CIA（美国中央情报局）探员汤姆•毕晓普（布拉德•彼特饰）在远东某国执行任务失败，随即被当局逮捕，并将于24小时内被执以死刑。此时远在美国，汤姆的搭档，CIA探员内森 D.缪尔（劳勃·瑞福饰）正在为营救汤姆而游说CIA高层。因为涉及国际纠纷，CIA高层偏向牺牲汤姆而换取局势的和平，而内森则认为搭档的生命更加重要。内森与高层吵得不可开交，而在牢狱中的汤姆，回想过去，他与内森一同执行的一个个人物如走马灯般在眼前重现。一对亲密无间的搭档，一段CIA探员的心路历程。汤姆•毕晓普，一个平凡普通的CIA探员形象愈发清晰。他能得救吗？
Set in 1991, the film depicts the U.S. and Chinese Governments on the verge of a major trade agreement, with the American President due to pay a visit to China to seal the deal. The Central Intelligence Agency gets word that their Special Activities Division operative Tom Bishop (Brad Pitt) has been captured trying to free an Englishwoman, Elizabeth Hadley (Catherine McCormack), from a Chinese prison near Su Chou (Suzhou). Bishop is being questioned under torture and will be executed within twenty-four hours unless he is claimed by the U.S. Government, so they scramble to decide what to doif they claim Bishop as an agent, they risk destroying the trade agreement. Exacerbating the situation is the fact that Bishop was operating in a "rogue" capacity without permission from the Agency.
In an attempt to quickly deal with the situation, CIA executives call in Nathan Muir (Robert Redford), an aging mid-level case officer on his last day before retirement, and the man who recruited Bishop. Although they tell Muir that they simply need him to act as a "stop gap" to fill in some holes in their background files, the officials are in reality hoping that what he gives them is the smoking gun they need to justify letting Bishop die. Realizing as much, Muir attempts to save Bishop by leaking the story to CNN through a contact in Hong Kong, believing that the CIA will rescue Tom once a public outcry puts pressure on them to do so. Unfortunately for Muir, the tactic only stalls them, as a phone call to the FCC from a high ranking executive results in CNN retracting the story.
During the debriefing, referred to above, Muir describes how he recruited Bishop into the MACV-SOG while the latter was an Marine Corps sniper in Vietnam. Muir also discusses their tour of duty in Berlin in 1975. Both sub-plots are given extensive time in the film. Considerable time is also devoted to Muir and Bishop's spy work in Lebanon that culminated to a plot similar to that of the 1985 Beirut car bombing the aftermath of which led to the last time the two saw each other face to face.
With his plan quashed, Muir resorts to far more dangerous tactics, secretly creating a forged urgent operational directive from the CIA Director to commence Operation Dinner Out: a daring rescue mission spearheaded by U.S. Navy SEALs which Bishop laid the groundwork for as a 'Plan B' to his own rescue attempt. Using US$282,000 of his life savings and a misappropriated file on Chinese coastline satellite imagery, Muir bribes a Chinese energy official to cut power to the prison for thirty minutes, during which time the SEAL rescue team retrieves Bishop and Hadley.
Hadley, who fled the UK after carrying out a bombing of the Chinese Embassy, met Bishop in Lebanon. She was in the Chinese prison after being kidnapped and exchanged for an arrested US diplomat. It was in fact Muir himself who had arranged the kidnapping, believing she could possibly expose Bishop's true identity as a CIA paramilitary operative. After realizing that Hadley was the target of Bishop's daring rescue attempt, Muir finally learns that he greatly underestimated Bishop's feelings for her. It is this guilt which prompts him to part with his life savings in order to save her and Bishop, going against his warning to Bishop years previously in Berlin that he would not go after him if he went "off the reservation."
Bishop, who is rescued at the end of the film nearly 15 minutes prior to his scheduled execution, realizes Muir was behind his rescue since the name of the plan to rescue him, "Operation Dinner Out," was a reference to a birthday gift that Bishop gave Muir while they were in Lebanon.
