Plot summary

Set in the Cold War Era anti-communist USA, this spy parody brings to light the differences and similarities between the USA and the USSR. Fitz-Hume (Chase), a Press Representative for the US State Department is a lazy womanizer with the gift of gab. Millbarge (Aykroyd) is a code breaker and language expert with US Intelligence who has been kept in the basement (literally) while others prosper on his talents. Sent to take a government skills test, the two are caught cheating and soon find themselves on a top secret government assignment in order to save their jobs. The two are teamed up, sent to an accelerated covert operations training camp and become GLG-20s (international covert operatives). The two are then sent to the Soviet-Pakistani border where they must make their way on the road to Dushanbe and to their final assignment. Comic misadventures follow the two on their way until they meet up with the real GLG-20s. Milbarge and Fitz-Hume discover they were decoys and they must decide if they should go through with their final mission, or defy their handlers who deceived them.===============================================================================Somewhere in a frozen forest, a missile on a portable launch gantry breaks through the trees. Surrounding it are guards in white snow-camouflage uniforms. The emblems on their uniforms suggest they are Soviet troops.Above the Earth, a spy satellite films the operation, beaming photographs down to Washington DC. At the Ace Tomato Company, an agent takes the photos out of a produce storage warehouse in a briefcase chained to his wrist. He drives to a private mansion where two men, Ruby and Keyes, study the photos -- after they lock the agent in a small hidden closet when they discover they don't have the key to his handcuff. Two generals, Sline and Miegs, meet with Ruby and Keyes and determine that the missile will be a workable scenario for a mission they have planned. They want to send in two covert operatives, GLG-20 level agents, to seize control of the missile. However, they also know that the mission will be extremely dangerous and they'll need two more GLG-20s to act as decoys. Ruby and Keyes agree to recruit two more agents.Across town, in the US State Department, a government diplomat, Emmet Fitz-Hume, irresponsibly watches a movie starring President Ronald Reagan. His coworker asks him if he plans to take the Foreign Service Board exam. Fitz-Hume says he's going to take it but shirks his responsibility to study for the test. He also points out that he comes from a long line of government clerks uninterested in promotion & that he's satisfied staying in his current job.In a basement chamber underneath the Pentagon, another government operative, Austin Milbarge, an expert code-breaker, is visited by his supervisor, and Air Force captain, who only keeps him around to do his work for him. Milbarge knows he's eligible to take the Foreign Service Board exam and leaves, hoping to get away from his supervisor.Milbarge and Fitz-Hume report for the examination. Fitz-Hume wears an eye patch and a cast on his left arm and, after a failed attempt to bribe the proctor, uses crib notes he's attached to his eye patch and hidden in his mouth and the cast to cheat. He also enlists the help of Milbarge when he doesn't know the meaning of the acronym "KGB." Fitz-Hume then feigns a nervous breakdown and pretends to have a heart attack. Milbarge jumps to his aide; their antics are captured on film.The two later meet with Ruby and Keyes who tell them that despite their behavior in the examination room, they're going to be promoted to GLG-20-level and sent into training to become foreign agents. They are flown to a training facility and pushed out of an airplane, landing in a forested area. They are met by a small group of ninjas. Fitz-Hume tries humorously to negotiate with the assassins, while Milbarge grabs a branch and prepares to defend himself. However, the ninjas are actually part of a exercise conducted by their training officer, Colonel Rhombus, to assess their capabilities. The two continue their training and continue to be screw-ups, at one point wishing to be discharged. However, they are eventually sent on another plane to Afghanistan.Arriving at a remote village, they are met by two American attaches from the US embassy. While they ride with their escorts across the desert, Milbarge notices that one of them wears a Russian wristwatch. Insisting on a bathroom break, he takes Fitz-Hume with him away from the jeep and tells him that the men are impostors. They suddenly run into the two men. The attaches ask them to reveal the names and locations of their contacts. Milbarge tricks the two men into speaking Russian and they are able to subdue them and escape in the jeep. They arrive at another village, this time run by the Afghani mujaheddin. They are initially taken prisoner and hung upside-down, however, they are discovered by a British doctor, Jerry Hadley, who mistakes them for two additional doctors. They are taken to a tent and introduced to an entire medical team who are assisting the mujaheddin while they battle the Soviet-occupying armies. Milbarge is believed to be a prominent surgeon and a woman doctor, Boyer, asks him to perform an appendectomy on the khan's ailing brother. During the surgery, while Milbarge stalls for time, the khan's brother suddenly dies on the table. The remaining mujaheddin chase them through the desert after they steal a small van and they are eventually able to throw off their pursuit.In another small village, Milbarge and Fitz-Hume call Ruby and Keyes, asking the name of their next contacts and their next destination. Ruby tells them to look for their next contact on the Dushanbe Road in Tajikistan. The two buy winter clothing and hike there, finding the road. While they wait for their contacts, they are found by a Tajik patrol. Milbarge runs off under gunfire while Fitz-Hume surrenders. While Milbarge hikes into mountains, looking for transport, he hears shots. Nearby, Hadley and Boyer have been discovered by another Tajik patrol on horseback and in a furious gunfight, Hadley is killed. Milbarge finds Boyer. When he introduces himself as a GLG-20, Boyer tells him that he and his partner were meant to be decoys. Milbarge is furious but realizes he can't leave Fitz-Hume in the hands of the Tajiks. Borrowing one of the horses and Boyer's MAC-10 pistols, he raids the camp where Fitz-Hume is being held and interrogated by the Soviet agents they'd escaped in the desert. The two are able to escape and rejoin Boyer.At a remote drive-in theatre in the American West, Keyes and Ruby enter a top-secret military facility run by Sline and Miegs. The facility houses a sophisticated anti-missile base called WOMP. They await contact from their agents in the Soviet Union.Moving further into the Pamir Mountains, the three hear music, which Milbarge identifies as the song "Soul Finger" by the Bar-Kays. In a small valley below them, they find the Soviet missile emplacement (from the first scene). Milbarge remarks how the guards are isolated, having not set up any sort of communications equipment. Boyer reveals her plan; they will take the missile site by force. Though Fitz-Hume and Milbarge are initially reluctant to approach the nuclear warhead, she convinces them with a stirring speech. She gives them dart-guns that will incapacitate the guards.Milbarge and Fitz-Hume decorate their winter-weather gear to look like alien visitors. When they are able to get close enough to the guards -- who are actually a family -- they shoot them with the darts, knocking them all out. They then communicate with Sline and Miegs, who give them instructions which launch the missile. As the missile circles the Earth, Sline and Miegs activate WOMP, which sends a giant laser blast into space that bounces off several giant mirrors attached to satellites. At a crucial moment, the laser blast misses the nuclear warhead. Ruby and Keyes are horrified, knowing that a strike on a United States city will result in all-out nuclear war. Sline and Miegs tell them that nuclear weapons that go unused are a waste and their plan all along was for the world to destroy itself.Back at the missile site, the Russian family berates the Americans for launching the missile without provocation. The group breaks off into couples, Fitz-Hume and Boyer both join up, and wait for the inevitable destruction of the world. As the warhead streaks toward Detroit, Milbarge suddenly has an idea: he can rewire Boyer's satellite communication box and reverse the coordinates to redirect the missile out into space. The plan works, the missile changes course above the Earth and detonates.At the WOMP facility, armed troops suddenly burst in. Sline and Miegs are arrested for conspiracy and Ruby and Keyes both try to babble their way out of the predicament.In Washington, Fitz-Hume and Milbarge engage in unilateral disarmament talks with the Russian family. In actuality, they are playing a variation of Trivial Pursuit with small missiles on a board of the world. The Russians fail to answer a question about American rock n' roll correctly and they lose their missile sites in Eastern Europe.