Live Wire

Live Wire

Year: 1992

Runtime: 85 mins

Language: English

Director: Christian Duguay

ActionDramaThriller

Your body is 93% water, so no one is safe when terrorists create an invisible liquid explosive that detonates inside a person. Bomb‑disposal specialist Danny O’Neill is called in to track the weapon, race against time, and prevent the deadly, water‑triggered threat from killing innocent victims.

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Live Wire (1992) – Full Plot Summary & Ending Explained

Read the complete plot breakdown of Live Wire (1992), including all key story events, major twists, and the ending explained in detail. Discover what really happened—and what it all means.

The explosive footprint of a political life shatters when a Senator is killed in a spectacular blast, pulling the FBI into a case that grows stranger and more dangerous by the hour. The investigation is led by Pierce Brosnan as Danny O’Neill, a seasoned bomb expert whose professional calm is tangled with personal turmoil. Off the job, he is separated from his wife, Lisa Eilbacher who plays Terry O’Neill, after the tragic drowning of their only child in their home pool. The emotional riptide shakes Danny as he pursues every clue with clinical precision, even as his own life becomes a liability in the shadows where danger lives.

Early findings refuse to fit ordinary profiles. The team cannot confirm the type of explosive, nor how the blast was triggered. Yet the forensics point toward something far more insidious: a liquid explosive that can be activated from within the body by stomach acids. As the investigation expands, the danger becomes personal and intimate. The terrorists behind the scheme are led by Ben Cross as Mikhail Rashid, a mastermind who sees the carnage as a geopolitical instrument. Rashid’s machinations are tied to a powerful Senator, Ron Silver who plays Frank Traveres—the very man whose extramarital entanglement with Terry becomes the emotional fulcrum of Danny’s mission.

The plot accelerates when a second Senator dies in a limousine ambush. The vehicle’s driver is one of Rashid’s henchmen, captured and brought to court. To protect Rashid’s operation, a justice system conspirator slithers in a tyrannical way: the judge, fed with the liquid from a pitcher, explodes in the courtroom. The witness is silenced, and Danny realizes the terrifying mechanism at work: the system itself is being weaponized through chemical deception. The revelation deepens Danny’s resolve to shield Terry, who is now a direct target as the plot closes in on Senator Traveres.

At a high-society fundraiser, the threat comes to life in a grotesque disguise. Al-Red, a main henchman played by Tony Plana, masquerades as a clown and attempts to unleash a fountain filled with the explosive liquid. Danny acts with breathless urgency, tackling the clown and preventing a catastrophe that would surely pull Terry into the crossfire. The close call sparks a fragile reconciliation between Danny and Terry, underscoring the personal costs of their professional battleground.

With Traveres still vulnerable, Danny makes a bold, perilous move: he infiltrates the senator’s heavily guarded mansion at a moment when Rashid’s forces overrun the estate. Inside, Danny improvises a volatile defense, fashioning improvised weapons and makeshift bombs from items found in the kitchen. The siege erupts in a crescendo of desperate engineering and split-second decisions. Rashid’s men are eliminated, but the key antagonist remains, and Rashid himself hauls Terry into a hostage stance, threatening not just a political future but the lives of those Danny holds most dear.

As the confrontation nears its breaking point, Rashid consumes more of the liquid, sealing his own fate but aiming to pull the entire building into ruin. Danny manages to free Terry and guide her to safety, while Senator Traveres and he find themselves cornered in a fatal standoff. The countdown ends with a brutal fall: Rashid’s explosion compels the trio to leap from the third floor to escape. Traveres meets a tragic end when he impales himself on a wrought-iron fence, a grim twist of fate that leaves Danny alive to carry Terry out of danger and into a fragile peace.

In the aftermath, the film closes on a note of quiet resilience. A year later, Danny and Terry have rebuilt their lives, welcoming a second child and reaffirming a bond that survived the darkest of trials. The mission may be over, but the memory of the danger lingers—an enduring reminder that vigilance, love, and a willingness to risk everything are the only constants in a world where the line between political theater and life-threatening peril is dangerously thin.

Last Updated: October 09, 2025 at 10:50

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Live Wire Spoiler-Free Summary

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