History Film / JumpinJackFlash

* {{Foreshadowing}}: At one point, Marty bursts into Terry's apartment, thinking she's in danger, ready to do KungFu. When he realizes she's okay, he pretends to have hurt himself. [[spoiler:He's Jack's friend, and also a government spy.]]

It turns out Jack is a spy, and is stuck in Eastern Europe without a way out. He needs someone on the outside to reach one of his contacts and tell them his situation, so they can arrange for a new exit plan. Terry is led to his apartment, where she can find a hidden list of his contacts (she also gets to hear his voice, which is from that point on used in voice over for all his messages). Her meeting with Jack's first contact goes poorly when he is shot dead. She next reaches the wife of one of Jack's contacts (Creator/AnniePotts), who has connections at the NYC British Consulate. After various chases and near-misses, Annie and her family suddenly disappear, and another one of Jack's contacts (Roscoe Lee Brown) tells Terry that Jack is a pawn, not meant to be saved but sacrificed for more important reasons. Terry rejects this, and after being drugged by a KGB lackey (James Belushi), barges her way into the presence of the Consul's wife (who formerly had a relationship with Jack), and angrily demands she convince her husband to provide Jack with a new escape plan. Eventually, the wife relents.

Unfortunately, it turns out that one of the Consulate staff, Talbott (John Wood) is a KGB mole, who ultimately provided the (bad) contact to the consul. Terry bluffs that she sent Jack different information, and escapes, running to her office to get on the computer and warn Jack about the bad information just as he is about to head out to his certain death. The KGB moles are in tow, and follow her into the office, preventing her from sending the message. A firefight ensues, where it is discovered that HollywoodNerd coworker Marty (Stephen Collins) is actually an undercover CIA agent, who takes out most of the KGB goons, and Terry manages to [[GroinAttack disable Talbott]], much to his shock, and send off the message. Marty (real name Peter and the last of Jack's secret contacts) gets onto the chat session with Jack and gives him a good contact.

* {{Mondegreen}}: Terry has to write down the lyrics for "Jumpin' Jack Flash" in the days before you could look them up on the internet, and has some difficulty working out what Music/MickJagger is singing.
-->"I was raised by two lesbians? [clip] Mick, Mick, Mick...speak English!"

* TruthSerum: Which doesn't ''quite'' work, since all it does is make Terry spout BrutalHonesty and ask questions like, "Why is it called martinizing, anyway?"

* SamusIsAGirl: An InUniverse example, as Jack thinks [[GenderBlenderName Terry is a man]] when telling him to get a formal tuxedo for an embassy party (Terry remarks she would need to be in an evening dress). He immediately thinks it's too dangerous for a woman; Terry [[WhatTheHellHero lets him have it]], since she's ''already'' in danger, and he reluctantly accedes, and gives her the mission.

* NotMyDriver

* FryingPanOfDoom

* TruthSerum: Which doesn't ''quite'' work

* WigDressAccent

* AllStarCast: Pretty much anyone who was funny in the 80’s shows up somewhere throughout the film.

!!''Film/JumpinJackFlash'' includes examples of the following tropes:

It turns out Jack is a spy, and is stuck in Eastern Europe without a way out. He needs someone on the outside to reach one of his contacts and tell them his situation, so they can arrange for a new exit plan. Terry is led to his apartment, where she can find a hidden list of his contacts (she also gets to hear his voice, which is from that point on used in voice over for all his messages). Her meeting with Jack's first contact goes poorly when he is shot dead. She next reaches the wife of one of Jack's contacts (Annie Potts), who has connections at the NYC British Consulate. After various chases and near-misses, Annie and her family suddenly disappear, and another one of Jack's contacts (Roscoe Lee Brown) tells Terry that Jack is a pawn, not meant to be saved but sacrificed for more important reasons. Terry rejects this, and after being drugged by a KGB lackey (James Belushi), barges her way into the presence of the Consul's wife (who formerly had a relationship with Jack), and angrily demands she convince her husband to provide Jack with a new escape plan. Eventually, the wife relents.

* RefugeInAudacity: InUniverse example: Terry bluffs her way into a government party by dressing up as [[TheSupremes a Supreme]] and lip-syncing "You Can't Hurry Love".

* WigDressAccent

* BlackAndNerdy: Terry, played mostly subverted, but cracking code keys and having more online friendships than in real life and an online romance is pretty geeky, even moreso for 1986.

* BerzerkButton: Played with. For the police chief, it's "motherfucker." After a litany of epithets and curses from Terry, ''that's'' the one that he decides to lock her up for.

* TookALevelInBadAss: Subverted with Marty, who suddenly pulls out a handgun and drops a machine-pistol-waving goon. But Marty is really a spy, so he was capable of this all along. Hinted early on when Marty handily disarms Terry attacking him with a tennis racquet, then tries to cover.

''Jumpin' Jack Flash'' is a 1986 UsefulNotes/ColdWar suspense comedy starring WhoopiGoldberg as Terry Doolittle, a data entry worker in the processing department of a downtown New York City bank. One of her guilty pleasures at work is to drop notes to the operators at the receiving ends of the transfers she processes, who are often in another country, which generates a number of international friendships and trading of recipes, mixtapes, etc. Right after her boss (Peter Michael Goetz) tells her to stop wasting company resources ("Computers are not friendly, Ms. Doolittle." "I'm not a computer, Mr. Page."), she receives a message from "Jumpin Jack Flash", which she tries to dismiss, but becomes intrigued with his mysterious statements. She arranges a time to chat later that night (in the office), but first has to deduce Jack's "code key", which (though it is not stated) will encrypt their communications. The answer is in Music/TheRollingStones song ''Jumpin' Jack Flash'' ("Sing with me and find the key,") and while she comes up with many seemingly good guesses, she realizes that the "key" is, literally, the ''key'' of the music: "B-Flat".