Outside The Wire Ending Explained: The Anti-War Message (And Why It Fails) - Screen Rant

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Outside the Wire has arrived on Netflix, and the streamer’s latest sci-fi military thriller ends with a bit of a bang, to say the least. The film, which stars Anthony Mackie and Damson Idris, has received middling reviews since its release on January 15. Part of that lukewarm response is due to a confusing final act that’s loaded with twists, shifting alliances, and some curious thematic messaging.

The overall story of Outside the Wire is pretty standard for the genre. Damson Idris plays Lieutenant Harp, a US drone pilot who gets reassigned from his remote station in America to a military base in Ukraine. The year is 2036, and Ukraine is being torn apart by fighting between Russian-backed warlords vying for control, a band of resistance fighters, and the US “peacekeeping” force stationed in the demilitarized zone. Once there, Harp goes on a secret mission with Captain Leo (Mackie), a prototype AI/cyborg soldier, to take down a warlord searching for nuclear weapons.

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Most of the film plays out expectedly, but the third act includes some quick betrayals and story reveals that shake things up. In a relatively short amount of time, Outside the Wire tries to say a lot about the modern American war machine and its impact on other parts of the world, but a lot of that message gets drowned out by all the shooting and explosions. Here’s what actually goes down at the end of Outside the Wire.

What Happens In Outside The Wire’s Ending?

Pilou Asbæk and Anthony Mackie in Outside the Wire on Netflix

Going into its third act, Outside the Wire pulls no punches. Leo tells Harp at the beginning that their mission is to locate nuclear launch codes before warlord Victor Koval (Pilou Asbæk), who plans to fire an attack on the US. Once they successfully acquire the codes, however, Leo reveals that he had ulterior motives all along. He manipulates Harp into removing his tracker and control chip so that he can operate outside the purview of the US military, then knocks Harp unconscious and goes to meet with Koval himself.

Leo kills Koval after a brief negotiation goes awry, acquires the location of the hidden missile silos, and goes off to launch his own attack on America using the nuclear weapons he now has the ability to launch. Meanwhile, Harp is captured by Sofiya (Emily Beecham), the runner of a local orphanage who turns out to be the leader of the resistance movement. Sofiya delivers a brief monologue about the evils of the American military-industrial complex, and then lets Harp go after asserting that Leo is right to teach the US a lesson.

Harp then returns to base, informs Col. Eckhart (Michael Kelly) of Leo’s plan, and goes in to stop him. In the missile silo, Harp confronts Leo, asking why he wants to bomb the US before calling in a drone strike to destroy the launch control center and save the day. Leo dies, and Harp is informed he’ll be transferred home.

Why Did Leo Want To Nuke America?

Leo’s betrayal happens so fast, and during such a confusing muddle of a montage, that his actual motivations are a bit hard to pin down. Sofiya says that Leo “can’t lie to himself,” that he feels guilt for being a weapon in the brutal American war machine, and that his intended attack is a justified retaliation for all the harm soldiers like harp have caused. However, that isn’t the only reason for Leo’s renegade mission.

In his final moments, Leo tells Harp that his goal was to convince America to shut down the AI/cyborg program that created him. He doesn’t elaborate much, but his assumption seems to be that if he kills millions, the US military will be forced to cease production on more soldiers like him because of the threat they present. His deeper motivations for this decision aren’t entirely clear, but it seems that he either sees himself (and others like him) to be natural extensions of the war machine he wants to stop, or that there’s something more sinister he’s realized about himself and the potential of his kind.

In the same monologue, Leo also says the attack is to teach the US a lesson in a broader sense about the repercussions of their constant wars. That suggests his desire to stop the android program is tied to his overall frustration with the military-industrial complex. Essentially, he believes that soldiers like him will only bring greater suffering to the world, so he wants them to be stopped. The credits sequence appears to show many more cyborgs being created, however, foreshadowing a grim future.

Outside The Wire Factions Explained

There are three core factions that play into the ending of Outside the Wire: Koval’s terrorists, Sofiya’s resistance fighters, and the US military forces led by Col. Eckhart. Leo jumps between all three, and understanding the motivations of each faction are important to understanding the overall story of the ending.

Koval’s group is given very little foundation other than being called terrorists. They are supported by the Russians, who want to destabilize and thereby retake Ukraine, but their own motivations don’t seem to be much more complicated than being bad guys. Koval ostensibly wants to launch Nukes at the US for little reason other than evil intent, and that’s about all the explanation his motivation gets before Leo kills him. Sofiya also believes America deserves to be taught a lesson for the constant military meddling, but her interests are more understandable. She’s spent her life trying to repair the damage done by wars extended by America, radicalizing her to believe extreme measures are necessary.

The US forces are present as peacekeepers in name, but that moniker is complicated later in the film. In her big monologue, Sofiya talks about how America is really in Ukraine to help destabilize the region and thereby weaken Russia’s hold over the area. This mission is despicable to her in the face of all the innocent lives lost, many of which are directly due to the US military’s involvement. However, this added nuance is essentially abandoned as soon as Sofiya leaves the story. Harp goes right back to Eckhart, and the “good guys” stop Leo from committing genocide. Leo’s end goal of nuking US cities is so extreme that it undercuts his and Sofiya’s relatively grounded criticisms of the war machine, leading to an ending that falls short of its potential.

Outside The Wire's Anti-War Message (And Why It Fails)

In the same vein as other war movies like the anti-war Platoon and Full Metal Jacket, Outside the Wire tries to offer commentary on the modern state of war and the military-industrial complex. Unfortunately, it falls short of its promise by not quite offering a concrete message. Leo and Sofiya offer some interesting, nuanced perspective on US military involvement in foreign affairs, which they hold is almost always driven by bids for power that write off innocent foreigners as collateral damage. That’s about as far as the film is willing to go, though.

Leo and Sofiya’s decision to nuke America comes with a huge inevitable casualty count (millions of lives, as the film constantly mentions), and unfortunately, that makes their beliefs seem equally wild. It is an unconventional approach: if Sofiya disagreed with the war machine but objected to Leo’s more extreme tactics to curb it, perhaps the movie could have had a more interesting conversation about how to fix the problem. Instead, the end message seems to solely be that war is bad without the final act really seeking to address its more complex themes. Ultimately, even with some very interesting ideas, it fails to deliver on that potential.

The Real Meaning Of Outside The Wire’s Ending

Outside the Wire’s ending is a warning sign of technology’s impact on war. Harp’s drone piloting, Leo, and the combat “gump” robots who fight alongside live soldiers all paint an unsettling picture of a near-future where wars are fought endlessly because the people fighting them aren’t actually the ones in danger. Ostensibly, Leo wants the android program shutdown because he believes that if soldiers like him become the common warriors of the future, humanity will suffer even more unfeeling violence at the hands of the powerful. That certainly feels like the intent of the ending, and even if Outside the Wire often avoids driving home the point in favor of general philosophizing, that is clearly the question being posited.

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Rick Stevenson (297 Articles Published)

Rick Stevenson is a writer, editor and performer based in Brooklyn, NY. He's written on TV, film and games for over six years, in addition to assorted stints in bookselling, carpentry, and TV production. Rick studied writing at the College of William & Mary and Oxford University, and can report with some authority that they are both old. A comedian and improviser when not writing, he currently performs with Socially Distant Improv on Instagram, and is a founding member of the Oxford University House of Improv. He lives and dies for Avatar: The Last Airbender.