Michael Jennings (Ben Affleck) is a top-notch reverse engineer. Corporations pay him to crack the secrets of their competitors' products. When the job is done, he has his memory of it erased. Rethrick (Aaron Eckhart), head of a company called Allcom, hires Jennings to reverse-engineer a secret government device. After the job, Jennings wakes from the memory erasure to find himself being chased by various agencies. He soon realizes that the fate of the entire world may be in his hands.