and security systems have passed his tests, though he needs to inspect the offsite security center. Zhao provides Will with a tablet that gives him complete control over the Pearl's systems. Will and Ben head to the offsite facility, but a mugger hired by international terrorist Kores Botha attempts to steal the tablet. Ben betrays and attacks Will for the tablet, resulting in Will killing Ben. Botha and a group of his men break into the Pearl and undermine the safety systems by using a water-reactive chemical to start a fire on the 96th floor, creating a barrier that renders it impossible to enter or exit from the upper 130 floors. Will tries to return to the Pearl, but is attacked by Xia, one of Botha's associates. Xia and her agents take the tablet, kill everyone at the offsite facility, and use the tablet to disable the fire-extinguishing systems in the Pearl and activate the air vents, spreading the fire to the upper floors. Zhao and Okeke send security guards to rescue Will's family, but the guards are killed in an explosion and the family is believed dead. Urged on by Pierce, Zhao orders the remaining personnel to evacuate by helicopter. Pierce, another of Botha's accomplices, kills all of them as Zhao escapes into his penthouse apartment and locks it down from any intrusion. Hong Kong Police Force Inspector Wu and his team attempt to secure the Pearl and capture Will, who is believed to be behind the incidents. Will evades them and makes his way into the Pearl above the fire barrier using a crane from an adjacent building. He kills Pierce before Pierce can kill his family, though Georgia is separated from the others. Will has Sarah and Henry ride through the fire barrier in a free-fall elevator before applying the emergency brakes, letting them escape safely; Sarah immediately explains the situation to Wu and that Botha's men will likely escape via parachute to a nearby landing zone. Will finds Georgia, but they are captured by Botha, who demands Zhao in return for Georgia. Will is forced to dangerously scale the outside of the building to access the security panel for Zhao's penthouse, then enters and confronts him. Zhao explains that Botha had extorted money from him during the $6 billion construction project by threatening to cripple his workforce, but he kept a detailed computer file of the transactions as insurance, which can reveal accounts and names of three crime syndicates Botha works for, so Botha instigated the attack to obtain the records since his employers threaten to kill him. Will brings Zhao to Botha at the top of the Pearl, acquiescing to the trade for Georgia. However, Zhao distracts Botha, allowing himself and Will to kill Botha's thugs. Botha grabs Georgia and threatens to drop her off the building, but Will outsmarts him, rescues Georgia, and leaves Botha to die in a grenade explosion as he falls. Wu leads an attack on the drop zone, securing Xia after Sarah subdues her and killing her thugs. Sarah recovers the tablet and uses it to restart the Pearl's systems, extinguishing the blaze. Will, Georgia, and Zhao are brought down safely by helicopter, and the Sawyer family happily reunites while Wu acknowledges and finally meets and greets Will. Zhao states his intention to rebuild the Pearl, shown to have massive fire damage extending from the 96th floor to the roof.

Jack Stanfield is chief of security of Landrock Pacific Bank in downtown Seattle. He is visited by a collection agency, claiming he owes $95,000 to their online gambling site. Believing the incident is due to an identity theft, Jack entrusts his colleague Harry Romano to take care of the claim. Jack goes out for a drink with Harry who introduces him to Bill Cox, a potential partner. After they leave, Cox climbs into Jack's car and forces him at gunpoint to drive home. There, Jack finds his wife Beth and his two children unharmed, but under surveillance by Cox's man, Willy. The next morning, Jack is instructed to transfer $10,000 from each of the bank's 10,000 largest depositors – $100 million total – to Cox's offshore accounts. Cox rigs him with a camera and microphone to hinder his ability to ask anyone for help. At Landrock Bank, Cox visits Jack under the alias Bill Redmond, requesting a tour of the bank's security system. On the way back home, Jack attempts to bribe Willy to betray Cox, to no avail. After Willy slipped up (unaware that Jack slipped the camera onto his secretary Janet), Cox kills him. At home, Jack attempts an escape with his family, but is foiled when they discovered Willy's dead body in the car. In retaliation, Cox gives Jack's son Andy a cookie containing nut products, sending him into anaphylactic shock. Cox withholds the treatment, an EpiPen, until Jack acquiesces to their plan. The next day, Cox forces Jack to fire Janet, fearing she is growing suspicious. Jack complies, but it doesn't end well. Jack initiates a wire transfer to send the money to Cox's offshore accounts. Before leaving, Jack uses an employee's camera phone to take a picture of the account information on the screen. Cox then begins covering his tracks. He forces Jack to delete security data and surveillance tapes and use a virus to cripple the building's system into disarray. Returning home, Jack finds the house empty except for Liam, Cox's enforcer. After realizing that Cox never had any intention of letting him and his family live from the beginning, so as to cover up his crimes, Jack overpowers and kills Liam with a heavy glass blender. He calls Harry, but he does not answer. Jack goes to Harry's house to inquire about Cox, but hearing and witnessing the two entering the house, he goes to hide, where he watches Cox killing Harry with his gun that was confiscated earlier. Beth, held at gunpoint, leaves a message suggesting an affair on Harry's answering machine, implicating Jack in his colleague's death. In addition, the $95,000 debt will be considered motive for Jack embezzling the bank's money. Jack turns to Janet and reveals the truth. She agrees to help him retrieve the phone with the picture of Cox's account information. Jack hacks into Cox's Cayman Island accounts and transfers the money away. He calls Cox with Liam's phone and they arrange to free his family in exchange for returning the money. During the conversation, Jack hears the family dog Rusty in the background and realizes he can locate his family by the GPS tracking unit in the dog's collar. Cox's gang ditches the dog during mid-drive, but Jack managed to track them to an abandoned farmhouse. He tells Janet to call 911 and approaches the house. Vel, Cox's tech guy, takes pity on the family and attempts to intervene with killing the family, forcing Cox to kill him. Jack's daughter Sarah runs out of the house. Another henchman, Pim, chases after her, but Jack kills him by ramming him with Janet's car, then hits an RV that explodes and destroys the car. Cox takes Beth and Andy to the upper floor, but Jack enters the house and engages him in a final showdown. Their fight eventually leads them into the ditch Cox had dug for Jack's family. Cox temporarily gains the upper hand, but Jack impales him with a pickaxe, killing him and saving his family. Jack reconciles with them before they head back home together.

Annie and Matthew, a young married couple, find their infant daughter screaming with a high temperature and an earache. Matthew calls the doctor, who promises to phone in a prescription to the pharmacist the following day. During the night, the neighborhood wakes up due to a massive power outage. When Matthew visits the pharmacist the next day, he is unable to get the required medicine due to the blackout. Matthew steals the medicine when the pharmacist is not looking. Social unrest ensues due to the persistent blackout, leading Matthew and his wife's best friend, Joe, to buy a shotgun, and for Joe to stay with them during the outage. When an intruder breaks into the couple's house the following night, Matthew and Joe chase him outside, where a neighbor shoots the intruder. The neighbors conspire to cover up the fact that the deceased intruder was not armed. As the blackout continues for days over a large area, more chaos occurs. As a result, the group decides to flee to Annie's parents' house, 530 miles away. They do not have enough fuel to travel the whole way, so they stop by an abandoned car hoping to siphon some. A man, Gary, is lying in the backseat. After Joe notices that Gary has a handgun, he heads back to their vehicle to get his own shotgun. Joe aims the shotgun at Gary to scare him off, but he shoots Joe and steals their vehicle. Matthew walks an hour to a farmhouse to try to get help for his family. The occupant, Raymond, refuses to help him initially, as he does not trust him. Matthew collects the shotgun and returns to the house, hoping to steal the car. He breaks in to get the car keys, and a standoff ensues between him and Raymond. When Raymond's young daughter enters the room, Matthew returns to civility, lowering his weapon. Raymond agrees to help Matthew, and soon afterwards Joe is loaded into an ambulance. Society returns to normal once the power returns, though Annie, Matthew and their neighbors are somewhat changed by their experience.

In the Salton Sea in California, an underwater earthquake causes a crevice to open, releasing prehistoric giant molluscs. A rescue training parachute jump is conducted, but the patrol boat sent to pick up the jumper finds only a floating parachute. One sailor dives in but also disappears. The other sailor screams in terror as something rises from the water. When the patrol boat does not answer radio calls, Lt. Cmdr. John "Twill" Twillinger takes a rescue party out on a second patrol boat to investigate. They find the deserted patrol boat covered in a strange slime; the jumper's body then floats to the surface, now blackened and drained of bodily fluids. Twill takes a sample of the slime to the base lab for analysis, where he teams up with recently widowed Gail MacKenzie and Dr. Jess Rogers. A young couple disappear after going for a swim. U.S. Navy divers investigate and discover a giant egg and the body of one of the victims on the ocean floor. The divers are attacked by a giant mollusc (which looks like a giant caterpillar), which kills one of the divers. The mollusc attacks the boat, but Twill stabs it in the eye with a grappling hook. The egg is taken to the U.S. Navy lab for study and kept under temperature control to prevent it from hatching. The molluscs escape into an irrigation canal system, attacking livestock, a lock keeper, a trysting couple, and others. Navy divers locate a group of molluscs in the canal system, and use explosives to destroy them. In the meantime, Gail is at the lab with her young daughter, Sandy. Worried about the laboratory rabbits being cold in the laboratory’s lowered temperature, Sandy surreptitiously turns up the thermostat. Twill calls the laboratory and gets no answer. He arrives and finds that the hatched mollusc has Gail and Sandy cornered in a closet, where they ran to escape from the monster. He fights it with laboratory chemicals, a CO fire extinguisher and a live steam line until other Navy personnel arrive and shoot the mollusc.

Jill and Alan 'Hoaggie' Hoaganraad are on a road trip with their two teenage sons, Maika and Jordan. While hiking, Maika notices two men in the distance watching them before disappearing. While the family picnics by the road, they are interrupted by the two violent drifters, Mandrake and Tubs. The pair robs them at gunpoint and forces them to lie down, but before they leave, Mandrake overhears Maika call Alan 'Hoaggie'. Mandrake suddenly murders Maika and Jordan and abducts the parents after night falls, knocking Jill unconscious and breaking Alan's arm. As Mandrake questions the pair, he reveals that he knows Alan is a teacher and was once an assistant teacher at a group home for troubled boys, one notorious for physical and sexual abuse. Alan guesses correctly that both were enrolled at the school, but he insists that he was completely unaware of the abuse; Mandrake does not believe him and implies that they are driving to the boy's home. When they stop at a gas station, Alan attempts to secretly alert the station attendant; however, Mandrake suspects this and kills the attendant by bludgeoning him with a fire extinguisher. Alan pretends to accidentally hit himself with the door while entering the car but as he kneels next to the car to "recover", he presses a screw into the back left tire. Jill attempts to escape, but is quickly caught and later forced to kneel underneath an overpass. Threatening to shoot her, Mandrake forces Alan to admit that he was aware of all of the abuse, but stopped and reported nothing out of cowardice. Alan relays a story of a young boy who tattooed a swastika on his arm; at roll call, an admin of Jewish background painfully and forcibly scrubbed it from his skin with a nylon brush, which traumatized the rest of the students. Jill is shaken by this admission, and later rebuffs Alan's attempts at contact. When it's clear that Mandrake will not let her go, she escapes from the moving vehicle and then chooses to jump into the nearby river rather than return to her abductors; her fate is left ambiguous. Alan briefly escapes when they stop to replace the tire Alan pressed a nail into, and reaches a car with a group of teenagers. However, Mandrake finds them and convinces them to force Alan out of the car, before murdering all but one, who manages to escape when Mandrake runs out of ammo. With Alan recaptured, they finally reach an old boarding school, presumably where Mandrake and/or Tubs grew up. Walking through the now-abandoned building, Alan admits that he was not just a coward, but also privately believed that the boy with the tattoo deserved his punishment. Believing Mandrake to be that boy, he apologizes for not stepping in. Mandrake reveals that the boy wasn't him. He then shoots Alan in the chest and taunts him, but Alan hits him with a rock and bludgeons him. Mandrake survives, though wounded and disoriented, and tries but fails to kill Alan. Tubs, who Alan had talked to a few times, implying that he only does what Mandrake tells him to, likening that behaviour to still being in a boarding school, arrives and kills Mandrake with the rifle. He leaves the heavily wounded Alan, telling him "I hate this place", which is also carved into a stone behind Alan. Flashbacks reveal that the carving was made by a traumatised boy growing up at that boarding school; whether or not that boy had actually been the tortured one is not explicitly shown. Tubs goes to an undisclosed location and looks out at the rising sun, silently crying.

A young boy is setting fire to newspapers in the basement. His name is Mikey and he has a younger sister, Beth, whom he blames for the fire when his foster mother admonishes Mikey. When Mikey is disciplined by his foster mother for starting the fire, he responds by causing Beth to drown in the pool, electrocuting his foster mother while she is in the bath, and bludgeoning his foster father to death with a baseball bat. Mikey avoids suspicion because he is only nine and he tells the police that an intruder killed the family. Detective Reynolds is assigned to the case and he does not suspect Mikey. A psychiatrist recommends that Mikey get fostered as soon as possible. His foster mother's sister is put forward as a prospective foster carer, but she does not want anything to do with Mikey. She states that he was adopted and that it was suspected that he was abused by members of his family. He is then sent to a new family, Neil and Rachel Trenton, who do not know anything about Mikey's past. Presenting himself as an amiable and loving child, his behavior does not raise red flags. He also manifests behavior which is not out of the ordinary in his desire to succeed in a game at school. Mikey then falls in love with his new best friend Ben's older sister, Jessie, who is 10 years older than Mikey. She is not interested in him and is dating a boy named David. In an attempt to make Jessie love him, Mikey kills Jessie's cat and places it under David's car to make it appear as though David was responsible. Tension arises in the relationship but Jessie forgives him. Mikey electrocutes David while he is in a Jacuzzi by kicking the radio in the water. After this fails and he is found out by his foster mother, he fatally stabs her with a glass shard. He kills his school's principal and teacher with a bow and arrow and slingshot when they arrive shortly afterward to investigate their suspicions, and unsuccessfully tries to shoot Jessie with a bow. To avoid being blamed, Mikey fakes his own death. He stages a skeleton of a boy the same age as him taken from his classroom at the dining table and then blows up the house with a gas leak and Molotov cocktail when his foster dad arrives home to find everyone dead around the table. Jessie is told by the authorities that Mikey is dead. Later, Mikey, going by the name "Josh," is adopted by another family.

"Smiling" Jack Casey is a young floor trader on the Pacific Exchange who loses all of his company's and family's savings on a risky trade. Deflated and disenchanted with his profession, he quits his job and becomes a bicycle messenger in San Francisco. Casey has to deal with his parents and his girlfriend, who are disappointed with his new job. Along with the colorful characters that work with him, he saves a troubled young woman named Terri from a gang. Although frustrated, Casey enjoys the freedom that comes with his lower responsibility. He also uses his education and business acumen to help his coworkers. When some of them are involved in dangerous or difficult matters, Casey must decide whether he should become involved. Those matters lead to a sinister web of murder and intrigue. Casey returns to the floor of the exchange for a day, buying shares of a plummeting penny stock and holding on until it recovers. He thus restores his family's fortune and enables his bike-messenger friend, Hector, to afford the hot dog stand he has dreamed of. Terri is again menaced by drug dealer Gypsy but is rescued by Casey's fellow bike messengers. In retaliation against Gypsy, Casey engages in an extended car-versus-bike car chase that ends with Gypsy driving off the end of an uncompleted highway. The film flashes forward to Casey applying for 'normal' jobs and Terri deciding to become a paramedic, and the pair buying hot dogs from Hector.

In 2034, computer programmer Ken Castle invents self-replicating nanites that replace brain tissue and allow humans to control other humans' actions and see through their eyes. The first application of Castle's "Nanex" technology is a virtual community life simulation game, Society, which allows gamers to manipulate live actors as their avatars. Society becomes a worldwide sensation, making Castle the richest man in the world. He then creates Slayers, a third-person shooter where the "characters" are death-row prisoners using real weapons in specially designated areas. Unlike Society actors, Slayers participants are not paid; instead, they volunteer, and any Slayer who survives 30 matches will earn their freedom. John "Kable" Tillman is everyone's favorite, having survived a record 27 matches, and is controlled by 17-year-old gamer Simon Silverton. An activist organization called the "Humanz" hacks a talk-show interview with Castle and claims that his technology will one day be used to control people against their will. The Humanz also disrupts Society play, but Castle sees both these actions as trivial. However, Castle feels threatened by Kable's winning streak and introduces a new inmate into Slayers, Hackman, specifically to kill Kable. Unknown to anyone else, Hackman will not be controlled by a player, thus not be handicapped by the "ping" that causes a small but dangerous delay between the player's command and the Slayer's action. Kable's estranged wife, Angie, works as a Society character, but in spite of her earnings, she is refused custody of their daughter, Delia, who has been placed with a wealthy foster family. The Humanz contact Kable and Simon separately and offer to create a mod that will let him escape, but only if Simon relinquishes control during the game. Simon is even given a mod to speak freely to Kable. The escape is successful, and news outlets report that Kable has been fragged, which puts Simon in a difficult position: he is labeled a "cheater", locked out of his account which is spammed with hate mail, his father's asset frozen, and arrested by the FBI for helping Kable escape. Kable is brought to the Humanz' hideout; he refuses to help their fight against Castle but learns of Angie's current location in Society. He rescues her, escaping from both Hackman and Castle's security forces. Gina, the talk show host who secretly assists the Humanz, meets them. The Humanz deactivates the nanites in Angie and Kable's brains, and Kable remembers that the original nanites were tested on him while he was still in the military. Under Castle's control, Kable shot and killed his best friend and was imprisoned. Upon learning that Castle is the wealthy father who adopted Delia, Kable infiltrates his mansion to get her back. He locates Castle, who reveals that his henchmen have already tracked down the Humanz' lair and killed all of them. He also reveals that 98% of his own brain has been replaced with nanites, but this allows him to control others rather than be controlled. He plans to release airborne nanites, which will infect the entire country within six months, giving him ultimate control. Hackman attacks Kable, who easily kills him. Kable then attacks Castle but is frozen in place as Castle explains that his men have reactivated his and Angie's nanites. Unknown to Castle, Gina and Trace escape and patch into the Nanex, exposing the confrontation to the world and exposing Castle's plans worldwide. They also restore Simon's account, restoring access of Kable. Castle tries to manipulate Kable into killing his own daughter, but he resists, allowing Simon to control him and attack Castle. He and Simon wrestle for control, but Kable tells Castle to imagine his knife stabbing him. Castle unconsciously does so, allowing Kable to kill him and removing his control over everyone. With Castle dead, Kable convinces his technicians to deactivate the Nanex, freeing all the "characters" in Society and Slayers.

Due to the 21-century ecological crisis on Earth, for twenty years humankind has been terraforming Mars as its new home by sending algae to its surface. When oxygen levels begin decreasing, Mars-1 is sent to investigate, under Mission Commander Kate Bowman with a crew consisting of egotistical co-pilot Ted Santen, science officer Bud Chantilas, mechanical systems engineer Robby Gallagher, and two civilians: bioengineer Quinn Burchenal, and terraforming expert Chip Pettengill. Rule-breaking Gallagher is not Bowman's first choice, and while the crew nicknames him "space janitor," the two are drawn to each other. A gamma-ray burst resulting from a massive solar flare damages the ship as it reaches Mars. Bowman launches the crew to the planet's surface, and manages to eject the flames of a ship-wide fire into the vacuum and restore power to communicate with Houston. She learns that Mars-1's orbit will decay in 31 hours, but that they can burn to return to Earth before that occurs. The landing craft tumbles to the wrong location, and AMEE, the military robot navigator, is jettisoned. Chantilas is mortally wounded and tells the others to leave without him to save oxygen. The landing party finds no algae on the planet's surface, then discover that the HAB 1 has been destroyed, ensuring death when their spacesuit oxygen runs out. Pettengill follows Santen to the edge of a cliff, but when Santen mocks him, Pettingill strikes him, and he falls over the edge. Petengill then tells the others that Santen committed suicide. Gallagher decides to die quickly and opens his helmet, only to discover that Mars's atmosphere contains oxygen, more than the failed terraforming would have produced. Burchenal realizes they are near the Pathfinder rover, which will possibly have a working radio to contact Bowman. The trio set fire to the ruins of HAB 1 to warm them during the night. AMEE rejoins the crew, but when they discuss shutting it down and taking its guidance device, it switches to a military protection mode, wounds Burchenal and leaves, intent on picking off the crew one at a time. When they reach the Rover, Gallagher is able to build a radio; Houston picks up their signal on a long-unused frequency and alerts Bowman. Bowman tells them to hike to Kosmos, a failed Russian probe 100 km away, and launch themselves by fitting into the rock sample container, but later tells Gallagher the space will hold only two passengers. As they shelter in a cave from an ice storm, Gallagher tells the other two they'll be launching on Kosmos. Pettengill doesn't believe Gallagher will sacrifice himself. Meanwhile, Bowman receives orders from Houston that since it is unlikely the crew survived the ice storm, she is ordered to return home. Burchenal and Gallagher awaken to discover Pettengill has fled with the radio, then watch as he is chased and killed by AMEE. They recover the radio and find Pettengill's body in a patch of algae, full of Martian nematodes. Burchenal deduces that the nematodes have been eating the algae and excreting oxygen, and he captures a few in a sample vial as they could possibly save Earth. Drawn to Burchenal's wounds, the nematodes swarm him and start chewing through his suit. He tosses the vial to Gallagher and immolates himself. The burst, which consumes the algae patch and nematodes, is seen from Bowman on the Mars-1. She is able to contact an exhausted Gallagher and urges him to get to Kosmos. Gallagher discovers the Russian probe's battery is dead, and right before the Mars-1 enters communication blackout he tells Bowman to leave. Gallagher then bids her goodbye when AMEE flies overhead and he realizes he could use AMEE's core as a power source. He lures and disables AMEE with one of the probe's sample launchers, removing AMEE's battery before it self-destructs, then launches himself into orbit. Bowman sees the Kosmos in the path of the Mars-1, aborts her departure and tethers out to retrieve and then revive Gallagher, who is in cardiac arrest. Later, as Bowman tells him that Earth now considers him a hero, she admits he's not who she thought he was, and they finally kiss. The film ends with her voiceover musing that on the six-month journey home, she'll get to know the janitor.

In the future, the Earth has become severely polluted (people need to wear breathing masks when outside), with severe overpopulation affecting available resources. Because of the permanent thick smog that has settled over the dismal cities that now cover the Earth's entire surface, all animals – even common household pets – are extinct. People eat tasteless, bright-colored paste out of plastic containers. To reduce the world's population, the world's government decrees that no children may be born for the next 30 years. Breaking this law will result in the death penalty for the parents as well as the newborn. Brainwashing and robot substitutes are used to end the yearning for children, with the death penalty as the ultimate deterrent. Violators are executed by suffocation under a plastic dome. Couples of fertile age visit "Babyland" and are given life-size animatronic children instead. Russ (Oliver Reed) and Carol McNeil (Geraldine Chaplin) work in a museum recreating life in the 20th century. Carol is desperate for a child, so when she conceives, she avoids the abortion machine installed in their bathroom to remain pregnant. After the child's birth, the couple must shield the baby from being discovered. Once Carol decides to break the law and have a baby, they must not only avoid the prying eyes of the Big Brother-like government but also the growing jealousy of their own friends. Neighbors finding a couple with a real child will go into the streets screaming "baby, baby", until authorities show up. When neighbours George (Don Gordon) and Edna Borden (Diane Cilento) find out about the baby, their initial offer to help conceal the baby quickly leads to trouble. Jealousy and envy arise as the Bordens want to share the baby as if it is a new car. The McNeils and the Bordens begin to fight over the baby, and the Bordens then seek to keep the child for themselves. Finally, the McNeils are captured and placed under one of the state's execution domes, but the couple, along with the baby, manage to escape by digging underground, making their way through darkened tunnels in a raft to a remote island where there is no visible pollution. However, the whole island may still be in a radioactive state, as it was used to bury old nuclear missiles in 1978.

When a mission to retrieve a stolen suitcase bomb goes awry, CIA agent Kevin Pope is killed. Pope was working undercover as an antiquities dealer under the name Michael Turner. The CIA, which is desperate to complete the mission, discovers that Agent Pope had a twin brother, Jake Hayes, from whom he was separated at birth; their mother died giving birth and Hayes suffered from a severe lung infection that prompted the doctors to separate them because they felt that Hayes was unlikely to live for very long. Hayes hustles chess games, scalps tickets, and works at small clubs in Jersey City, New Jersey, to make ends meet. Meanwhile, Hayes's girlfriend, Julie grows tired of waiting for him to grow up and decides to move to Seattle, Washington. After the CIA successfully persuades Hayes to participate and begins to train Hayes for a mission that is to take place in Prague, Czech Republic, they are initially dismayed by his lack of refinement. Agent Gaylord Oakes confronts Hayes, telling him he does not trust him. When Hayes begins paying attention, the CIA sets him up in his brother's old apartment in Manhattan to test him and try to bait the men who killed his brother. Hayes is attacked, but escapes unharmed. Looking for a way out, Hayes goes to his foster mother only to be found by Oakes, who persuades him to finish the mission. After arriving in Prague, Hayes – posing as his dead brother – meets with the men selling the suitcase bomb. The seller, Adrik Vas is an ex-Russian Army Colonel with ties to the Russian Mafia. When they return to their hotel, Hayes is greeted by his brother's ex-girlfriend Nicole. Believing Hayes is his brother, she dines with him and returns to his hotel, where the couple is ambushed by rival buyers. Nicole figures out that Hayes is not his brother and returns to her assignment covering the Balkans for CNN. Hayes and Oakes meet with Vas and are able to steal the arming codes. Just as they close the deal, Vas' men double cross them with the rival buyer. When the rival dealers, who are part of a multi-national terrorist organization, learn they cannot detonate the bomb because of the missing codes, they kidnap Julie. Hayes gives himself up trying to save his girlfriend, and the terrorists get the codes back and arm the bomb. After interrogating one of the captured terrorists, they track the bomb to Grand Central Station. With the clock ticking, they locate the bomb and the terrorist leader Dragan Ađanić, who has started the countdown. Oakes rescues Hayes by killing two terrorists. As Hayes starts to enter the codes to disarm the bomb, Ađanić holds Julie hostage. To distract Ađanić, Hayes pretends to shoot Oakes, and they kill Ađanić by shooting him repeatedly. Hayes is able to disarm the bomb just prior to detonation. Hayes visits his brother's grave. Later, Oakes approaches Hayes at his wedding to Julie and warns him that a dangerous criminal has escaped from prison and is seeking revenge on Kevin Pope, but since Kevin is dead and Hayes was impersonating him, the criminal thinks Hayes is Kevin. Hayes begins to panic and demands that Oakes protect him, but Oakes laughs as he reveals that it was only a joke and he really just came for the wedding.

Doug Masters, son of veteran USAF pilot Colonel Ted Masters, is a hotshot civilian pilot hoping to follow in his father's role. He receives a notice of rejection from the USAFA and Colonel Masters has been shot down and captured by the fictional Arab state of Bilya while patrolling over the Mediterranean Sea. Though the incident occurred in international waters, the Arab state's court finds Colonel Masters guilty of trespassing on its territory and sentences him to hang in three days. Deciding that the U.S. government will do nothing to save Colonel Masters' life, Doug devises his own rescue mission. He requests the help of Col. Charles "Chappy" Sinclair, a Vietnam veteran pilot currently in the Air Force Reserve, who, though he did not know Colonel Masters personally, had a favorable encounter with him years earlier and "knew the type." Chappy is initially skeptical but Doug convinces him that, with his friends, he has full access to the airbase's intelligence and resources and can give him an F-16 fighter for the mission. To Doug's surprise, Chappy had already begun planning a rescue operation after learning the outcome of Colonel Masters' trial. The team of Chappy and Doug devises a meticulously planned mission and procures two heavily armed F-16B jets, with Doug flying the second. On the day of Colonel Masters' scheduled execution, Doug and Chappy fly their jets to the Mediterranean Sea and cross into Bilyan airspace. The Bilyan military responds and in the ensuing battle, Doug and Chappy take out three fighters and destroy an airfield, with Chappy's plane being hit by anti-aircraft fire. He tells Doug to climb to a high altitude and play the tape he made the night before. Doug then listens as Chappy's engine fails and crashes into the Mediterranean Sea. Chappy's recorded voice gives Doug encouragement and details that help him to complete the mission and rescue Colonel Masters. Making the enemy believe he is leading a squadron, Doug threatens the enemy state into releasing Colonel Masters for pickup at an airfield. Before Doug lands his F-16, Colonel Masters is shot by a sniper, causing Doug to destroy the airbase and engulf the runway with napalm to keep the army at bay while he lands and picks up his wounded father. Just as they take off, Doug and Colonel Masters encounter another group of MiGs led by Col. Akir Nakesh, himself an ace pilot. The lone F-16 and Nakesh's MiG engage in a dogfight until a missile from Doug finishes off Nakesh. Low on fuel and ammunition, the F-16 is pursued by the other enemy MiGs when a flight of U.S. Air Force F-16s appears, warding off the MiGs before escorting Doug and Colonel Masters to Ramstein Air Base in West Germany. While Colonel Masters is being treated for his wounds, Doug is reunited with Chappy, who had ejected from his plane and was picked up by an Egyptian fishing trawler. The two are summoned by an Air Force judiciary panel for their reckless actions. Seeing that any punishment for the duo would expose an embarrassing lapse in Air Force security, the panel forgoes prosecution, provided that Doug and Chappy never speak of their operation to anyone. In addition, Chappy convinces the panel to grant Doug admission to the Air Force Academy. Days later, a plane assigned by the President returns to the U.S., reuniting Doug, Chappy and Colonel Masters with family and friends.