Though she can spin wild tales of passionate romance, novelist Joan Wilder (Kathleen Turner) has no life of her own. Then one day adventure comes her way in the form of a mysterious package. It turns out that the parcel is the ransom she'll need to free her abducted sister, so Joan flies to South America to hand it over. But she gets on the wrong bus and winds up hopelessly stranded in the jungle--until she encounters Jack Colton (Michael Douglas), a man who could have stepped straight out of one of her novels.

Though his good looks and intrepid moves dazzle her, Joan quickly sees Jack for the cheap opportunist that he is. But he's all she's got, so together they journey out of the jungle, battling mudslides, druglords, crazed treasure-hunters--and each other. Along the way, Joan discovers she's tougher than she ever thought, tough enough to rescue her sister, and tough enough to fall in love with the troublesome Jack.