About to leave the country, a young Russian woman is ambushed in her Tucson apartment after calling her contact about a Boeing 747 she witnessed landing in the desert. The lead attacker, Kerr [Christopher McDonald], tortures her for information about her roommate before drowning her in an aquarium.
Richard "Ditch" Brodie [Charlie Sheen] is a former Olympic gymnast turned high-risk daredevil who pushes the envelope with an illegal BASE jump off a towering skyscraper, even as his jump school comes under strict FAA scrutiny. Upon returning to the school, he is approached by a beautiful but nervous woman named Chris Morrow [Nastassja Kinski], who insists on performing a static jump from cruising altitude right away. Playing along because of her flirtatious confidence, Ditch agrees to take her up. During the flight, Chris briefly spots another aircraft below. When Ditch checks with his pilot to see if the other plane has been noticed, Chris cuts ties with him and jumps on her own.
Ditch watches as Chris tumbles uncontrollably below him, unable to save her before she hits terminal velocity. An investigation follows, and the jump school is closed down indefinitely. Feeling guilty and unsettled, Ditch digs through Chris’ belongings and discovers her apartment key. He also finds a photograph showing Chris performing a jump, which contradicts her earlier claim of inexperience. Kerr attacks Ditch, but he manages to fend him off and escape. At the flight school, Assistant District Attorney Ben Pinkwater [James Gandolfini] informs Ditch that he may be charged with manslaughter for Chris’ death. Later, Ditch spots the same plane that has been tailing him and tracks it to a shack, where he discovers Chris very much alive—having faked her death by using her roommate’s body.
Chris then leads Ditch on a tense nighttime jump at an aeronautics plant, promising to clear his name if he cooperates. The mission continues as Chris has Ditch infiltrate the plant through a smokestack, disable the security system, and steal a hidden optical disc. Kerr and his men arrive, forcing Ditch to flee back to his school amid gunfire. Desperate to secure a future free of suspicion, Ditch arranges a meeting with Chris and Pinkwater at a scrapyard, but Pinkwater shoots Chris’ partner Lex, revealing himself to be allied with Kerr. A blistering firefight erupts, and Chris and Ditch manage to escape in a makeshift rocket-powered car.
Venturing into the desert, Chris reveals her true name: Krista Moldova, and explains that she and her pursuers are former KGB operatives left unemployed after the Soviet Union collapsed. Pinkwater and his crew have hijacked a shipment of gold bullion meant for the Moscow reserve and plan to use it to finance a coup against the democratic Russian government. With the optical disc in hand, Chris deduces the location of the missing Boeing 747 carrying the gold. She and Ditch board the plane, locate the bullion, and are discovered by Pinkwater’s men. They narrowly escape, and Ditch decides to quit the chase for good as Chris heads off to confront Pinkwater alone.
As Ditch is about to leave on a bus, he finds a photograph that Chris had taken, showing a sign reading “Ditch Did Not Kill Me,” which quietly exonerates him. Moved, Ditch drives toward the airfield just as Pinkwater and his team take off with Chris. Posing as an FAA agent, Ditch convinces a biplane stunt pilot to fly him up to the 747. He boards just as Chris is shoved into the trunk of Kerr’s car to be killed. Ditch and Kerr tumble into a brutal confrontation, the car plummeting from the cargo hold to the ground. Ditch fends Kerr off, sending him to his death thousands of feet below, and frees Chris from the trunk. They crash-land in a wind farm nearby, and the damaged plane is forced to land as police close in. In the chaos, Pinkwater parachutes down, but Chris is stabbed in the back. Ditch yanks Pinkwater’s backup chute toward a turbine, pulling him into the blades and killing him.
Some time later, Ditch and Chris receive official commendations at the Kremlin for their actions in aborting the coup and preventing the destabilization of Russia.
