The son of a Colombian banker, photographer José lives abroad in New York. While visiting his family back home for the Christmas holidays, he is reunited with a streetwise old flame and reacquainted with the casual violence that mars his country. Within days of his return, José is beaten and kidnapped, his captors demanding an exorbitant ransom from his parents. Aware that the local police would do more harm than good, Jose's frantic parents enlist the aid of a covert American special operations team to recover their son alive. Jose's father is soon forced to make an unsavory deal with a Colombian warlord in order to secure the million-dollar payment. Meanwhile, Jose remains bound, gagged and blindfolded in an abandoned warehouse in the rainforest, contemplating what he assumes is his imminent murder.