..........The film opens in Mexico, with Colonel John "Hannibal" Smith held captive by two corrupt Mexican officers, working for the renegade General Tuco. Hannibal escapes after being left to be fed on by two guard dogs, and sets out to rescue his comrade-in-arms Templeton "Faceman" Peck, who is himself held captive by Tuco at Tuco's private ranch, where Face had seduced the General's wife. Hannibal makes it to the ranch in time to save Face from a grisly demise, after enlisting disgraced Ranger Bosco B.A. Baracus, driving to the rescue in B.A.'s souped-up GMC Vandura van. With the three men now on the run from the enraged Tuco, they stop in at a nearby Army hospital, to recruit the services of insane pilot H.M. "Howling Mad" Murdock. In a medical chopper, they engage Tuco in a vicious aerial dogfight, which results in B.A.'s permanent fear of flying, and ends when they manage to lure Tuco's chopper into American airspace, where it's destroyed by a U.S. F-22 Raptor - the capstone to an elaborate plan put together by Hannibal.

The film then moves forward "eight years and eighty successful missions later", where the team - now a highly-regarded, elite combat unit - is stationed in Iraq. Hannibal is contacted by CIA Agent Lynch, who reveals that Iraqi insurgents are in possession of U.S. treasury plates being used to manufacture counterfeit currency. Lynch wants Hannibal and his team to steal the plates and over 1 billion dollars in counterfeit cash that's due to be moved out of Baghdad. At the same time, DCIS Captain Charissa Sosa arrives on the scene, warning her ex-lover Face, whom along with the rest of team she has disdain for, to stay away from the plates and out of Baghdad. Against the advice of his commanding officer, General Morrison, Hannibal agrees to steal the plates, albeit in an unofficial "Black Ops" mission. The mission is successful, but when the team returns to base to meet their commanding officer, both the shipping container carrying the money and Morrison's Humvee are destroyed by men from the private security firm Black Forest (a fictionalized version of Blackwater), led by the ruthless Brock Pike. With Morrison the only proof that they were, in fact, acting on the U.S.'s behalf, the team is arrested, tried, dishonorably discharged and sentenced to ten years in federal prison..........