A U.S. admiral (Jason Robards) and his team (Richard Jordan, David Selby) compete with Russians in an attempt to salvage the luxury liner.

Mercenary soldiers Jamie (Christopher Walken) and Drew (Tom Berenger) are hired by a large corporation to liberate Zangaro, a small African nation, from an iron-fisted despot. Once there, Jamie ends up in jail. After being brutally tortured, he is helped by Dr. Okoye (Winston Ntshona), a political prisoner, and learns more about the plight of the country's people. After Jamie is freed, he becomes disillusioned with his wealthy employers and joins the Zangaro people on the revolutionary front.

In the winter of 1944, American soldiers led by Will Knott (Ethan Hawke) are assigned to capture a small squad of German soldiers posted in France's Ardennes forest. Tired of war, the Americans have already lost half their division and discover that their German enemy is equally unwilling to fight. With Jewish soldier Stan Shutzer (Arye Gross) interpreting, the Germans and Americans agree on a plan that will let the former surrender without violence -- but then, tragedy strikes.

U.S. Navy pilot Lt. Jake Grafton (Brad Johnson) and his bombardier buddy, Lt. Cmdr. Virgil Cole (Willem Dafoe), are two soldiers embedded in the Vietnam War growing frustrated by the military's constraints on their missions. Despite the best efforts of their commanding officer, Cmdr. Frank Camparelli (Danny Glover), to re-engage them, this disillusioned pair decide to take the war effort into their own hands with an explosive battle plan that could well get them court-martialed.

During World War II, Nazi officer Max Radl (Robert Duvall) devises a plan to kidnap or kill the British prime minister. Approved by German Cmdr. Heinrich Himmler (Donald Pleasence), the scheme moves forward with Col. Kurt Steiner (Michael Caine) leading the mission, aided by Liam Devlin (Donald Sutherland), an Irishman with a deep hatred of England. As the plan unfolds, it seems to be going well -- until certain events threaten the group's shot at success.

Prisoner Roy Tucker (Gene Hackman) gets an offer that's too good to be true when a stranger called Tagge (Richard Widmark) visits him one day in jail, and says he can give Roy his freedom in exchange for agreeing to do an unnamed job down the line. Roy accepts and, after visiting his wife (Candice Bergen), is told the job is murdering someone. When Roy refuses to be a gun for hire, his wife is kidnapped, and Roy must find out who Tagge's mysterious employers are before it's too late.