Hook, Line & Sinker

Peter Ingersoll, is about to have surgery, and on the operating table begins explaining how his unusual medical situation came to be to a flock of medical personnel, and a large audience of students observing the pending operation. Peter is a married insurance salesman living in Southern California with his wife Nancy and their two children. Peter's life is secure but mundane, but his one escape is open water fishing. Nancy is resistant to Peter's hobby but grudgingly tolerates it. She soon urges him to take out an insurance policy for his hobby, to which he eventually agrees. Not long after, his friend and physician Dr. Carter informs him after the insurance physical that he shockingly has a terminal medical condition and only months to live. Stunned, Peter in his vulnerable condition eventually gives in to his wife's constant prodding to live out his last days in luxury and adventure, although it will be costly. Peter begins doing all sorts of things around the world and running up tremendous credit card expenses, but figures he'll be dead soon enough and it won't be an issue. One of his adventures is a deep sea fishing trip in Portugal, where he stunningly finds that Dr. Carter traveled all the way to Lisbon to see him personally. There he tells Peter that he's not dying after all, that the tests were in error and he's actually very healthy. However, now Peter faces the problem of the enormous expenses and a potential insurance fraud problem once he's found out. Dr. Carter broaches the idea that, since Peter is publicly expected to die soon, he could take advantage of this and fake his death, thereby escaping his financial and possible criminal problems, even if he might have trouble seeing Nancy and the kids ever again. Dr. Carter even promised to find an unclaimed corpse in Portugal to ship back as the presumed Peter as "proof" he died, and also offered to help secure a fake passport and health certificate, eventually allowing him almost permanent residency in Israel. Peter agrees to all of this; while still at his (and Dr. Carter's) Lisbon hotel, Peter is in the lobby when he shockingly sees Nancy walk in, and right after that Dr. Carter. Peter hides behind a plant while observing them talk and then kiss; it's clear that they were either married or all but so. Dr. Carter also tells the two children that they would go to the Lisbon Zoo later that day. Peter then realizes that he's been totally played, that Dr. Carter and Nancy had been having an affair and had schemed to get Peter out of the way without a costly divorce (and also getting $150,000 in insurance money to boot!). Peter is stunned and shocked, and begins to walk aimlessly through Lisbon. On his walk, he has the notion to visit the morgue where "Peter" (found by Dr. Carter) is supposed to be lying as a corpse awaiting shipment back to the states for burial. Using the alias that Dr. Carter created for him and saying that he was a friend of "Peter's" and wanted to pay respects to him, Peter passes another coffin of a Confederate veteran during a wake, he's led to "his" coffin room where an African-American man is placed. Peter then gets an idea for revenge - he concocts a plan to switch the old Confederate's coffin (which was to be shipped to South Carolina for burial) with the man in "his" coffin. He ensures that a window is unlocked and goes back to the hotel, where after ensuring that Dr. Carter and Nancy aren't in their room, arranges to get a key and go to their room. There he finds and takes several of Dr. Carter's business cards and leaves. That night, Peter goes back to the morgue, climbs through the window that he unlocked earlier, switches the two coffins in their respective rooms, and drops one of Dr. Carter's cards into the Confederate's coffin. Forwarding back in the operating room, Peter then reviews the series of consequences for the curious surgeons: the Confederate's coffin was opened at his funeral for his widow's one last look, but instead she sees the black man due to the switch and faints, causing an uproar; at "Peter's" funeral, a horde of police cars pull up led by the county coroner, who demands that Dr. Carter tell him who's in "Peter's coffin (it's inferred that the criminal trail led to Dr. Carter via the South Carolina coffin having his card in it, which was discovered and triggered the inquiry). From there it's inferred that Dr. Carter was arrested for the body switch and medical falsifications, and that Nancy wouldn't get any insurance money but possibly jail time for insurance fraud; Thus Peter's revenge was complete. On the operating table, the surgeons still hadn't gotten the answer to their first question: how Peter came into his current acute medical condition. It turns out that after his revenge played out, Peter went deep sea fishing where he hooked a Marlin - which in slapstick fashion flew out of the water and - as the shot widens in the operating room - right into his chest, spearing him. So the operation is to try to remove it. The surgeons ironically warn Peter that the operation could kill him, to which Peter said that if so, he'll die a happy man.