[1] As the film opens, Captains Craig McCenzie and Mike Reed are United States special forces soldiers on a mission to find Osama bin Laden in an unspecified location in the Middle East.

When McCenzie attends a biker gang-run poker tournament to barter for a loan to keep the pair financially stable, he witnesses several other players draw guns on the dealer, before it is revealed that the entire game was simply set up as a test for him, to see whether he has retained his combat skill.

Tourneur, a black market weapons dealer, counters by revealing his reason for taking up the holiday - he sold the dictator his arms but realised too late that his buyer had no intention of paying, leading him to crave revenge.

Short of options, the group heads for the rebel base, where the tourists discuss their reasons for coming, Sin revealing that his psychiatrist has suggested that his addiction to the violent video games he develops has left him disconnected with real life and in need of understanding the realities of warfare.

While McCenzie returns to the camp to save the life of Cecilia, the woman who originally recruited him, the tourists opt to snipe at the attacking troops, which draws attention to them and results in the apparent death of Vanderbeer.

As tourists and tour guide reunite and they flee the ambush, St. John directs them to a helipad attached to a mine complex, and his obvious knowledge of the terrain forces him to reveal that he is in fact a mineral trader and a native of the island and has only returned in order to arrange supply of the rare and valuable metal coltan.

Haussmann sacrifices his life to hold off the rest of the dictator's private army, thus fulfilling his own reason for coming to the island - to die heroically, thus preventing his wife from gaining half of his assets from a pending divorce settlement.