The movie begins, James Bond-style, as secret agent Harry Tasker (Schwarzenegger) infiltrates the alpine Mansion of an international arms smuggler. Harry's mission is to track down nuclear warheads stolen from Kazakhstan. He is aided by his fellow Omega Sector agents, Albert "Gib" Gibson (Arnold) and Faisil (Grant Heslov), who communicate with him from a computerized van, waiting outside the mansion. Inside the Mansion, Tasker meets Juno Skinner (Carrere), an antiquities dealer, and the two dance the tango (over the song "Por Una Cabeza" - William Schimmel's version [1]) while Harry arranges an explosive escape.
In a twist for an action hero, Tasker has an ordinary home life. His wife, Helen (Curtis), is unaware that her husband is a spy and believes he is a computer salesman. Helen thinks Harry is boring, and their daughter Dana (Dushku), doesn't respect her father.
Working undercover, Harry and Gib contact Juno Skinner at her Washington D.C. office. It turns out Skinner is using antiques to smuggle the nuclear warheads into the United States on behalf of a radical Islamic terrorist group named "Crimson Jihad". The group's leader, Salim Abu Aziz (Malik), follows Harry and Gib when he believes they are asking too many questions.
An extended action sequence begins as Harry allows the faction members to tail him into a shopping center. He leads them into a restroom, which is destroyed in the subsequent melee. Aziz flees the battle on a stolen motorcycle, followed by Harry on a stolen police horse. The chase leads into a hotel, where Aziz rides the motorcycle into an elevator. The pursuit continues on the hotel roof, where Aziz escapes by riding the motorcycle off the roof into a swimming pool on the roof of a neighboring building. Harry tries to pursue but the horse refuses to jump and Harry ends up hanging over the edge.
Because of this action, Harry is late getting home and misses his own birthday party. To make amends, he visits Helen at her office the next day. He overhears Helen talking with a co-worker about her affair with Simon (Paxton). The subplot that follows (for the next third of the film) involves Harry's use of his agency's surveillance methods to learn more about Helen's liaison with Simon. At first, Harry believes Simon is an enemy agent, but soon discovers that Simon is a used car salesman who pretends to be a spy in order to seduce women. Harry and his team follow Helen to Simon's house, which they raid using SWAT tactics and a helicopter. Helen is taken prisoner and interrogated by Harry and Gib, who have disguised their voices. Under interrogation, Helen admits that she never slept with Simon, but that she craves adventure that she believes her husband can never provide. For kicks, Harry and Gib (dressed in spy garb and driving a white van) bring Simon to the top of a high dam where they intimidate him. Simon, dressed only in an undershirt and boxer shorts, thinks they are going to kill him. He tells them his whole scheme and soils himself. He finally folds to the point where he says, "Listen, I'm not a spy. I'm nothing! I'm navel lint! I have to lie to women to get laid. I got a little dick!; it's pathetic." The duo cock a gun and then Simon unsightly urinates and Harry and Gib leave him at the dam.
Harry gives Helen an assignment he thinks will appeal to her need for excitement. He enlists her in a mock spy operation which leads her to a hotel suite where she performs a striptease for Harry, who hides his face in shadow. Just as Helen discovers Harry through his disguise, the terrorists (Crimson Jihad) burst into the room, and Harry and Helen are taken prisoner.
At the terrorists' hideout, a small island near the town of Marathon in the Florida Keys, Aziz reveals that his faction has four of the stolen nuclear warheads and intends to detonate them. One is armed and set to blow up the island. Harry weakly apologizes to Helen just as she gives him a solid punch to the face that sends him to the ground. The two are eventually tied up. Skinner shows up, embarrassing Harry in the process by manipulating Helen into believing they may have had an affair (which they didn't). Helen only finds out more about Harry's secret past when Harry is injected with truth serum from a sadistic doctor he who eventually kills during his escape from the torture room.
A gun battle follows and most of the terrorists are killed, but one of the stolen nuclear warheads is set to detonate. The remaining terrorists flee the hideout with the other warheads. Harry and Helen separate during the battle. Aziz fires a rocket launcher at Harry, setting off an explosion and thinks he has eliminated Harry, but he escapes by jumping into the water. Helen is taken hostage by Skinner.
Once reunited with Gib, Harry coordinates an attack on the terrorist convoy, which is driving up the Overseas Highway connecting the Florida Keys. A truck carrying one of the nuclear warheads is blown up and part of the bridge is destroyed. In the limo, Helen attacks Skinner when her guard is down, in the ensuing fight, for control of the gun, the limo driver is killed, causing the limo to accelerate out of control towards the damaged part of the bridge. Harry eventually manages to rescue Helen just as the limo descends into the water through a destroyed portion of the bridge (presumably sending Skinner to her death in the process). Two of the stolen warheads are destroyed, while the bomb back at the hideout is allowed to explode relatively harmlessly.
Harry's daughter is kidnapped (offscreen) by Aziz and his terrorists. Harry goes to her rescue in a Harrier jet. There is a climactic battle with Aziz and his men at the top of a skyscraper, with Harry piloting the Harrier jet through the city of Miami.
Meanwhile, Dana steals the key used to detonate the nuclear bomb. This is discovered by Aziz, who chases her along with several henchmen. Dana is chased onto a crane on the roof of the skyscraper, and Dana threatens to drop the key. Harry flies the jet plane to where Dana is, and Dana slips and almost falls off the crane. Aziz grabs his gun, and fires at Harry, which shattered the back of the cockpit canopy. Aziz's henchmen, in a helicopter, flies by and shoots and shatters the front of the cockpit canopy.
Aziz and Dana end up on top of the Harrier, next to a skyscraper. Nervously standing on the jet in mid-air, a panicky Aziz threatens to shoot Dana as she clings to the front of the jet with her father. Harry signals Dana with a nod as she understands and clings on, just as he tips the jet sideways, causing Aziz to fall and his jacket to be caught on one of the jet's air-to-air missiles. "You're fired." Harry says to Aziz just as he launches the projectile through a building and into the helicopter piloted by Aziz's men resulting in a fireball.
The movie concludes "One Year Later..." with the Taskers back at home, though Helen and Dana are now aware of Harry's secret profession. Indeed, Helen has become Harry's partner, and they go off on a mission together. They meet up with Simon, who is still pretending to be a spy to pick up women. They confront him and he again wets himself and runs screaming from the room. The film ends as the couple dance a tango. A cut scene is shown after the credits with Gib in the van complaining about how he's been in the van for 15 years. He also says that next time, it's Harry and Helen's turn to be in the van.
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