In the city of Budapest, IMF agent Hanaway is running away from a group of criminals
for stealing a file containing Russian nuclear launch codes.
After shooting all of them and running off a roof, he comes across Moreau, who kills
him before he can see the alarm on his phone saying she's an assassin.
With Hanaway dead, Moreau easily takes the file and escapes.
Meanwhile in a Moscow prison, IMF agents Benji and Carter prepare a plan to rescue fellow
agent Ethan.
From the van, Benji hacks into the prison system to open the cells and free the prisoners,
who begin rioting and beating up the officers.
Once Carter reaches the right spot in the sewers, Benji plays a song that indicates
Ethan they're ready to pick him up.
However, instead of going through the easy back door that Benji has opened for him, Ethan
jumps into the fight to rescue a prisoner called Bogdan.
It's hard to go through all the angered criminals, but Ethan is a very skilled fighter and manages
to push through and take Bogdan to an empty room while Benji locks the door behind them
so they can't be followed.
In this room, Carter uses an explosive to open a hole in the ground that will allow
them to escape through the sewers.
The team gets away in the van and Ethan explains he's brought Bogdan along because he sold
him intel and leaving him inside would've equaled death.
The agency sends a group of sweepers that will protect Bogdan, so after they move him
into another van, Carter begins explaining the next mission.
It turns out Hanaway had been working with Benji and Carter, but Carter got intercepted
on the train.
Hanaway managed to steal the file anyway and that's when the chase began, but what the
agency didn't know was that the person picking up the file was the deadly assassin Moreau.
By the time Carter shook off the thugs and reached Hanaway, it was too late.
The mission now will be to recover that file, and Ethan may have an idea of where it's going.
The IMF agency has been looking for an extremist codenamed Cobalt, who is eager to do some
nuclear bombing and has worked with Moreau before.
The van stops so Ethan can contact the agency, and he's told that Cobalt's real identity
seems to be part of the Russian Intel strategist.
To fully learn who he is and where they may find him, Ethan will have to infiltrate the
Kremlin and find Cobalt's file before he can destroy it.
Moments later, Ethan and Benji dress up as Russian generals to enter the Kremlin while
Carter pretends to be a tourist in order to guide a balloon that drops a special artifact
inside the building's chimney.
This artifact messes with the system, especially the scanner at the entrance, in order for
Ethan's and Benji's fake IDs to be read as real.
Once they're inside, Ethan and Benji reach the floor where the archive room is and use
a special screen that simulates the wall to hide behind it, so they can reach the right
door without being noticed by the guard.
However, when Ethan puts his hands on the cabinets, he discovers all the disks have
already been emptied.
At that moment, Cobalt appears on another floor and, after killing a guard, he intercepts
the team's frequency pretending to be with them and announcing it's time to detonate.
The message also reaches the guards who immediately jump into action, causing Ethan and Benji
to abort the mission and separate.
Fortunately, the uniforms allow them not to be suspected yet, so Ethan manages to make
it outside after passing by Cobalt without knowing it's him.
Once outside, Ethan gets rid of the fake mustache and turns around the jacket to look like another
tourist.
He also sees Cobalt again, and this time, he starts getting suspicious because he notices
the man has, for some reason, hidden his suitcase inside a bag.
Ethan wants to chase him, but suddenly, the Kremlin explodes and he's knocked out.
Hours later, Ethan wakes up in the hospital, handcuffed to a bed.
He's approached by police officer Sidorov, who has discovered Ethan's double jacket and
blames him for the explosion.
At that moment, a nurse takes Ethan to a room and leaves his file on the bed.
Ethan takes advantage of this by stealing the clip and using it to lockpick the handcuff,
which allows him to escape through the window.
Sidorov finds him and dares him to jump, but instead, Ethan uses his belt to slide down
an electric wire and land on top of a van, making it crash.
Sidorov tries to go after him, but Ethan is already running away.
He steals a jacket, shoes, and a phone that he uses to contact the agency, requesting
to be picked up.
The news of the explosion is appearing on tv all over the world, and cryptographer Lisenker
is worried that this may get him in trouble.
As soon as he sees the report, he asks his wife to pack her and their son's things for
a vacation, but it's already too late.
Cobalt and his right-hand man, mercenary Wistrom are in his house, threatening to kill the
family if Lisenker doesn't help them.
In the evening, Ethan is finally picked up by an agency car.
He gets to speak with the Secretary, who has brought along intelligence analyst Brandt
to inform Ethan what's going on.
Russia blames the USA for the explosion, thus the American government has initiated the
"Ghost Protocol", which means they've disavowed the IMF.
Ethan describes Cobalt and even draws a quick portrait of him, allowing Brandt to recognize
him as Kurt Hendricks, a Russian strategist who seeks to start a nuclear war and was asked
to resign because he's crazy.
Unfortunately, they can't inform the Russian government of this because Americans have
lost all credibility.
The Secretary is supposed to take Ethan back to Washington to be punished, but instead,
he hands Ethan a pendrive with information and tells him to pretend to have attacked
him and Brandt so he can escape in order to clean up this mess.
Before Ethan can do anything though, the car is found by the police, who open fire on them.
The Secretary and the driver die, causing the car to lose control and fall into the
river.
Ethan uses a flare together with one of the bodies to distract the officers while he and
Brandt swim away.
Sidorov is there too, overseeing the operation, and he's informed that two prisoners have
escaped their prison.
One is obviously Ethan, and while Sidorov doesn't know Bogdan, he sends his men to get
in contact with him.
Meanwhile, Ethan and Brandt reach a train station and find a secret IMF bunker inside
a departing freight train, where they reunite with Benji and Carter.
Ethan wastes no time and, after making a secret call, connects the Secretary's pendrive to
find a speech by Cobalt where he promotes the use of nuclear weapons to "clean" humanity.
He used the explosion at the Kremlin to cover up his theft of a nuclear device, now he only
needs to meet with Moreau to get the codes to activate it.
Intel says both Moreau and Wistrom have been seen going to Dubai, so they need to intercept
them.
With the IMF out of commission, they won't have any outside help, only the tools they
can find inside this train.
It's even more dangerous than usual, but everyone agrees to join the mission anyway.
The team travels to the Burj Khalifa, the highest building in the world.
But to get their plan rolling, first they must take care of a small problem: Benji can't
just hack into the hotel's system because the firewalls here are military-grade, which
means they'll have to access it from the outside.
While Carter steals a waiter uniform, Ethan wears special gloves that allow him to climb
up the outside of the building to reach the server room.
It's a dangerous mission to do in a hurry, since he needs to be done before the criminals
arrive and the incoming sandstorm gets to the city, but Ethan manages to stay focused
and reach the server, giving Benji direct access to all cameras and elevators.
The door of the server room can't be opened though, so Ethan uses a roll of wire to run
down the outside of the building and swing back into the room while Benji begins working
on changing the numbers of the rooms on two floors.
Now they can begin working on the plan properly.
Carter will pretend to be Moreau and meet with Wistrom, while Brandt and Ethan will
pretend to be the criminals and meet with Moreau.
Brandt's wearing a special lens that can capture and transmit images to the printer inside
a briefcase, this printer will copy the codes and print them in a scrambled order on paper
that can be tracked by Ethan's phone.
At that moment, they see on the cameras Wistrom arriving with Lisenker, who Brandt recognizes
as the cryptographer that redesigned Russian codes during the war.
This means he's been brought to authenticate the files Moreau will sell them, which ruins
the whole plan.
Ethan thinks they should give Wistrom the real codes and catch him later, a plan Brandt
is against until Ethan makes him realize they don't have much of a choice.
To make matters worse, the machine that has been working in their mask suddenly breaks,
so they'll have to rely on the hope that Moreau has never seen Wistrom before.
Fortunately, that's exactly the case.
Wistrom believes Carter to be Moreau, and Moreau believes Brandt and Ethan are her buyers.
Carter asks for the diamond payment in advance, and when Benji enters the room pretending
to be the waiter bringing coffee, he steals them without the others noticing.
Carter gives Wistrom the suitcase with the printer, which is locked, so she buys time
by pretending to need to find the combination numbers to open it.
Meanwhile, Moreau has given the codes to Brandt, who pretends to be Lisenker controlling them
to let the lens send the information to the suitcase.
By the time Carter gives Wistrom the combination, the printer papers are already inside and
Benji enters Moreau's room to present her payment.
Wistrom leaves with the papers, killing Lisenker on his way out.
Moreau is happy with the diamonds, but when the agents are allowed to leave, she notices
the lens on Brandt's eye and orders her bodyguards to kill them.
Ethan beats up the bodyguards with the help of Brandt, who shows shocking fighting abilities
for an analyst.
Carter goes after Moreau and engages in combat as well - she's supposed to take her alive
in order to interrogate her for intel, but in the middle of the fight, Carter kicks Moreau
and accidentally kicks her out of the window.
Meanwhile, Ethan goes after Wistrom.
Sidorov finds him on his way out and tries to arrest him, so Ethan beats him and his
men up before rushing outside to find the sandstorm getting closer.
Using the app on his phone that is tracking the papers, Ethan follows Wistrom through
the storm and jumps on him when he drives by, managing to scratch his face and ruin
his mask, revealing him to actually be Cobalt.
Ethan steals a car to try to follow him, but because of the storm, both of them end up
crashing, and Cobalt manages to escape by jumping on a passing truck.
The team relocates to an abandoned building, and while the team argues about Moreau's death,
Ethan contacts his mysterious caller again to arrange a meeting.
He also confronts Brandt to make him confess he used to be an agent that ended up as an
analyst, which explains his fighting skills, but Brandt refuses to explain his past.
It isn't until Ethan leaves to meet with his contact that Brandt tells the others what
happened: he was on a mission in Croatia where he was supposed to protect a couple without
them knowing he was there.
Unfortunately, he failed, and the woman was killed - this woman turns out to be Julia,
Ethan's wife.
Overwhelmed by guilt, Brandt decided to stop doing field missions and stuck to desk work,
which is why he knows why Ethan was in prison: he had killed the men that murdered Julia
in cold blood.
In the meantime, Ethan meets with his contact, who is no other than Bogdan.
His cousin is The Fog, an powerful arms dealer, who accepts to help Ethan because nuclear
war isn't good for his business.
The Fog informs him that the satellite Cobalt needs to activate the codes was sold to a
telecom in Mumbai, he also accepts to share some gear and even a private plane with the
team in exchange for Ethan hooking him up with some of his government friends.
After Ethan is gone, The Fog calls Sidorov and tells him where to find Ethan.
The team flies to India with a plan in mind.
Carter and Ethan sneak into a party hosted by billionaire entrepreneur Nath, who is the
owner of the company that bought the satellite.
Carter will try to allure Nath with her charms while Brandt sneaks inside through the kitchen
and enters a ventilation shaft wearing a special metallic suit.
Brandt jumps into the shaft and Benji keeps him floating with a special robot that carries
magnets, allowing Benji to guide Brandt through a tunnel to gain access to the computers that
control the satellite.
Carter manages to get Nath's attention and is invited to see his private collection of
art, which results in them going to his room.
Now they can't be seen, Carter beats up Nath and gets the server codes from him, but it's
too late.
Benji has lost access to the system because Cobalt and Wistrom are accessing the satellite
from another company building.
They've sent a virus to Nath's house system to stop Benji, and the codes are transmitted
to a nuclear submarine with the orders to shoot a missile at San Francisco.
At least the virus gives Benji the opportunity to track Cobalt's location, so Ethan and Carter
make their way there without knowing that Sidorov's also been at the party and is now
following them.
Unfortunately, heavy traffic doesn't allow them to get there in time and the missile
is shot.
However, Ethan refuses to give up, now they only need to modify their mission: their next
objective is to gain access to the system to abort the warhead.
When they arrive at the company building, they are seen by Cobalt, so he orders Wistrom
to cut power while he runs away with the briefcase containing the launch control device.
Carter enters the building as well, but Wistrom shoots her before cutting off the power and
escaping.
Brandt and Benji arrive then, and after making sure Carter is fine, they work on their next
tasks: Brandt goes after Wistrom and the power switch while Benji works on restarting the
system.
In the meantime, Ethan follows Cobalt into an automated car park, which consists of multiple
moving platforms across a dozen of floors.
At the same time Brandy finds Wistrom and beats him up, a fight ensues between Ethan
and Cobalt where the briefcase gets thrown around from platform to platform.
When they are high enough, Cobalt decides to sacrifice himself to buy time and allow
the missile to hit its target, which results in him grabbing the briefcase and jumping,
dying as soon as he reaches the bottom of the park.
There's no time for Ethan to run down all those floors, so he gets inside a car and
jumps as well, surviving the fall thanks to the car's airbag.
Afterward, he rushes to grab the briefcase and abort the missile, but it doesn't work.
This is because the team hasn't brought back power yet - Brandt is losing his fight with
Wistrom.
Benji tells Carter what buttons to press to restart the system once the power comes back
and goes looking for Brandt.
He shoots Wistrom as soon as he finds him and Brandt brings the power back, allowing
Carter to turn on the system and Ethan's constant pressing of the buttons finally cancels the
detonation.
In the end, the missile just hits the roof of a building before falling into the sea.
At that moment, Sidorov finds Ethan and gets to see the briefcase, which helps him understand
Ethan has always been the good guy and he was told the location on purpose in order
to see who the real villain is.
A few days later, Ethan is in Seattle having a drink with a fellow agent while telling
him of his latest adventures.
The team arrives then, so Ethan says bye to his friend to tell the team he would love
to work with them again.
Carter and Benji are happy to accept the new mission, but Brandt refuses and finally confesses
his failure to protect Laura.
However, Ethan isn't bothered: he's always known who Brandt is, and he doesn't blame
him for anything because Laura isn't dead.
No person can be safe while dating an agent, so Ethan faked her death to set her free.
The killing of her murderers had been part of the plan too, this allowed Ethan to be
sent to jail and contact Bogdan to get the information about Cobalt the IMF was looking
for.
Now that he has a clean conscience, Brandt accepts to work with Ethan again.
Once the team is gone, Ethan leaves his table to gaze at a woman arriving at the harbor:
it's Julia, who sees Ethan as well and waves at him before going on with her life.
Afterward, Ethan listens to another recording from the agency to receive his next mission.