Soldiers of Fortune (2012 film)
Soldiers of Fortune is a 2012 American action film directed by Maksim Korostyshevsky and starring Christian Slater, Dominic Monaghan, Sean Bean, James Cromwell and Ving Rhames. It was shot in Ukraine. Plot As the film opens, Captains Craig McCenzie (Christian Slater) and Mike Reed (Freddy Rodriguez) are United States special forces soldiers on a mission to find Osama bin Laden in an unspecified location in the Middle East. Their mission quickly goes awry when CIA operative Carter Mason (Colm Meaney) turns up independently, but with Reed already having infiltrated the settlement he is unable to extract himself and his cover is quickly blown. Captured by the locals, he is interrogated briefly by Mason, who threatens to emasculate him if he does not disclose the full details of his operation, but he is swiftly freed by McCenzie, much to the displeasure of the agent. Four years later, both McCenzie and Reed have been dishonorably discharged from the army due to the influence of Mason and are running a struggling private security firm back in the USA. 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. When he is offered a well-paid job aiding freedom fighters on a tiny, dictator-controlled European island he initially turns the offer down, but when it is explained to him that Mason is on the island as head of the dictator's brutal military, he changes his mind and he and Reed leave for Europe. On arriving at a base camp close to the island, the full extent of his job is finally explained to him. The freedom fighters are poorly funded, and thus are sourcing money via a war tourism adventure called Soldiers of Fortune that invites wealthy foreigners to pay to join their ranks for the thrills and experience of a fully tax deductible adventure. To prevent them from risk of death, however, McCenzie and Reed have been drafted in to act as their tour guides and bodyguards, offering them a realistic experience of army life while ensuring they stay out of harm's way. Their five charges (Roman St. John, Sam Haussmann, Grimaud Tourneur, Tommy Sin and Charles Herbert Vanderbeer) are for the most part all self-made millionaires who each believe themselves in one way or another to be up to the task of professional soldiery. As the two Captains give them a whistle-stop training, the recruits - with the notable exception of St. John (Sean Bean) - all reveal themselves to be hopeless, though they do all gain a basic understanding of weaponry. In no time at all the five and their escorts are dispatched to their first mission, but they immediately come under attack, resulting in the death of Reed along with the rest of McCenzie's unit. As