Welcome to Thriller Recapped, Today, I will show you an American Drama Military film called, Camp
X-ray, Spoilers Ahead, watch out and take care. The movie begins with a man named, Ali Amir,
After the events of 911, he is entering his home, then he goes to his bedroom and performs,
salah, a prayer in Islam, when suddenly someone enters his house and bags his head.
While under the bag, he travels with others until they reach a detention camp.
Army men take them and lock them in a small cage, as if they're an animal.
Eight years later, a new batch of soldiers arrive to guard the detention camp.
As they walk inside the hallway of detainees who are locked inside their rooms,
the detainees throw curses at the military, along with the new batch is, Amy Cole. Then, Corporal
Ransdell explains the rules. The rotation of shifts is every 12 hours, he reminds them not to
get fooled by detainees, he also elaborates that they’re in the camp to keep the detainees alive.
One of the new arrivals, Prv. Rico, asks on why detainees are not called prisoners,
and Cole answers, “prisoners are subject to the Geneva convention, and detainees are
not.” The batch moves for a tour of the facility, introducing the rooms and offices. While on tour,
someone radios Ransdell because a detainee is found causing some trouble. After the report,
he says the code word, Charlie Bronson, which is a brevity code for an Initial Reaction Force.
IRF is a four-person team called in, when something terrible happens to detainees.
Cole then volunteers to join, when Ransdell asks who wants to experience it.
Cole wears her vest along with the other team for an IRF.
While assembling her vest, Ransdell removes her name tag on her uniform, and he explains that
she can talk to the detainees, but she should never let them know any information about her.
The IRF team prepares, and when the door opens, all the IRF team tackle, Mahmoud, onto his bed,
while Cole is reluctant to touch him. She attempts to join the restraining to Mahmoud,
but he elbows her face, she staggers backward. The IRF team eventually cuffs his wrists.
The team then takes him outside the room, but he spits on Cole’s face. Frustrated,
Cole kicks him in the sides. The IRF team locks him on a chair and places him in a room.
After their shift, she rides the bus with others to go to their base, she mingles with them,
and they tease her a bit. Later that night in her bedroom, she cleans herself, she then FaceTime’s
her mom and talks for a bit. The next day, Cole prepares for her shift and travels to the camp.
At the facility, she pushes a book cart to give detainees something to read.
She investigates every door’s window and knocks to ask the detainees to read something.
However, one of the detainees’ shouts at Cole, and Ransdell hurries over to calm down the detainee.
Ransdell explains that the detainees don’t like women doing work because it’s an Arab thing.
She gets to room 105, where Ali is staying. Ali returns a book and looks for the 7th book
of Harry Potter. However, Cole says she doesn’t know anything about it. Then Ali reasons he’s been
looking for the book for two years. She coldly responds, asking if he wants a book or not?
Ali then asks for the 3rd book instead, and Cole gives it to him. He keeps asking for more
information about the book, and she answers them, but Ransdell arrives to end the conversation.
He gets mad because he’s still talking to Cole and proceeds to insult Ransdell.
The following day, the guards are preparing meals, Qurans, and books for the detainees. Another day,
another duty for Cole, Ali once again tries to start a conversation with her, but she grimly
dismisses all his attempts. Then he asks for water instead, so he’ll stop talking. At first, she
ignores him, and then she notices the rest of the detainees are covering their Quran. So, she picks
a bottle of water to give it to Ali. She opens the small hatch, then Ali surprisingly throws
feces on her uniform, the other guard calls for backup while the detainees crazily laugh at her.
She removes her top uniform, and Ali covers his door window with a towel. Frustrated,
she opens the hatch and attempts to remove the towel. After many unsuccessful attempts. Furious
enough, she calls an IRF for Ali. She observes that whenever the detainees cover their Qurans,
it means something is about to go wrong. After the chaos, Cole washes her uniform in the kitchen,
then Colonel Drummond, appears and advises her to use vinegar for the smell, he also asks her
to do observations, but she insists to stay on her duty. She then goes out to deliver the food,
and Ransdell waits for her. Rico appears and asks what she is doing, she tells them she’s okay,
then she notices the ration is missing one food. Ransdell says they punished Ali in a frequent
flyer program, to keep him from sleeping. After their duty, the dayshift enjoys on the sea, during
night they drink beers and play games with others. Cole goes to a washroom stall, and Ransdell
follows her, he then kisses her at first, until things go rough when he’s starting to undress her,
she asks him to stop, but he doesn’t stop, so she pushes him away and leaves the washroom.
While they have their restful day, Ali suffers from waking up every two hours to get transferred
into a different cell. The following day, Cole accompanies, PFC Raymond, to search Ali’s room.
She sees a cup drawn with beautiful strokes of circles forming patterns,
she notices how the room is small for everyday living, Cole watches guards bring sleepy Ali
back to his room. Later, she reads Ali’s file. She sees beaten photographs of Ali
and browses through his records. She learns that he has a history of self-harm, and learns Ali
often received visits from the shrink due to his violent becoming. She then eats alone, and Rico
joins her, Rico expresses his frustration towards the detainee, but Cole thinks otherwise. She then
asks Rico if he read Harry Potter books, but Rico says no since he thinks it’s a kid’s book.
While on duty, Cole returns to her rounds, and she notices Ali is doing art on his sudoku puzzle.
He asks her if she knows sudoku, then he explains that since he read all the books,
he likes testing his knowledge in sudoku, he then tries to let her answer his sudoku, but she says
she can’t, Ali snaps and calls out Cole for being cold to him, when he’s only being friendly, he
then flashes his work out of anger, and he yells that they’re are the real bad guys, for locking up
innocent men in cells. When Ali calms down, Cole tells him that she looked for his Harry Potter
book, and she couldn’t find it in the archives. However, Ali claims that one of the guards told
him that there’s a 7th book, so he believes there is one, but she claims that the guard fooled him,
he then apologizes for demanding the book, and he confesses that he’s waiting to know
the ending of harry potter since so long, that it’s making him crazy. Eight months later,
the detainees are not eating anything. So, they force-feed the ringleader, Mahmoud, by inserting a
tube onto his nose. Later, Cole guards Ali, who’s playing with ball inside the cage, she asks him
about the count, and he says he only scored 18, then he mentions that he wants to beat the other
detainee’s record who reached 40. She offers him to exceed the 40 score, and she’ll voice for him,
He kicks the ball and only lands on 8, then they both laugh. Cole tells him that she can
get him transferred to a suitable facility, if he stops acting out. However, for him,
he doesn’t care about the military rules, because it means surrendering his rights to the one who
captured him. Suddenly, Mahmoud, with guards around him, appears behind and yells at him,
for talking to Cole, she notices that they don’t like when a detainee talks to the guards.
Then Ransdell calls her, Ali says the guards don’t like Cole talking to him as well.
Ransdell didn’t like her talking to Detainee, so he lies about his men occupied with a fight
in the showers, he then asks her instead to watch Ali’s shower, despite it being against
the Standard Operating procedure of army and Arabic social norms. Later that night at the bar,
Cole realizes Ransdell lied to her, she then files a report to Colonel Drummond.
The next day, Cole visits the Colonel’s office because of her report, colonel dismisses her
complaint and reasons that the detainee still showered despite her presence there.
During their talk, she realizes that the way they run things in the facility is inhumane,
they treat the detainees as someone below them. Colonel points out that his hands are tied by the
authorities, and he has no choice but to follow it. Later, she joins Rico for lunch, Rico tells
her about one of the guards they found trying to hang himself, then she sympathizes with him,
on how things can get tough inside the facility, she expresses that not everyone is strong,
and that being inside the facility makes her feel guilty due to the ill treatment of detainees.
Rico snaps because of what she said, and he claims that the detainees did 911, that’s why they’re
locked inside, then she argues that the people who did 911 already died in the field, he then blames
her for talking too much with Ali, that he already entered her head, he thinks being in the facility
is luckier than being at war in Iraq. As the days pass, Cole begins isolating herself from the other
guards, due to significant differences in morals. Until one day, she receives a letter saying they
assigned her at night shift. Then Ali, on the other hand, looks for her, but she’s not there.
During Cole’s night shift, she watches Ali sleeping when he suddenly wakes up and looks for
her, she goes to his door and she asks him to get some sleep, but he claims he can’t sleep anyways.
Cole realizes they never turn off the lights at night, making it hard for the detainees to sleep,
then he asks her on how she became a night shift guard, but to his surprise,
Cole tells him that she snitched on someone who did wrong. Ali guesses that she snitched
on Ransdell, and she pauses by thinking what Ransdell did to her, when the other guard leaves,
he asks her on how she ended up working in the facility, but she returns the question to him,
Ali claims he was never a part of any terrorist group, but he knows nobody will believe him.
She diverts the topic and recalls that Ali is from Bremen Germany. Then, they both laugh,
when she attempts to say something in Deutsch, and she keeps mispronouncing words. Then she
shares something about her hometown and how the base has more people than her home, she opens up
about wanting to do something meaningful in her life, that’s why she left her hometown.
After few hours, Ali cannot sleep, and he asks Cole about the date, she says it’s July,
and he reminds her that she’ll leave next month, since new batch of guards arrive on every August,
then he asks if she will want to work in the facility again, but Cole says no,
her answer saddens Ali, so he asks what she will do once she leaves, she says she might
travel to Germany, Ali is sad because new guards will come and treat them like animals.
However, she assures him that they’ll learn as she did, and he asks her on what she learned.
Cole looks at him with teary eyes, Ali explains that everything here is at war,
but she says she doesn’t look at it like that, which makes him point out that they will never
understand the sufferings of detainees. While Cole continues her shift, Ali brings out a hidden blade
to kill himself, As Ali holds the edge to his neck, she convinces him not to give up, Ali tells
her that three years ago, a colonel told everyone that Ali is innocent from any accusations,
but they still didn’t let him go, the reason is that Ali stayed in the facility for too long,
that no country nor city will accept him again in society. Ali has convinced himself that he's got
no place to go, so only killing himself will bring him somewhere, hoping it will change something.
While they talk, a guard enters, and she asks the guard to get her a new one.
Ali, who’s still holding the blade, tells her that she’s a good person,
then he asks if he’s a good guy or bad guy. She answers, it doesn’t matter, But for Ali it does,
he points out that the guards never see the detainees suffering, and none of them are even
living, but the guards only notice that they want to die. The facility controls what they
need to do, and no one will understand them because they’re not the ones locked inside.
Suddenly, she tells him her real name and hometown, which is a violation of SOP, but
it’s clear that she doesn’t care anymore, just for Ali to keep himself from digging the blade deeper.
Then Cole shares how excited she was to visit the zoo with her dad when she was young,
but she saw the animals locked in tiny cages when she got to the place.
She now realized it’s never okay, while her dad convinced her that it’s fine when she was young,
further he even convinced her that the lion could never go back home, because he wouldn’t be able to
survive in the wild. She realizes the animals had no choice because the lion could’ve been
free if he had a choice, just like Ali and the other detainees, she then returns to her rounds,
and when she gets to Ali’s room, she prepares herself before looking, and then she cries as she
sees Ali, who’s still alive, she opens the hatch and retrieves the blade, and Ali gives it to her,
then she holds his hand firmly, and she cries out of joy to see him alive.
The movie ends with Cole packing her things before leaving the place, she leaves the base with tears,
as for Ali, he’s surprised to see the 7th Harry Potter book, which he’s been looking for since
two years, then he opens the book and reads a written note saying, “To Ali, I don't know if
Severus Snape's a good guy, But I know you are, Love Blondie", Ali excitedly reads the book
and she leaves the place with a memento of Ali’s handcraft sudoku, and she smiles on how beautiful
they are. And the movie ends, please like & subscribe, it really helps the channel grow.