Red

Frank Moses (Willis), a former black-ops CIA agent, is now living a quiet life in retirement. However, he begins to feel lonely with retirement and strikes up a relationship with Sarah (Parker), a customer service agent working for Frank's pension office in Kansas City. However, his quiet life is disrupted when he is attacked by a hit squad in the middle of the night. Frank kills the assassins and, knowing the assassins would have tapped his phone, makes his way to Kansas City to protect Sarah. She becomes Frank's reluctant companion while he tries to find out who is trying to kill him, and he decides to track down his old black ops team for help. Meanwhile, CIA Agent Cooper (Urban) is tasked by his handler Cynthia Wilkes with tracking down and killing Frank Moses.

Frank first goes to New Orleans to find his mentor Joe (Freeman), currently living in a retirement community and terminally ill, who tells him that the hit squad Frank killed were also responsible for the murder of a news reporter. Cooper arrives to try and kill Frank, but he finds himself outmatched. Frank and Sarah then find clues left behind by the deceased reporter, which leads them to a hit list. They then track down Marvin (Malkovich), a paranoid conspiracy theorist to provide more information. Marvin tells them that the names on the hit list were all connected to a secret mission in Guatemala that Frank participated in, and that one name, Gabriel Singer, is still alive. The trio track down Singer, who tells them that the mission involved extracting a person from a Guatemalan village and that everybody connected to the mission, including the entire village, has been killed to silence them. Singer is then assassinated by a sniper, and the team makes their escape as Cooper closes in. Needing more information, Frank decides to break into the CIA headquarters and steal the original mission file. With the help of Russian secret agent Ivan Simanov (Cox), Frank steals the file but is injured in the process. Joe, having escaped an attempt on his life, helps extract the team and joins them. The team decides to hide out in Victoria's (Mirren) house for first aid. Victoria, who misses her old life as a wet-work agent, decides to join the team as well.

After reviewing the file, all the team can figure out is that the only man involved not on list, Alexander Dunning (Dreyfuss), has some way of protecting himself. The team arrives at Dunning's house and interrogate him. Dunning tells them that the mission was to extract Vice President of the United States Robert Stanton, who at the time was a young Lieutenant that experienced a breakdown and massacred a village in Guatemala, an incident which Frank and his team were sent in to clean up and make look like never happened. It becomes apparent that Stanton, in his effort to campaign for Presidency, is trying to erase all the loose ends involved to cover up that part of his past. At that moment, Cooper and the FBI arrive and surround Dunning's mansion. Cooper tries to negotiate with Frank, but Frank tells Cooper about the Vice President's treachery, which shakes his faith. Joe decides to sacrifice himself by taking Frank's place and pretending to surrender. As he exits the mansion, he is killed by an unknown sniper hidden in the forest, despite Cooper ordering his own snipers to hold fire. However, this confusion buys the team enough time to escape. Unfortunately, Sarah falls behind and is captured. Frank calls Cooper and threatens to kill him and his family if Sarah is harmed, and that he intends to kill Stanton.

The team, along with Ivan (revealed to be Victoria's former lover), infiltrate a fundraising event held for Stanton and successfully kidnap him despite Cooper's best efforts to stop them. Frank calls Cooper and says he is willing to trade Stanton for Sarah. At the meeting point, Dunning arrives and reveals that he is the true mastermind behind all of the assassinations and that Stanton was merely an unwilling pawn and scapegoat. Wilkes is also in on the plot. Disgusted with Dunning and Wilkes's greed and corruption, Cooper gives the key of the cuffs to Moses and shoots Wilkes while Marvin and Victoria kill Dunning's bodyguards, and Frank kills Dunning. Cooper agrees to let Frank and his team go. As they leave the scene, Frank and Sarah are eager to start a new life together. However, Frank must first return a favor to Ivan in return for his help in breaking into the CIA headquarters.

The final scene shows Frank and Marvin in Moldova, fleeing with a stolen nuclear device while the Moldovan army pursues them.