Enemies Closer
In the NE United States, near the border with Canada, a small plane flies low over a lake, suddenly goes straight up, the engine stalls, and the plane nosedives and crashes and sinks.At the nearby King's Island is a one-man Forest Ranger station and tourist visitation center. Forest ranger Henry Taylor (Tom Everett Scott) is the one-man. He continually reminds visitors that there's no cell phone reception on the island and the rules include all visitors must leave by dark, leave no trash, and there is to be no drinking while on the island.As Henry works during that day, he is being observed by a man through a pair of rangefinder binoculars.Henry is one of only two people who live on the island. The other is an old man named Sanderson (Christopher Robbie). Henry goes to check on Sanderson now and again, but his visits and concern are unwelcome.
At a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) station in Baring, Maine, the officers on duty were in the process of trying to determine what happened to the small plane that went down. The correctly surmised that a small plane with it's transponder turned off and flying too low for radar was probably up to no good. The officer in charge decided that the agents would need to patrol the waterways to intercept whomever might be coming for or taking away whatever cargo was on the plane.There's a knock on the door of the ICE station. A handful of mounted Canadian Mounties had arrived to offer help in finding the small plane, its occupants and cargo. The ICE agents refuse the offer, telling the mounties that the paperwork required wasn't worth it.Xander (Jean-Claude Van Damme) then enters the room, speaking both French and English and not looking much like a Mountie, given that he's wearing odd looking shoes. He closes the door and the ICE agents demand to know what he thinks he's doing. Xander wonders if they think he doesn't look like a real mountie. One agent confrims the doubt. Xander looks down at his shoes then explains that he doesn't wear leather, because he's a Vegan. He then suddenly attacks and kills or disables all the agents at the station, without use of a gun, because he hates guns.The other faux mounties come into the station, one of them announcing that they only have 4 hours before the next shift of agents show up.Henry comes across a backpack sitting on a trail. He calls out and a woman answers. Her leg is trapped inside a hole below some downed logs. He helps her to his cabin. Her name is Kayla (Linzey Cocker).Two other ICE agents, who had been out on an errand, arrive and find the slaughtered agents at the station. They notice the GPS signal flashing on the screen, coming from the downed plane. They decide to go find out what's going on.Kayla flirts with Henry. There's a mutual attraction. Henry offers to take her across the water, back to her cabin. She doesn't want to leave her canoe behind, so he escorts her down to her canoe. She gives him her name, phone and address and invites him to come across the lake for dinner that night at 9 p.m. He agrees.Xander and his four men go down to the dock, where they see a man, drinking and obviously very drunk. They kill him so they can take possession of his pontoon boat. They dump the man's body in a nearby dumpster.Henry is changing his clothes at his cabin when there's a knock at the door. It's the man who'd been observing him with binoculars throughout the day. The man claimed that he'd beached his boat across the island and noticed the light on at Henry's cabin, so he came there hoping to find help. However, the man was not acting like someone who was tired, worried, or in need of help. For one thing, he slammed the kitchen door behind him as Henry was getting him some water. He also helped himself to an apple and was asking personal questions of Henry. He told Henry that he was unemployed. Henry noticed an odd tattoo on the man's forearm, and right after he told the guy that he was going out for the night, then approached the door, Henry suddenly pulled a knife he had on him and pointed it at the man. The man just as suddenly produced a pistol and pointed it at Henry.The two ICE agents found the body of the murdered boat owner in the dumpster.Henry learns that the man in his cabin is named Clay (Orlando Jones). Clay's younger brother, Decker, was in the Special Forces, under Henry's command in Afghanistan. Decker had been killed in a firefight in Afghanistan, and Clay heard that Decker had been abandoned by his CO. Clay explained that he had made sure to raise his little brother to be the opposite of him and their father, to excel at everything so he could get out and make a better life for himself. Clay wanted revenge for his brother's dying, and he was blaming Henry.Henry said the command sent them in on bad intelligence, that it wasn't anyone's fault. As CO, he couldn't risk losing more men by sending them after Decker, who'd gotten separated from the unit.The phone rang. It was Kayla, leaving a message that she was running late. Clay shoots the phone. Henry decides he'd better try to help himself, so he attacks Clay. Clay is very good at hand-to-hand and knocks Henry out.Xander and his henchmen are on the pontoon, planning for a diver will go down and retrieve the heroine that is on the plane.Clay drags Henry out across a field and hands him a pistol. He wants him to shoot himself. If he won't, Clay intends to shoot him. Henry explains that a few years ago, he would have shot himself, gladly, but not now. He's come to realize that it wasn't his fault that Decker had died.Just as Clay is about to shoot Henry, bright lights shine on them. It's Xander and his men on the pontoon boat, wondering who they are and what they are doing. Xander and his men claim to be ICE, but Henry knows better. He rushes forward and pushes Clay to the ground, then runs. Xander's men shoot at them. Clay shoots back hits the diver in the chest.The two ICE agents are out on the water in their boat and they hear the gunfire and head that way.Clay starts chasing after Henry through the trees.When Xander determines that his diver won't survive, he first throws a brief fit, then smothers the man using his hands. Xander knows that Henry is an ex-military diver, so he decides they must go find him and have him retrieve the heroine. They will just kill Clay.Two of Xander's men get to Henry's cabin. No one's home. They find a boat at the dock. Xander tells them over a two-way radio to sink the boat.Henry goes to where he keeps a kayak, but he's intercepted by another Xander's men who shoots a hole in the kayak and captures Henry. Clay shows up and slides a shell into the chamber of his shotgun, distracting Xander's man. Henry knocks the man out, but when he bends over to pick up the man's gun, Clay shoots the gun, ruining it.Henry persuades Clay that even if they remain enemies, they should work together to get through whatever's going on with Xander and his men. Henry has presumed that Xander and his men are mercenaries involved in the drug trade.Henry leads Clay to Sanderson's cabin to see if there's a phone. They now have a walkie talkie and can hear Xander and his men speaking on theirs, but when Xander realizes one of his men may be down, he orders the rest of them to speak only in French.The two ICE policemen are now on land, looking for whomever might be in the woods. Xander ambushes and kills them both with a sharp branch. He then sees a wild strawberry and goes over and eats it, just one of the numerous instances indicating he's either bi-polar or otherwise messed up.Xander calls to Clay and Henry on the walkie-talkie. Henry tells Clay not to answer. Xander encourages them to call whenever they are ready to talk, that he's "in the book".Clay and Henry continue on to Sanderson's cabin. Henry climbs in through a window of the dark cabin, followed by Clay. He hits Clay when he's coming through and grabs the gun. He tells Clay to go call the police. The phone is dead. Sanderson then turns on a light. He's holding a rifle and orders Henry to lay his shotgun down.Henry and Clay quickly try to explain to Sanderson what's going on. Sanderson explains to them that he had the phone shut off a couple years prior, but kept the phone because it looked nice.Xander calls them again on the walkie-talkie, wanting Henry to come out and he'd leave the other two alone. Sanderson tells Henry and Clay that he's willing to fight. He turns on a panel of bright exterior lights and fires off a warning round. Xander sends a man around back, then orders his other two men to fire their machine pistols at the cabin.Sanderson tosses Henry a knife, the only other weapon he had available. He orders Henry and Clay to go out the back and get away while he distracted the men outside. Henry refused to leave Sanderson behind. Sanderson then goes out the front door, raises his gun and is immediately shot. Henry starts to go out after him, but Clay tackles and stops him. Henry comments to Clay how it's sometimes necessary to stop others from going into harm's way when it doesn't make sense.Henry and Clay go out the back door, where Henry immediately sees one of Xander's men and uses the last shotgun shell to shoot the man in the shoulder. They then get away.Sanderson is wounded, and spunky to the end. He tells one of Xander's men to kiss his geriatric ass. Xander has his two men stand Sanderson up, then tells Sanderson a story about the pet goose he had as a child. He said his grandmother fed the goose to the family for dinner one night and how he killed her for that. That's also how Xander became a vegan. He then stabs Sanderson in the heart.Clay admits to Henry that he didn't really have a boat. The man who dropped him off at the island was due back the next morning to take him out. Henry wants Clay to hide until morning, while he distracts Xander and his men away from him. Henry has only a knife, length of rope, fishing line, and some matches. He builds a bonfire, which Xander's man, who was back on the pontoon boat, sees. He calls Xander for instructions. Xander tells the guy to beach the boat and help find Henry.Xander calls on the walkie and tells Henry he knows he has a son and will find and kill him if he doesn't come help him.Clay runs back to the unconscious man that Henry had cold-cocked earlier, checking him for more weapons apparently. The man wakes up and grabs Clay. They fight and Clay knocks the guy out with a rock.The man in the boat joins Xander's other two henchmen by the bonfire and start searching for Henry and Clay. One of them runs up against some taut fishing line, which trips a stick, to which Henry's knife was tied and it stabs the man in the throat. A second man falls into a booby trap, running a sharp stick through his lower leg. Henry goes hand-to-hand with the boatman, who gets the better of Henry and is choking him out when Clay arrives and runs a knife through the boatman's neck from behind.Clay and Henry shake hands, deciding to trust one another from then on.They go over and pull the wounded man from the booby trap and tie him to a small tree, then proceed to interrogate him. The man is belligerent and uncooperative. Clay threatens to put out the man's eye if he doesn't tell them what's going on. He tells them about the plane, the heroine, the plan to have Henry dive on the wreck, and how Xander is the only one of them left. Before they leave, Clay knocks the man out.Clay and Henry run to the pontoon. Xander sees them and calls on the walkie-talkie. He offers Henry half a million dollars for 10 minutes work. Henry declines. Xander then puts Kayla on the walkie. She had come back to Henry's place and was taken captive by Xander. Xander threatens to kill her if Henry doesn't come help him.Clay wants to take the boat and get away. Henry reminds him that would be abandoning Kayla, and she's someone who should be helped. Henry drops Clay off before he takes the boat and returns to his cabin. He has one of the thugs machine pistols with him and gets the drop on Xander, but then Xander puts a knife to Kayla's throat. It's a standoff, when the thug they'd left tied to a tree shows up and gets the drop on Henry. Xander and Henry then board the pontoon, leaving the thug and Kayla behind to wait.Clay shows up and sneaks up on the thug and swings at him with a boat paddle. They fight on the pier, falling into the water. Clay takes him out, then goes to untie Kayla. Clay wants her to go for the police, but when he turns away from her, she pulls a gun on him. It turns out that she works with Xander.Clay escapes from Kayla by diving off the pier and swimming away as she shoots at him, but misses. She goes looking for him, but then sees a police boat approaching. She calls Xander on the walkie-talkie for instructions and he tells her to take care of the police.Two policemen approach the dock, saying they had reports of loud noises coming from the island. Clay comes running from hiding, shouting at the cops to shoot Kayla. She instead pulls out her pistol and shoots them. Clay then attacks and knocks Kayla out.Henry dives and retrieves the heroine. He comes back up and tosses the bag onto the boat, then climbs on board and produces a gun he found on the plane. He orders Xander to drive the boat back to the dock.When they arrive back at the dock, Henry sees the dead policemen, then sees Clay holding Kayla prisoner. Kayla starts shouting for Henry to help her. Henry is momentarily confused and hesitates too long. Xander knocks the gun from his hands and they fight, while Kayla disarms Henry and they also fight. The four switch opponents in mid-fight and Henry knocks Kayla down. Just as Xander is about to break Clay's neck, Henry calls out to him, grabs the bag of heroine and runs. Xander drops Clay and takes off after Henry, but first he stops long enough to break Kayla's neck, for screwing up.Xander than pursues Henry up a tree and they fight and fall down to the ground, branch by branch. Xander thinks he has knocked Henry out and takes the heroine and runs to the pontoon. As he's taking off, he sees Henry run and jump into the boat. They fight some more and Xander accidentally punches a hole in the gas tank as he swings the anchor at Henry, but misses.Xander knocks Henry over board, but not before Henry grabs a flare, which he uses to ignite the trailing plume of gasoline coming from the hole in the tank, exploding the boat and Xander with it. Xander had a big grin on his face as he realized he was about to die.Henry swims back to the shore where Clay helps him, saying "Not a fuckin' word." Henry replies, "My lips are sealed."
revenge, murder, violence