The movie follows Ethan Hunt, a secret agent working for the Impossible Mission Force (IMF), who is forced out of the field and into a desk job. He meets and recruits Lindsey Farris (Michelle Monaghan), an outstanding field agent. However, things take a turn when a brilliant rogue agent named Owen Davian (Philip Seymour Hoffman) escapes from a highly secure prison. Hunt must go back into the field and stop Davian from selling a deadly virus.