I imagine this will be a highly inflammatory and thought-provoking topic for you, especially after the harrowing "9ยท11" incident. Following that, the U.S. government, with a somewhat vaguely defined policy of "extraordinary rendition," embarked on a complex political blueprint: any foreign-born citizen who is "presumed" to pose a threat to national security would be secretly abducted and then taken to hidden overseas prisons for detention and interrogation.
The story in the film spans two continents, tracking the lives of several people from different backgrounds, races, and statuses, weaving their stories together. Douglas Freeman is a CIA agent stationed in North Africa. Recently, he has been experiencing dual torments of morality and conscience. He just witnessed an extremely cruel and unconventional interrogation of an Egyptian-American in a secret prison in North Africa - perhaps "coercion" is the most fitting term here. He began to have unprecedented doubts about his work and so-called sense of responsibility; Anwar Al-Ebrashi, an Egyptian-American who emigrated to the U.S. with his family when he was a little boy. Now, as a chemical engineer, he is suspected of secretly carrying out a terrorist act; Anwar's pregnant wife Isabella is baffled by her husband's mysterious disappearance but she never gave up searching. All evidence and clues indicate that Anwar disappeared near Cape Town while flying back to Washington D.C. from South Africa. With the help of a friend working in a government department, Isabella desperately seeks information about her husband; Alan Smith is Senator Hawkins' aide. He hinted to Isabella that her husband might have been secretly planned and kidnapped by the U.S. government, all due to the CIA's heightened sensitivity to terrorism; Klein Whitman also belongs to the CIA and was sent to a Third World country to conduct a special interrogation; finally, Abbas Fawal, the head of the secret prison, is troubled by some personal issues, mainly regarding his overly rebellious daughter Fatima and her boyfriend Khalid, a devout Islamic believer... Several people who were originally unrelated, each moving along their own life paths, jointly entered a gray area between right and wrong. They all brought their own questions, and the answers weighed heavily on their hearts, making it hard to breathe.