The optimistic and eager Lt. Dieter Dengler is sent on a classified mission to bomb certain targets in Laos in 1965. With him are his fellow pilots including his best friend Spook. Denlger is shot down and captured, interrogated, tortured, and placed in a prison with fellow inmates Duane, Gene, Phisit, and Procet. The living conditions are deplorable and the men are starved and chained together. This situation makes it possibile of caring for bodily functions negligible and the moral is low. Dengler changes that using his ingenuity and immediately plans for escape. Duane aids Dengler but Gene fears the consequences of an aborted escape attempt. Dengler's expertise and cunning makes escape into the jungle essentially successful. The jungle, eventually, reduces the force to one. As Dengler is rescued he is left with the ghosts of his fellow inmates, a factor that will haunt him and alter his life after rescue. Based on a true story.