Sniper Steps on a Mine And Can't Move For 2 Days While Being Shot at by The Enemy

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.