Ghosted is a romantic action-comedy film that follows Cole (Chris Evans), who travels to London to surprise Sadie (Ana de Armas), a girl he’s only met once. Unfortunately, she turns out to be a CIA agent, and Cole gets involved in a globe-trotting adventure to save the world. It is now streaming on Apple TV+.
Warning: This article contains heavy spoilers.
Plot summary
Ghosted opens on the outskirts of Washington D.C. with Sadie Rhodes running into Cole Turner while shopping for groceries. She is distraught about a colleague’s sudden death and hopes to not end up alone in life.
Cole is a romantically needy farmer and vendor, who has a reputation for driving women away as he comes on too strong. They initially have an argument, but Cole apologizes and asks her out.
The two have an amazing time and end up sleeping together. Cole believes that Sadie might be the one and expresses the same to his family. While his parents are supportive, his sister Mattie calls him out for jumping the gun again.
As fate would have it, he texts her multiple times, and she doesn’t respond. Mattie is convinced that Sadie ghosted her brother because of his incessant texting. However, he remembers that he forgot his inhaler in her purse which has a tracker.
When he tracks the location to Central London, Cole believes that Sadie was called away for work and probably didn’t have a chance to see his messages. His parents encourage him to travel to the UK as a romantic gesture and surprise Sadie.
Cole, who has never set foot out of the country, decides to take the plunge and leaves. Once he arrives, he reaches the location of the tracker and is kidnapped by a ruthless group of arms dealers.
They believe he is the highly skilled CIA operative called the “Taxman”. Cole tries his best to convince them about the misunderstanding but his pleas fall on deaf ears.
Before he is tortured for a mysterious passcode that he doesn’t have, he is saved by the real Taxman who turns out to be Sadie. After a lot of shooting and killing, the two make it out of the cave where Cole was held captive and are revealed to be somewhere in the Khyber Pass, Pakistan.
A chaotic vehicle chase follows, and the two barely make it out alive. The kidnappers are revealed to be the henchmen of Leveque (Adrien Brody), a disgraced French Intelligence Operative. He has a lethal biological weapon called Aztec and needs a passcode for it before he can sell it to his buyer.
Cole follows Sadie to a nearby town as the two argue continuously about the lies they told each other about their lives. They soon meet Marco, another CIA operative, who used to date Sadie.
He reveals that the lady cares more about the mission and will go to any lengths to see it completed. At this moment, Leveque puts out a bounty on the Taxman (who everyone now thinks is Cole).
Marco is soon murdered by a bounty hunter as Cole and Sadie find themselves kidnapped. More hunters enter the picture, and in a comedic turn of events, they kill each other, allowing the protagonists to escape unscathed.
Ghosted ending explained in detail:
What is Sadie’s plan?
Cole informs Sadie that the people in the cave wanted a passcode, and Sadie comes up with a plan. She knocks Cole out and poses as a bounty hunter herself.
As it turns out, the code is a genetic sequence that Leveque needs to open the case housing Aztec. Also, the colleague who had died was killed by Sadie herself as she turned rogue.
The next day, she hands over a gagged and disheveled Cole to Leveque and demands to be on the plane carrying him so that she can receive her bounty.
Leveque assigns his lackey Wagner to get on the plane as well, and leaves. Wagner is tasked with getting the passcode from the Taxman, and killing both Cole and Sadie after it is done. Sadie is quite pleased with the success of her plan until Cole’s stupidity ruins it.
Wagner goes through Cole’s phone and sees a picture of him with Sadie in bed. He confronts them about it, and a fight breaks out. Sadie overpowers the goons but is wounded in the process. She asks Cole to parachute out, but he takes her along with him, also grabbing the Aztec case.
The two land on an island, and Cole patches Sadie’s wound up using his knowledge of plants and herbs. However, Wagner’s team locates the parachute and ambushes them. Sadie sends out a distress signal to the CIA and they are saved by a team of US Marines. Unfortunately, Wagner succeeds in stealing the Aztec case.
What is the passcode?
Back in America, Sadie and Cole are put through a polygraph test and end up arguing again. Cole is disappointed that Sadie regrets saving his life over the case and urges her to try and care for someone except the mission.
Sadie is temporarily suspended and sent home as she let Aztec out of her hands while Cole comes up with the solution. When he is shown pictures of the colleague Sadie killed, he notices a plant in the background. He relates it to the culture of the Aztecs and confirms that the plant’s DNA sequence is the passcode.
The CIA plans to use Cole as the Taxman and barter with Leveque, hoping to arrest him when he shows up. They send him the first part of the code as bait.
Leveque smells that it may be a trap but has no choice but to bite owing to increasing pressure from his buyer, Mr. Utami. Cole meets with Leveque and Utami at a high-end restaurant, but his backup is murdered by Wagner.
He decides to stay because he’s confident Sadie will show up to save him. As Cole’s guests threaten him for the code, Sadie shows up on cue and reveals herself as the real Taxman.
Do Cole and Sadie end up together?
She sells the passcode to Utami for $10,000,000 and subsequently places a bounty on Leveque for the same amount. Chaos ensues as hunters try to get a piece of the former French operative, and Sadie tries to get her hands on the Aztec vile.
As the action subsides, Cole eliminates Wagner, Leveque shoots Utami, and is killed himself after falling through a window. Furthermore, Sadie succeeds in recovering the vile.
She finally meets Cole’s family for a meal and has a great time. The two formally start dating and travel to Europe with Cole researching a book he’s been planning to write and Sadie continuing her missions.