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 15 years. He is now planning to kill her and he tells his girlfriend Carol Dodsworth (Anita Morris) what he intends to do. He then goes home to do just that, but when he gets there, she's not there. He soon 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 a fortune with, are not that lethal' actually, Barbara is more lethal. Stone also doesn't know that Carol has another boyfriend, 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 is 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 is killing her there; he's so freaked out that he doesn't think to make sure it's actually Sam. Carol tries to activate her plan 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'll do to her what was done on the tape and she assumes that he will 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--because he is the man on the tape. The Chief manages to find the instruments that Sam intended to use to kill Barbara and arrests him. Now Sam must get Barbara back, alive, so he can prove he didn't kill her. Meanwhile, Barbara starts to bond with Sandy.