Sam Stone (Danny DeVito) is a clothing manufacturer, who married his wife Barbara (Bette Midler), for the money that she was supposed to inherit from her dying father, but her father didn't die for another fifteen years. He is now planning to kill her and he tells his girlfriend Carol Dodsworth (Anita Morris) what he is going to do. He then on his way home to do just that but when he gets there, she's not there. He then receives a call from someone claiming to have kidnapped Barbara and threatening to kill her if he informs the police, which he does hoping that they do. What Stone doesn't know is that the kidnappers, Ken (Judge Reinhold) and Sandy (Helen Slater) Kessler are a couple whose idea for a garment he stole and made fortune off, are not that lethal, as a matter of fact Barbara's more lethal. And what Stone doesn't know is that Carol, has another boyfriend named Earl Mott (Bill Pullman), and they plan to blackmail Sam, by videotaping him disposing of Barbara's body. When Earl goes there to do that, the person who goes there was not Sam but a man with a hooker (Jeannine Bisignano), and he instructs the hooker to scream her head off, Earl mistakenly believes that Barbara's not dead and that Sam was killing her there, and was so freaked out that he didn't bother to see if it was Sam. Carol tries to put her plan in operation by sending Sam a copy of the tape, Sam thinks that it's for something kinky that Carol wants and when Sam tells her that he is going to do what was done on the tape to her, she assumes that he is going to kill her. So she sends another copy of the tape to the Chief of Police (William G. Schilling), and tells him that she wants him to arrest Sam for murdering Barbara, and the Chief is happy to oblige cause he is the man who is on the tape. The Chief manages to find the instruments that Sam was going to use to kill Barbara and arrests him. Sam now has to get Barbara, alive, so that he can prove that he didn't kill her. And Barbara starts to bond with Sandy. 温情搞怪讽刺，只用5分钟就想看下去。 贝特（贝特·米德勒 Bette Midler 饰）和丹妮（丹尼·德维托 Danny DeVito 饰）也曾有过惺惺相惜浓情蜜意的曾经，只是两人都已经不太记得了。他们只知道现如今，两人是见面就要吵架的仇敌，都恨不得将对方除之而后快。 终于，贝特下定了决心要执行他的暗杀计划了，哪知道在这个节骨眼上，竟然传来了丹妮被绑架的消息，劫匪向贝特所要五万元赎金，如果不给就要撕票，这可趁了贝特的意，他不需要弄脏双手也可以杀死丹妮，天底下竟有这等的好事？当然没有，在贝特开心的等待着绑匪撕票丹妮的档口，丹妮早已经和绑匪达成了共识，她雇佣了绑匪们杀掉她的老公。
