An American former
Delta Force operator, Steven Younger, makes a videotape. Los Angeles-based FBI Special Agent Helen Brody and her team are summoned to a high school, commandeered by the military as a
black site holding Younger (calling himself Yusuf Mohamed). They watch Yusuf's tape, showing three nuclear bombs in separate U.S. cities, timed for synchronous explosions if his demands are not met. A special interrogator, "H", is brought in to force Yusuf to reveal the bombs' locations. H immediately shows his capability, cutting off one of Yusuf's fingers. Horrified, Brody attempts to put a stop to the measures. Her boss, Saunders, makes it clear that the threat of 10 million deaths necessitates the torture. H escalates his methods, with Brody acting as the
"good cop". Yusuf then makes his demands: he wants the President of the United States to announce a cessation of support for
puppet governments and dictatorships in Muslim countries and a withdrawal of American troops from there. The group immediately dismisses the possibility of his demands being met, citing the U.S. government's declared policy of
not negotiating with terrorists. When Brody accuses a broken Yusuf of faking the bomb threat in order to make a point about the moral character of the United States as a nation, he breaks down and admits that it was all a ruse, giving her an address to prove it. They find a room that matches the scene in the video tape, but no nuclear bomb. A soldier pulls Yusuf's picture down, which triggers a
C-4 explosion at a nearby shopping mall, killing 53 people. Angry at the senseless deaths, Brody returns to Yusuf and cuts his chest with a scalpel. Yusuf is unafraid, and justifies the deaths in the shopping mall, stating that the Americans kill that many people every day. Yusuf says he allowed himself to be caught so he could face his oppressors. Yusuf's wife and kids are detained, and H brings her in front of her husband and threatens to mutilate her right there. Brody and the others begin to take her away from the room in disgust, but H slashes her throat, and she bleeds to death in front of Yusuf. Yusuf does not break, so H has Yusuf's two children brought in. Outside of Yusuf's hearing, he assures everyone that he will not harm the children. He tells Yusuf that he will torture his children if the locations of the bombs are not divulged. Yusuf breaks and gives three addresses (in New York, Los Angeles, and Dallas), but H still prepares to torture the children, but the others forcefully stop him. Citing the amount of missing nuclear material Yusuf potentially had at his disposal (some 18 lbs. were reported missing, with about 4½ lbs. needed per device), H insists that Yusuf had not admitted anything about a heretofore-unreferenced
fourth bomb. H points out that everything Yusuf has done so far has been planned meticulously; Yusuf knew the torture might break him, and he would have been certain to plant an unexpected fourth bomb, just in case. The purpose of the preceding torture was not to break Yusuf, but rather to make it clear what would happen to his children if he did not cooperate. The government official in charge of the operationwho helped attack H moments earlier, now demands that H torture Yusuf's children for the fourth bomb. H demands that Brody escort the children back, but she says that letting the fourth bomb kill millions is better than torturing two children. H sarcastically unties Yusuf. The official draws his pistol and aims it at H to coerce him into further interrogation. Yusuf grabs the official's gun, asks Brody to take care of his children, and kills himself. Brody walks out of the building with Yusuf's children.
Original/Alternate ending An FBI
bomb disposal unit disarms the Los Angeles nuclear bomb with only 12 seconds to spare. While they start to celebrate, the timer on the fourth nuclear bombhidden behind a nearby cratehits zero. ==Cast==