John Rambo is removed from prison by his former superior, Colonel Samuel Troutman, for a top-secret operation to bring back POW’s still held in Vietnam. Rambo’s assignment is to only take pictures of where the POWs are being held, but Rambo wants to get the POWs out of Vietnam. Teamed up with female Vietnamese freedom fighter Co Bao, Rambo embarks on a mission to rescue the POWs, who are being held by sadistic Vietnamese Captain Vinh and his Russian comrade, Lieutenant Colonel Padovsky. Rambo falls in love with Co Bao, and when Co Bao is killed by Captain Vinh, Rambo wants revenge, so he starts killing every enemy in sight while still focusing on his intentions to rescue the POWs. There are also corrupt American officials involved in the mission, including Marshall Murdock, one of Rambo’s superiors.

Based upon the Tom Clancy novel of the same name, Jack Ryan, a CIA analyst, is thrust right in the middle of a power struggle within the Colombian drug cartel after one of the President’s “life long” friends is murdered, apparently in retaliation for stealing money as part of a money laundering scheme for the cartel. Jack is then appointed acting Deputy Director of Intelligence, CIA, upon the terminal illness of Admiral James Greer, former DDI, and quickly gets in over his head due to his political naivete. The situation rapidly deteriorates when some of the presidents men convince the President to conduct covert actions against the cartel, in direct violation of congress. Felix Cortez, the security chief of Ernesto Escobeda, the “victim” of the missing money, is one of the cartel boss’s. Cortez tries to play both sides, appearing to inform Escobeda about the CIA’s involvement in the covert operations against him, while trying to orchestrate a coup to take over the cartel, with Cortez as it’s sole boss. James Cutter, the President’s National Security Advisor, makes his own deal with Cortez, with the Presidents knowledge, and halts communications to the covert troops still in Colombia, through the Deputy Director of Operations, CIA, Robert Ritter. Ryan ends up going to Colombia to rescue the covet ops troops with the help of field agent John Clark, but not before some fence mending between the two, being that Ritter blamed Ryan for the comm outage, with Clark’s men subsequently being captured by Cortez’s mercenaries.

An Army sergeant (Samual Jackson) takes six of his special troops on a training mission into the rain-soaked Colombian jungles and only two come out alive. When the rescue mission arrives, they see one soldier (Brian Van Holt) killing another and carrying a wounded comrade (Giovanni Ribisi). As the interrogation begins, the soldier refuses to talk to anyone other than another Ranger. The investigating officer (Connie Nielsen) protests, but her commanding officer (Timothy Daly) nonetheless brings in a former Ranger and current DEA agent (John Travolta) to help. The agent is currently on suspension from DEA for allegedly accepting a bribe. From this point on, the plot continues to twist and turn and offers numerous surprises that keeps the story interesting.

John Rambo’s former Vietnam superior, Colonel Samuel Trautman, has been assigned to lead a mission to help the Mujahedeen rebels who are fighting the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, but the Buddhist Rambo turns down Trautman’s request that Rambo help out. When the mission goes belly up and Trautman is kidnapped and tortured by Russian Colonel Zaysen, Rambo launches a rescue effort and allies himself with the Mujahedeen rebels and gets their help in trying to rescue Trautman from Zaysen.

When a prisoner transport plane carrying Deputy Sam Gerard as an escort crashes, one prisoner, Mark Sheridan helps him rescue some trapped prisoners and then escapes himself. Gerard and his crack team of U.S. Marshals start their pursuit, but the simple fugitive situation soon gets more complicated when Gerard learns that Sheridan is no mere criminal and the story behind his incrimination becomes more and more suspicious. At the same time, Mark Sheridan is out to find out the truth himself while keeping one step ahead of Gerard

Los Angeles police sergeant Roger Murtaugh, who has just turned 50 years old, is assigned to investigate the death of Amanda Hunsaker, a prostitute who is one of the daughters of bank president Michael Hunsaker, a friend whom Roger has known since they were in the Vietnam War together, but Roger hasn’t seen Michael in 12 years. Beginning with this investigation, Roger is assigned a new partner Sergeant Martin Riggs, who has been suicidal ever since his wife Victoria “Vicky” Lynn Riggs died in a car crash in 1984. Riggs and Murtaugh’s investigation of Amanda’s death reveals that she was murdered. Upon hearing of this, Michael tells Murtaugh that he would like for whoever is behind Amanda’s murder to end up dead, like Amanda. Riggs and Murtaugh’s investigation continues and it makes them the targets of Shadow Company, a group of former Vietnam War era mercenaries who now bring heroin into the Los Angeles County region. Shadow Company’s leader, General Peter McAllister, and his right hand man, Mr. Joshua, want Riggs and Murtaugh dead, no matter what the cost.