When a mission to retrieve a stolen suitcase bomb goes bad, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agent Kevin Pope (Rock) is killed. Pope was working undercover as an antiquities dealer under the name Michael Turner. The CIA, which is desperate to complete the mission, discovers that Agent Pope had a twin brother, Jake Hayes (also Rock), from whom he was separated at birth; their mother died giving birth and Hayes suffered from a severe lung infection that prompted the doctors to separate them because they felt that Hayes was unlikely to live for very long. Hayes hustles chess games, scalps tickets and works at small clubs in Jersey City, New Jersey to make ends meet. Meanwhile, Hayes's girlfriend, Julie (Kerry Washington) grows tired of waiting for him to grow up and decides to move to Seattle, Washington (U.S. state).