- It follows the story of a man (Cael) who leads a team of survivors through post apocalyptic England - half a century away, in an unforgiving landscape. Everyone is born into hell. After years of chasing, Cael is captured by 'The Front' - the most prominent faction of the destroyed government; an institution based on totalitarian philosophy. Politicians are soldiers. The state of affairs is based solely on rank and origin of birth - if you are not 'pedigree' you are looked down on. After having imprisoned and tortured Cael for years, they look to take him on a journey as a means of disposing of revolutionaries he once raised. Calling a Sergeant from London, they promote him to Captain on arrival and put him in charge of proceedings.The mission is a punishment for Cael's war crimes against 'The Front' and all they stand for. He must make the decision to become part of a power structure and thus some personal 'freedom' or to fight against it once more. His family, still struggling on in the wilderness, wait for him. He hasn't seen them for years.—Richard Weston
- The North West is burning under the flag of the uprising Front after the infamous revolutionary Cael is captured after years of pursuit. After having imprisoned and tortured him for years, they look to take him on a journey as a means of disposing of the revolutionaries he once raised. Accompanied by the newly recruited Captain Sanders and the psychopathic Bryant, he pursues his estranged family who forever wait for him in the cold wilderness of the new world.—Andrew Smith
- Born into hell, an infamous revolutionary named Cael is captured by 'The Front' after years of pursuit. After imprisoning and torturing him for years, they take him on a journey as a means of disposing of the revolutionaries he once raised.—Paul Nichols
- Beginning in the streets of a broken Liverpool, Cael and his fellow survivors are set upon and chased into the wild and after a long resistance is beaten and restrained to allow his companions escape. After being ripped from his fellow survivors and ultimately his family, he is tortured and confined for four years within the depths of the faction's compound. During his captivity, the group find others and rebel against The Front, to a point where both sides are worn and battered and separated by miles of wreckage and distance. Bryant, a cold, deranged ex-bounty hunter at the head of the capture, has his rank devalued by the arrival of a captain from London - a Richard Sanders, a man who has spent his whole life serving in the empire of destruction. He is appointed by the leading 'Sears', a man who has fought up and down the country against the likes of Cael. With men and resources put to the limit, he orders Cael to assassinate his estranged companions as a punishment for his war crimes against The Front and to ultimately free him from their grasp.
Sanders sets about the grounds and inspects the performance of the soldiers, where he meets Sophie Green, one of the only women involved with the military establishment. After she accidentally fires at Bryant's hand, chaos breaks out and Cael's prison cell door is left ajar. Escaping onto the training ground, Cael is attacked by the soldiers and Sanders and Bryant confront one another before Sears gathers them and informs them of their duty to follow Cael into the desert. Starved, broken and defeated, Cael wanders the darkness cut through the centre whilst his family wander the earth without a leader. With time and distance all but grains in the desert, he must decide when he reaches his brethren whether to free them from life or free them from death.
Recruiting two privates (Jones and Davis) and Corporal Herrick (Bryant's closest ally), Sanders finds himself ready to give Sophie the chance to join the team with one place spare in the ranks due to his growing infatuation with her. Assembling on the outskirts of the grounds, Cael joins the group with his head shaved and equipped with a pistol - his identity redefined. Struggling across the disrepair of the city, the group find shelter in an abandoned church where they sleep for the night. In the morning, ready to continue, Jones and Davis are nowhere to be seen. Unable to turn back after so much mileage and following drifters, Sanders is pressed into a decision to continue the mission without them. Meanwhile, Cael's former companions Blake, West, Hayden and Jared resort to huddling themselves in the most twisted corners of the forest amongst a commune headed by the touched self proclaimed 'King' - a man they hold a long history with. Exclaiming they should have never come back, King is then queried about Cael's whereabouts and they get no answer, leading to Blake's demand they stay at the camp. Voicing his concerns over Jared, Hayden reveals he has become dangerously ill. His skin appears scorched under his clothes. During twilight, King sets upon Hayden and tries to murder him. Blake and West, hidden and awake within the forest, stop King and go to leave him before he tries to spare his misdeed by telling them of a resistance building a few miles from them.
Captain Sanders' group make good headway and find themselves at a compound. When Bryant and Cael stop to hear stirring amongst the grounds, they are ambushed by the resistance and Herrick is wounded. Shooting their way to a sniper's crow nest, they find Jones and Davis at the head of the attack and execute them. Already downsized and with a casualty, the group falls into a state of uncertainty and Bryant and Cael's tension grows to a standoff where both Herrick and Sophie are involved. Setting off across the plains once more, Herrick and Sophie become closer to one another much to the disdain of the captain. With Herrick's condition worsening, the group find shelter at a barn with a man Bryant once knew - a man who calls himself Urizen.
Blake's group take a gamble and break into a house huddled away in the forest, and find supplies with Jared becoming more and more ill. With West defiant about his condition, he merely orders Hayden to keep him warm and settled before falling to sleep. At the farm, Sanders finds himself alone with Cael whilst the rest of the troop are huddled inside. Cael reveals his history with the sergeant - that he killed Bryant's father when trying to break into their home. He has been hunting Cael for years, looking for the moment to kill him without stipulation. The group become slewed on alcohol, and Urizen takes the offensive on Cael telling him of how filthy his kind are. When he raises his pistol from his side, Bryant shoots him down. He wants to kill Cael himself.
When Blake's force wake up in the morning, Blake finds Hayden dead at Jared's side - his body covered in scorched bruises. The illness has spread, and knowing there is no escape from death, Blake leads them to the very place Cael was captured all those years ago.
Settled in a brush beside the beaten track, Sanders interrogates Bryant of his history whilst on patrol; leading to a fight between the two resulting in Sanders' demand he keeps his focus on the mission and not on his revenge for Cael. Herrick, disillusioned and lost, takes out a diary and holds it close - Sophie warming to him. By this time, Blake's troop are dehydrated and stumble in the field Cael was lost. West tries to move them along, wanting to keep moving in search of their mentor, but collapses beside the corpse of Hayden. Moving on into the forest, Sanders' team stumble upon King and interrogate him. Having the same history with King as his former companions, Cael is furious when he does not give them answers to their whereabouts. Beating him to near death, Sophie is meanwhile comforting King's pregnant other half. She bursts to King's rescue to attempt to stop the attack, but relinquishes when Cael reveals the cannibalism sorted in King's commune. He insinuates he once fed on a child, and Sophie runs from them in disbelief. Finding the answer he was looking for, Cael leaves King's heaving figure and investigates to find the pregnant woman dead. Cutting the baby from her womb, he walks to Sophie and hands her the baby. It dies in her arms.
Straying from the path, the team breaks into chaos and are ripped apart when Sanders finally snaps and tells Sophie she is nothing but a soldier and demands she stops crying. Herrick, bewildered and half-dead, hands Bryant his diary transfixed on Sophie. Bryant reveals his history, and Herrick tells him not to 'run this time'. In the early dawn, Herrick wakes up and goes to Sophie, sleeping away from the troop. His mind corrupted, he cuts her throat and rapes the corpse. Bryant, waking up to find this happening, shoots Herrick in the head to then scuffle with Sanders after he tries to brutalise Herrick's dead body. Jamming his pistol underneath Bryant's jaw, Sanders threatens to kill him - all sense has left him from Sophie's death. Just before pulling the trigger, the sound of a live hammer clicks and they turn to see Cael pointing the gun at Sanders. Calming the captain down, Cael proclaims he will meet his family on his own. Knowing where the path will take him, Bryant tells him he will be waiting for when the deed is done.
In the field, all of Blake's troop have died of disease and dehydration, but he holds on to the memory of his mentor. Cael, emerging from the forest, meets him in the middle of the plain. Having been separated for half a decade, they embrace beside the corpses of their comrades and Cael picks up the letter they have written for him every day since his departure. Blake hands him his pistol, unable to stand. Cael, holding his brother up in his arms, remembers the warm times of bringing up his troop - the film then juxtaposing between them playing in a field with their mentor watching on with him putting a bullet into Blake's heart. He holds him until he dies, and kneels amongst the dead grass.
Believing his journey is at its end, Cael's blood runs cold when he peers through the weeds to see Bryant's ghostly figure march toward him. Holstering his pistol, Bryant initiates a stand-off and the two are utterly still staring at one another. The film cuts to a future where Sanders walks through the same corridor from his first beginnings in this Front. Walking into the same room, he hands the figure of a commanding officer a Wanted poster and waits for his signature. Cutting back through time, the tension comes to a crescendo and Bryant shoots Cael first. Cael collapses back on his haunches as Bryant saunters toward his dying slump. Lifting his desert eagle into Cael's face, Bryant hesitates in his execution and Cael reaches for the shotgun he once carried through the wilderness, shooting Bryant in the face without a reply.
In the future scene in The Front's headquarters, the commanding officer is revealed as Cael. He has the letter propped on his table, and his shotgun leant against the window. With a voiceover from Sanders elaborating on his past with a girl who took him from war for but a day, it is revealed Sanders watched the battle and did nothing to stop it. The figure of Cael knelt against the sun with the shotgun clutched against his wounds then moves to a shot closing in on his future face - stern and washed out.
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