At the airport, US marine Mike says goodbye to his girlfriend Jenny before flying to North Africa for
a special mission. Three months later, Mike and his spotter Tommy are still in the African desert,
waiting on top of a cliff for their assassination target. Eventually they see two groups of people
approaching from opposite directions: one group is coming on foot while the other is a convoy full
of armed vehicles. The groups meet in the middle and Tommy plus his commanding officer in the radio
urge Mike to take the shot, however he hesitates. It looks like a sweet reunion between families,
not like a terrorist making business. Then Mike realizes this is a wedding and his target is the
groom’s father, who is now standing behind the couple. He tells his commanding officer about
the situation and gets orders to kill the groom to reach their target at the same time, however Mike
refuses to cruelly kill a civilian and lies to his commanding officer, saying he’s lost the target.
At that moment a glare off the sniper scope gives off their location to the guards at the ceremony,
who immediately open fire. Mike shoots a few bullets back before running away with Tommy
while the guards rush to evacuate their boss from the area. Some of the guards start making the way
toward Mike and Tommy in their vehicles, so the duo has no choice but to jump and roll down the
hill. They run to hide behind a rocky formation and Tommy calls his commanding officer to ask
for rescue, however his GPS has broken and he can’t offer their exact position. The enemy is
getting closer, so Mike shoots at the hill to make them go in a different direction. Suddenly
their enemies leave because they see there’s a sandstorm coming. Mike and Tommy decide to
use it as cover and walk through it as Tommy makes another call. His commanding officer tells them to
reach a village located five hours to the west so they can be picked up. Eventually the duo manages
to get out of the storm and starts walking under the unbearable desert sun. Tommy talks all the
time and shares stories about his son and wife at home, but Mike still doesn’t say much. Frustrated,
Tommy points out that something is obviously eating Mike on the inside and asks about Jenny,
wondering about the possibility of marriage. Mike explains he does want to marry her but he
can’t yet because it’s complicated. Moments later they get a message on the radio explaining that
the main team has had complications and the new pick-up spot has been chosen, meaning the duo will
have to cross the desert to get there. Because of the dunes, the radio won’t always work so they’ll
have to be extra careful. After lots of walking, Mike and Tommy encounter the sandstorm again and
stop to wait it out. They can see a guy with a child at the end of a rope walking through the
storm, but they don’t seem to notice them back so the duo doesn’t shoot. As the wind blows,
a warning sign comes off its pole. Once the sandstorm is gone, Tommy and Mike continue to
walk under the scorching sun. Suddenly the warning sign lands right in front of Mike's feet. He can’t
read it, but the skull obviously means danger and he remembers that the USA has buried tons
of landmines in this area. However Tommy thinks Mike is taking it too seriously and explains it’s
a trick from the locals to keep enemies away from their villages. Tommy also points out that turning
back means dying of thirst, so he just keeps going, confident that the sign means the village
is near. After a few hours of walking, Mike freezes when he steps onto something, but it’s
just a little toy soldier. He puts it away in his vest before noticing that Tommy is out of water,
so he shares his own. Desperate to keep the mood up, Tommy begins walking backward as he keeps
teasing Mike for overthinking things. Suddenly a click can be heard and Mike tries to warn his
friend, but it’s too late: Tommy takes another step and a landmine explodes. As his ears ring,
Mike takes a step towards Tommy, only to hear another click. He freezes in shock as
he realizes he’s standing on top of a landmine and can’t move without activating it. Once the
sand from the explosion clears out, Mike can see Tommy has survived but lost both his legs.
He can’t stop yelling in pain and begging for help, so Mike yells back to calm him down and
explain the situation. Under Mike’s guidance, Tommy tries reaching for his bag with the radio,
but the pain is too much. His mood gets worse when he looks down and discovers he’s missing his legs,
causing him to freak out. Mike calms him down by reminding him of his family and mentions the
medicine injections they carry in their vest. Tommy immediately takes both instead of saving
one for later like Mike says. Then Tommy tries for the bag again and this time he reaches it,
but unfortunately the radio isn’t working. Getting desperate, Mike considers stepping away from the
landmine because there’s a chance it’s old and broken. However the risk is high and Tommy wants
him to live, so he takes out his gun and asks Mike to send his love to his son before self-deleting.
Mike yells in frustration and grief, but quickly stops himself as he realizes freaking out may
make him fall. Then he starts lowering his body extremely carefully until he’s down on
one knee and uses his knife to gently move the sand. He finds some round metal under his foot,
confirming he’s on top of a landmine. Unbeknownst to Mike, a man is watching from afar but leaves
without helping. Next, Mike puts together his shoelaces, the strap from his gun,
and his axe to create a hook. He throws it a couple of times to try to get the bag but it won’t
reach far enough. Moving carefully again, Mike stands up and almost falls when throwing the ax,
but thankfully he recovers just in time. Now he finally can drag the bag toward him and grab the
radio, only to discover the battery is dead and the spare is in Tommy's vest. At least the radio
can be sun-powered so he leaves the small panel on the ground to let it charge. Afterward Mike keeps
himself busy by going over his supplies. A few hours later the radio finally charges and Mike
gets to talk to his commanding officer, explaining the situation and requesting extraction. However
the officer isn’t happy about the failed mission, and since Mike doesn’t have GPS and has one leg
in death's realm already, he isn’t considered high priority. The helicopters can’t fly because
of the sandstorms, so Mike will have to wait fifty-two hours for a convoy to pick him up.
Mike isn’t sure he can survive that long but he has no other choice and starts a timer on his
watch. The commanding officer reminds him lots of mines are old and broken and that there’s a
trench technique to survive this problem, however the communication cuts off before he can finish
explaining. A few hours later, Mike eats some of his rations, noticing he doesn’t have much left.
Suddenly the sandstorm starts approaching again, so Mike quickly covers his face, grabs his things,
and bends over to wait as still as possible against the wind. His body trembles a lot,
but Mike is strong and gets through it without activating the mine. Once the storm has passed,
Mike looks around and discovers the wind pushed Tommy’s body right next to him. After covering
his friend’s face with his hat, he opens the vest pocket and finds a picture of Tommy’s family. He
takes a minute of silence and puts it back before finally grabbing the battery. Unfortunately the
wind has blown the bag too far and now he doesn’t have access to the radio. The depressing irony
makes Mike laugh. As time passes, Mike can’t do anything but wait. He covers his head to protect
it from the sun and drinks the last drop of water. Getting desperate, he shoots a few bullets at the
sky and yells for help to no avail. He begins considering self-deleting as his only option,
but at that moment he sees a Berber man pass by. Mike points his gun at him and asks him to stop,
but the Berber doesn’t listen and keeps moving. Thinking he may not speak English, Mike makes
exploding noises to indicate this is a landmine area, however the Berber just mocks him. Then the
guy starts walking toward Mike in a zig-zag pattern. Suddenly he asks why Mike is stuck,
revealing he understands English. Mike explains the situation as he continues to ask for water and
the radio, however the Berber mocks him for not moving. He does take his flask but doesn’t help
with the radio, he just leaves while ignoring Mike’s yelling and questioning if his weird
movements help him avoid mines. Hours later, Mike forces himself to pee in a bag to drink. He barely
takes a sip before a little girl shows up, running toward him in the same zig-zag pattern. She gives
him his flask full of water and Mike drinks as he guesses she’s the Berber man’s daughter. Then
the girl takes out a toy soldier from her bag and Mike shows her the one he found in return, so she
uses both to represent him and Tommy. Without using words, she pushes the toy to tell Mike
he needs to move on. Mike says he can’t move and starts yelling for the radio without meaning to,
so the girl just leaves. Later as the sun starts to go down, Mike plays some songs on his phone
and starts a fire. He can hear animals howling in the distance, so he distracts himself by looking
at pictures of Jenny on his phone and watching a video she specially made for his departure as a
good luck charm. Eventually the fire goes off and Mike falls asleep while looking at his watch. His
father appears in front of him and punches him, triggering a memory of the abuse he suffered as a
child. This causes him to wake up right before he falls. Then Mike tries to re-start his fire, but
at that moment he hears the growling of wild dogs coming closer. He starts shooting in the dark,
but none of his bullets hit. Deciding to risk using the flashlight, he discovers one of the
wild dogs is taking away Tommy’s bag and there’s another walking toward him. After changing guns
he opens fire again, hurting the dog. As the creature steps back, it activates a landmine,
and the resulting explosion scares the pack away. The next day the Berber visits Mike again, calling
him a lucky man for surviving so far. The Berber explains he doesn’t know where the landmines are
and he just walks like that to get better chances. He thinks Mike is afraid of moving on physically
because he isn’t able to do it in his soul and asks why Mike became a soldier, to which Mike
answers that he had no reasons to stay anymore. At least this time the Berber brings over the radio
and Mike quickly changes the battery, but it still won’t work. Then the Berber grabs Mike’s face and
tells him to be a free man. This causes Mike to hallucinate the man as Tommy telling him to live,
but once he blinks the Berber is far away. A few hours later, Mike cuts his boot because his foot
is red and swollen. He also uses his knife to kill a scorpion. Eventually the heat becomes too much
and he takes off his vest. It’s clear that the whole experience it’s affecting him mentally:
he starts seeing hallucinations and interacts with them as if they were real by yelling at them,
punching them, and even shouting in frustration. Every time this happens a clicking sound can be
heard. He even sees Tommy’s body standing up and announcing they’re going home, but he quickly
disappears. In the evening, Mike continues to try to contact the base while Tommy’s hallucination
tells him that he’s just killing the battery. At that moment his phone starts ringing and Mike sees
it’s a call from his dad, so Tommy has to point out it isn’t real. Mike snaps and pushes him away,
so Tommy reminds him this is happening because Mike never worked through his inner demons. Mike
says that having left Jenny makes him as bad as his father, but Tommy reassures him he isn’t. A
flashback reveals that Mike asked Jenny to marry him but she turned him down because she also
thought he had some self-healing to do first. In the present, Mike almost falls asleep, but at that
moment the wild dogs arrive again. They activate a mine and move away from the explosion, but this
time they don’t leave. Mike shoots in the dark ahead of him, only for Tommy to warn him to watch
out. Suddenly a dog approaches him from the side and bites his arm, so Mike shoots it. Then Tommy
convinces him to try the technique his commanding officer mentioned, thus Mike desperately starts to
dig in the sand. Unfortunately the dogs jump on him to attack and push Mike away before
he can finish the trench, causing the mine to explode and hurt him. As he falls dead,
Mike blinks and realizes the explosion was a hallucination, but the dogs are truly attacking.
Determined to survive, he grabs his knife and starts killing them one by one, getting several
bite wounds in the process. During the fight, he keeps thinking about the times he was punched in
the past. By morning time, all the dogs are dead and Mike has survived. At that moment the radio
finally activates and Mike learns that the convoy is delayed because of an attack, so he’ll be
picked up in seventeen hours. Knowing the chances of survival are low, the base connects Mike to
Jenny, and he immediately begins apologizing for destroying everything he touches while seeing her
in front of him. The communication ends before Jenny can reply and Mike finally passes out,
but he’s caught by the Berber just in time. While the man puts an ointment on Mike’s wounds,
he explains a landmine took his leg, showing his wooden one. He had been very scared in the
hospital, but a nurse showed him enough sympathy to help him keep going and eventually she became
his wife. Then the Berber makes Mike drink some medicine, warning him it’ll help with the pain
but will also make the hallucinations worse. Mike mentions the little girl, but the Berber reveals
he was the one who brought him the flask. He only has three sons now because his daughter died when
the mine took his leg. They used to gather mines together to sell them to guerrillas, and the girl
was very good at retrieving the mines by replacing them with old cans. The Berber thinks he isn’t
as lucky as Mike, but at least he’s free because he learned to move on. Afterward the man leaves,
and Mike sees his daughter walking by his side. Suddenly the medicine kicks in and Mike watches
the walls of his childhood home come out of the ground. He opens the door and his child
self appears watching his father being extremely violent to his mom. When his dad noticed him,
he said he’d teach him to be a man and punched him too. The hit causes Mike to return to reality for
a second only for the flashbacks to quickly start again. He sees his happy life together with Jenny,
but a clicking sound interrupts with a memory of his mother in a hospital bed. Mike had escaped his
house in fear and left his mother with his father, which resulted with her in the hospital. Another
memory shows Tommy and Mike at a bar watching how two men are harassing a waitress, who turned
out to be Jenny. Furious, Mike came to her defense and begin beating the guys up with lots of pent-up
aggression. The hallucinations mix again and his dad reappears to punch him. Mike mind changes
between the desert and the memory of his mom dying in the hospital, which makes him feel guilty to
this day. It’s the Tommy vision that finally makes him snap out of it to warn him the convoy
is coming. A voice in the radio is also trying to contact him, but Mike’s dry throat can barely
speak. He tries waving a hand, but he’s too far to be seen. Then Tommy reminds him of the smoke
grenade and when Mike is about to grab it, he’s suddenly shot by an enemy hiding in the dunes.
Thinking about Jenny as encouragement not to give up, a bleeding Mike bends over and finally grabs
the smoke grenade, but before he can activate it, the enemy shots again and causes him to drop it.
Memories of arguments with Jenny and his departure fill his mind as Mike fires back, shooting as many
enemies as he can before running out of bullets. His father appears again and Mike remembers his
mother telling him to let her go. Confused and overwhelmed, Mike points his gun at his father,
who encourages him to do it. However he thinks of Jenny and how he asked her out after the fight at
the bar, so he decides to be good for her and not shoot. His father hugs him at the same time he
remembers a hug from Jenny, helping him to finally move on. The convoy won’t stay much longer and the
grenade isn’t close enough. Mike remembers the Berber’s words and carefully steps away from the
mine, but nothing happens. Shocked, he digs out the mine only to discover it was one of the girl’s
cans all along. Inside the can he finds a toy soldier. Mike laughs in relief and finally gets
the grenade, activating it just in time for the convoy to find him and rescue him. Sometime later,
a healed Mike returns to the USA and reunites with Jenny, ready to start a better life for her.