| Director | John McTiernan |
|---|---|
| Budget | $50 million |
| Box office | $42.8 million |
On a live fire exercise in the jungles of Panama, a team of Army Rangers trainees is led by instructor and Master Sergeant Nathan West, tasked with traversing the jungle in hurricane weather, attacking pop-up metal targets with live ammunition, and then reconvening at a small bunker. Sergeant Ray Dunbar emerges from the jungle carrying wounded Second Lieutenant Levi Kendall. The two men are pursued by Sergeant Mueller, whom Dunbar kills in self-defense. Although no other bodies are found, West's team is presumed dead. Dunbar refuses to talk to Military Police investigator Captain Julia Osborne, insisting on speaking to a fellow Ranger from outside the base by drawing an 8 on a piece of paper. The post commander, Colonel Bill Styles, tasks his friend Tom Hardy (a skilled interrogator, ex-Ranger and now DEA agent) to assist Osborne.
Interrogating the survivors, they learn that West was infamously abusive, particularly towards trainee Jay Pike, whose penchant for disobedience enraged West, potentially inspiring Pike to stage the murder. Kendall, the homosexual son of a Joint Chiefs of Staff general, claims West possibly ordered a "training accident" on him out of hatred, and died when hit in the back with a phosphorus grenade. When Pike confessed to the crime, Dunbar volunteered to turn him in. Dunbar conversely claims that when West discovered Mueller and his fellow trainee Castro illegally selling prescription drug injection kits called "combat cocktails" intended to dull physical pain and sharpen the mind, Mueller used Pike's grenade to kill West and attempted to frame Pike. After confessing to supplying the drugs and falsifiying tests, physician Peter Vilmer, Osborne's intermittent lover and an old friend of Hardy, is placed under arrest.
Defying Styles' orders, Osborne and Hardy proceed to interrogate Kendall, who begins vomiting blood. Before dying, he draws an '8' with his own blood on Osborne's hand. Hardy explains a rumor about "Section 8", a group of ex-Rangers in Panama who apparently trained under West before turning rogue and becoming drug dealers. Furious, Styles relieves Osborne of duty and dismisses Hardy, deeming the investigation closed as a CID transport from Washington arrives to take Vilmer and Dunbar away.
Vilmer accidentally reveals that "Dunbar" is actually Pike, and Hardy removes Pike from the plane just before takeoff. Forcibly pressured by Hardy, Pike confesses that after West learned about the cocaine-smuggling operation occurring on base, he confronted the Rangers and threatened to turn them in to authorities. He corroborates Kendall's earlier testimony that after a firefight, West and the other trainees were killed, further adding that he took Dunbar's dog tags and carried Kendall to the extraction point. He gives Hardy, Osborne, and Styles the number of a crate where Vilmer had stowed cocaine. Hardy confronts Styles, determining that he masterminded the drug-dealing operation. West reported the operation to Styles, who then ordered Mueller and Kendall to kill him in the jungle, and poisoned Kendall to silence him. After unsuccessfully attempting to bribe Hardy, Styles attempts to shoot him. However, he is killed by Osborne, who had overheard their conversation.
As the investigation concludes, Osborne's suspicions of Hardy's involvement in the incident are confirmed when she watches Pike sneak into Hardy's car. Following them into Panama City and entering a building with an eight-ball hanging above, she attempts to arrest Hardy once inside, only to be surprisingly greeted by West, Pike and the missing members of the team Castro, Dunbar, and Nuñez, whom Hardy reveals as his "colleagues". The members reveal that Section 8 is actually a covert black-ops anti-drug unit, posing as mercenaries to intimidate the cartels. While infiltrating the base undercover to investigate cocaine trafficking, they discovered that Mueller, Kendall and Vilmer were responsible. West, unaware that Styles was also involved, informed him of the drug dealing, after which the training mission became a covert operation to circumvent Mueller and Kendall and fake West's death to extract West from leadership and transfer him to Section 8. Hardy, therefore, was summoned to confirm Styles' and Vilmer's involvement. Impressed by Osborne's work, West and Hardy invite her to join the unit, revealing that Hardy's position as a DEA agent is a cover; he actually remains in the Army as Section 8's Colonel.