IMF leader Dan Briggs goes to a storage loft and asks the manager for a rare recording. The man gives Dan a disk and leaves him alone in his office. Dan removes the recording from its hermetic seal and plays it on the record player. A recorded welcomes him back and tells him that General Rio Dominguez, the dictator of Santa Costa, has his headquarters in the Hotel Nationale. An enemy power has furnished Dominguez with two nuclear warheads and the general plans to use them. Dan is to remove them from the hotel’s secure vault and get them out of the country. The record self-destructs one minute after the seal is broken.
Later, Dan is in his elegant black-and-white furnished apartment. He goes through a dossier of IMF agents, including disguise expert Rollin Hand; convicted safecracker Terry Targo; electronics expert Barney Collier; fashion model Cinnamon Carter; and “world’s strongest man” Willy Armitage.
Later, the five assembled IMF agents are playing penny ante poker in Dan’s apartment. Rollin playfully tries to slip out some of the money from the pot and Terry catches him at it. Cinnamon and Barney have the same Ace of Clubs, and Rollin reveals he’s stolen most of the deck. They begin the briefing and Rollin warns that he will have trouble impersonating Dominguez if he goes on television to make his speech. Dan has Barney sabotage the broadcast and confirms that he can rig the fireworks display at the hotel in the same day. When Barney say that he’ll need a full day, undisturbed, Dan says he’ll get the time he needs. Terry warns that if he can get into the impenetrable vault, the coded locks will be wired into the warheads and primed to detonate. Dan assures him that they’ll get the code from Dominguez, and that the vault is made to keep people from getting in, not out. Willy says that he can handle lifting the warheads, which weigh 200 pounds apiece. Cinnamon merely notes that her job is doing what comes naturally, and Rollin produces a flower for her.
In Santa Costa, Dan and Willy park by the side of the road to let a military convoy past. Meanwhile, Barney poses as an exterminator and watches his teammates drive by. He then checks the hidden compartment in his tool box, revealing a radio set. At the hotel, Dan shows his hotel confirmation to the soldiers, showing that he’s a Swiss clock salesman with Willy as his manservant. The guard lets them pass and Willy takes in Dan’s two heavy cases. They go to the desk and Dan asks to check them into the vault, which opens in ten minutes.
Cinnamon arrives, escorting her elderly wheelchair-bound “husband” Rollin with her. Meanwhile, Dan and Willy take the cases to the vault and the clerk takes Dan’s fingerprint. He tells them that the vault timelock won’t open again until 11 that evening. Soldiers arrive under the command of Colonel Alisio and stand watch as the vault door is opened and Willy takes the two cases inside. He sets them down next to the case holding the warheads and leaves, and Alisio has his men close the vault. Once the door is closed, Terry emerges from one of the cases, removes his rebreather, and examines the case.
As Dan and Willy go back to the lobby, Cinnamon “accidentally” drops her purse. Dan goes to help her and whispers that Terry is in and they’ll make the switch that night. Rollin releases several mice from a case and Dan and Cinnamon take advantage of the distraction to put intercept transmitters on the clerk’s phone. When the clerk calls for an exterminator, his call is routed to Barney.
In the vault, Terry starts opening the vault door from the inside.
Once Cinnamon and Rollin go to their room, Rollin removes his old-man disguise and sets up a camera to watch footage of Dominguez and perfect his impersonation.
When Barney arrives, he tells Alisio that he needs to go into Dominguez’s wing to properly do his job. Alisio gives him permission to do so.
Terry succeeds at tapping into the vault wheel, turning it from the inside.
At the hotel restaurant, Dan and Willy have a meal while the cameramen set up for Dominguez’s broadcast the next day. Barney is in the air shaft above the restaurant and sets up his equipment.
Terry removes his equipment from the door.
Cinnamon is dining alone in the restaurant and tells the head waiter that her husband was too ill to come down. Meanwhile, Rollin continues to watch footage of the general and perfect his impersonation.
Just before 11 p.m., Terry loads everything into the cases and finally gets in. Dan and Willy return to the vault and take their cases out for the night. They assure the night clerk that they’ll be putting them back in the morning.
Cinnamon returns to her hotel room and helps Rollin prepare his disguise.
Willy and Dan go to their room and let Terry out. He tells them that he can open the vault inside but may have to blow up the timelock, and that without the proper sequence, the warheads could easily detonate.
Cinnamon brings Rollin down to the lobby and adjusts her stocking, catching the attention of the guards. Rollin comes in, disguised as Dominguez, and tells them to focus on their job. Dan arrives and Rollin tells them to let Dan and Willy through for their appointment with him. He then tells the guards to ask Cinnamon to come to his room in 10 minutes. Rollin leads Dan and Willy to Dominguez’s quarters, and they’re surprised to see him when they thought the general was inside. The agents quickly knock them out and then release Terry, who picks the lock on the door. However, Dominguez comes out and is surprised to see a man who looks just like him. He slams the door shut, hitting Terry’s hands as he tries to block it from closing. Dan and Willy capture Dominguez while Rollin closes the door and confronts Alisio and his men when they arrive. He tells Alisio to find the two missing guards and leave him alone while he works on his speech. Once they’re alone, Terry tells the others that his hands are broken.
Barney moves around the hotel while looking or rats, and tampers with the cameras. Meanwhile, Dan binds Terry’s injured hands and assures Rollin that they can still pull off the operation. The guard escorts Cinnamon to the room and Rollin ushers her inside. Dan tells her to wait an hour and then snuggle up to the vault clerk and steal a blank signature card. He tells the team that he’ll go into the vault instead of Terry, and Rollin will have to impersonate Dan and get the cases out.
Once he’s done his work, Barney returns to the air shaft and sets up his equipment. Meanwhile, Rollin flirts with Cinnamon and suggests that she help him work on his characterization. She tells him to focus on the speech.
Dan and Willy get back to their room and remove Terry from one case and the bound-and-gagged Dominguez from the other. In the general’s suite, Rollin works on his speech and Cinnamon assures him that he’s doing fine. Alisio comes back and asks to see Dominguez. Rollin answers the door and Alisio tells him that he has been unable to find the two missing men, and that he is sure that they’re loyal. The colonel mentions what he said in the briefing that day and Rollin is forced to bluff as best he can. Cinnamon comes out, dressed only in a towel, and Alisio realizes why Rollin appears to be distracted. He apologizes and leaves, and Cinnamon comes back out again from the bedroom and note that the two captive guards got an eyeful.
Dan introduces himself to Dominguez and says that they’ll be spending some time together in the vault. Terry warns that Dan is larger than he is and there won’t be enough room for 12 hours worth of oxygen.
Cinnamon goes to see the night clerk at the vault and flirts with him.
Terry is showing Dan how to set up the magnetic device to open the vault when there’s an unexpected knock at the door. Cinnamon slips the blank signature card and Dan applies his fingerprint to it. He slips it back out and Cinnamon leaves with it.
The next morning, Willy is allowed to put the cases in the vault. The clerk warns Willy that only Dan can take them out again and Willy assures him that Dan will be there. Once the vault is sealed, Dan emerges from his case and releases Dominguez from the other. Dominguez yells for help but the vault is soundproof and Dan tells him that they can’t waste the air.
The day passes slowly. Rollin rehearses his Dominguez impersonation while Barney plants fireworks on the hotel ground. In the vault, Dan applies the magnetic device to the door. When Dominguez promises not to use the warheads on the U.S. if Dan releases him, Dan tells him that he’ll give him the same promise: he’ll make sure the warheads won’t go off in the U.S. He has no qualms about leaving Dominguez locked in a case while he is taken out. Dan notes that each of the three dials on the warhead case has 10 colors, and if Dominguez doesn’t give him the combination then he’ll guess at random.
Alisio knocks on the door and tells Rollin that it’s 20 minutes until his televised speech. Rollin tells him to come back to get him in 10 minutes and gets up... forgetting that he’s left his Briggs mask in the wastebasket.
Barney watches from the air shaft as the camera crew prepares for Dominguez’s broadcast. Rollin arrives and prepares to give Dominguez’s speech, and Barney sabotages the cameras.
Dominguez thinks that Dan is insane, but Dan says that he plans to enter Santa Costa’s national colors for the code. As he starts to dial the first color, Dominguez panics and tells him the real code: red, white, and blue. Dan congratulates him on his sense of irony and carefully opens the case. Both Dan and Dominguez sigh in relief.
When the broadcast is unable to continue as planned, Rollin storms off. Alisio goes after him and insists that something is wrong, and Rollin tells him to wait until he can confirm his suspicions. Meanwhile, Cinnamon dresses Terry up as an old man and puts him in Rollin’s wheelchair.
Rollin orders the guards to go to the lobby and removes his disguise. Alisio, prowling the hotel, decides to enter the general’s quarters. He hears the water running in the bathroom and then notices the discarded mask in the wastebasket. Rollin comes out, his disguise partially removed, and knocks Alisio out.
Barney goes back to his van at 11 p.m. At the vault, Willy and a disguised Rollin come in to recover their sample cases. Cinnamon also comes in and she switches her signature card for Dan’s so that the guard can sign it without knowing it. She puts in her jewelry case while Willy takes out the two sample cases with the warheads inside. Once the vault is closed, Dan emerges from the warhead case where he hid along with Dominguez and Terry’s safecracking equipment.
Cinnamon tells Terry that the warheads are out. They go out through the lobby as do the disguised Rollin and Willy. They get in their separate cars and prepare to depart. Barney sets off the fireworks, distracting the soldiers and the night clerk at the vault. Dan blows the timelock, timing it to go off at the same time as one of the firework explosions. He then opens the vault door and knocks out the clerk. However, as he walks out through the lobby, the clerk notices him and is surprised since Rollin-as-Briggs left a few minutes go. He goes to the phone and calls the security forces.
Dan gets outside and gets into the exterminator van with Barney. They head for the rendezvous spot where they’ll switch to the ambulance with Cinnamon and Terry. Meanwhile, Terry and Cinnamon force the ambulance driver to take them on.
The soldiers call the border post but the three cars crash the gate and keep on going. Dan shoots one guard from the tower and then uses a smokescreen device to blind the other soldiers as they try to follow. They hit a blind curve and brake too late to stop from hitting the abandoned exterminator van. Barney and Dan have switched to the ambulance and drive to the airport.
A private jet lands as the two vehicles drive onto the runway. The team boards the plane with the warheads and they fly off just as the soldiers arrive. The only evidence of the team is the discarded Briggs mask that Rollin used.
Written by Gadfly on Oct 19, 2015