In Silver Falls State Park, Oregon, Hallam encounters two apparent deer hunters with expensive high-powered sniper rifles.

Bonham, a former civilian survival and combat instructor for spec ops soldiers, lives in a secluded cabin deep in British Columbia.

Arriving at the crime scene, he proves that one man with a knife was responsible for the hunters’s deaths, not several men with hatchets as previously believed by the agents.

When questioned by Abby, Bonham admits that his father prevented him from joining the military after his brother was killed during the war in Vietnam to avoid losing another son.

Hewitt tells them that Hallam lost control during a mission that came after the war in Kosovo, killing numerous innocent civilians, and that he cannot stand trial because his military assignments are classified.

While being transported, Aaron, upon learning that he will be summarily executed to ensure his silence, manages to kill the operatives and escape.

Later, in a wooden compartment, Durell and Bonham find Hallam’s silver star and a letter accusing L.T of sending the aforementioned hunters to kill him, confirming his paranoid mental state.

There, he ambushes and kills Harry Van Zandt, Abby’s Boss, as well as her partner and friend Bobby Moret, before escaping by boarding a streetcar to blend in.

Abby, devastated and wanting revenge for her fallen colleagues, intends to deploy the full force of the FBI into the woods in search of Hallam.

Bonham protests this, asserting that sending more agents after Hallam will only result in further bloodshed, and unsuccessfully argues that he is the only one who can stop the renegade soldier he trained.

He rereads and then burns Hallam's aforementioned letters that expressed his concerns over the things he witnessed during his military service.

The story is partially inspired by a real-life incident involving Brown,[citation needed] who was asked to track down a former pupil and Special Forces sergeant who had evaded capture by authorities.

[5] Buena Vista International handles the distribution in Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Netherlands and parts of Latin America.

For example, Roger Ebert said, "We've seen so many fancy high-tech computer-assisted fight scenes in recent movies that we assume the fighters can fly.

[11] Time Out London was also positive saying, "Friedkin's lean, mean thriller shows itself more interested in process than context, subtlety and character development pared away in favour of headlong momentum and crunching set pieces.