The film stars John Goodman, Ashton Sanders, Jonathan Majors, Colson Baker, and Vera Farmiga, and follows a young man who participates in a conspiracy to rebel against an alien race that had invaded Earth and forced strict martial law on all humans almost a decade prior.

As the Drummond family attempts to flee the city, they break through a barricade but are confronted by the aliens, who vaporize the parents but leave their sons Gabriel and Rafe alive.

Rafe takes the coded cigarette and directs Gabriel to leave as Phoenix is planning to attack the upcoming Unity Rally at Soldier Field.

Mulligan shows him his brother being tortured for information and convinces him to send a message through the Phoenix network in hopes of meeting the supposed ringleader, Number One.

The tapes reveal that Police Commissioner Eugene Igoe divulged sensitive information about the aliens' arrival to Soldier Field which allowed Phoenix to develop their attack strategy.

Mulligan, retrieving a box earlier received from Doe, reveals a BlackBerry phone, giving the memory card to Gabriel and suggesting that maybe failure was the plan.

Gabriel reviews the card’s contents — a video depicting his own baby shower, and revealing Jane Doe taught at the same school as his mother.

As he descends, the invisible substance of the powerful alien explosive envelops him, indicating he is part of the resistance and that the whole 'failed' plan was orchestrated to allow him to deal a fatal blow to the Legislators.

During the credits, a map details that the Chicago Closed Zone was successfully destroyed, with other resistance strikes and protests having broken out in cities all over the world, indicating that the opening exhortation to "light a match and ignite a war" has led humanity to attempt to overthrow their alien oppressors.

On August 24, 2016, it was announced that Rupert Wyatt would direct a science fiction film titled Captive State, from a screenplay he had written with his wife Erica Beeney.

[12] Machine Gun Kelly sustained a hairline fracture on set toward the end of filming,[13][14] reportedly from repeated punches to the chest from an unnamed person playing a police officer.

The website's critical consensus reads, "This sci-fi thriller may not necessarily leave viewers in a Captive State, but it offers reasonably diverting alien invasion action with ambitious political undertones.

"[26] Frank Scheck of The Hollywood Reporter gave the film a negative review, describing it as "[v]isually murky, choppily edited and lacking both narrative clarity and well-defined characterizations,"[27] while the Los Angeles Times's Gary Goldstein was also critical of the film, writing: "In Captive State aliens have taken over the world (as they will), but it's the viewers stuck watching this messy, lugubrious sci-fi thriller who may feel like the ones being held captive.