Anthony "Hub" Hubbard (Denzel Washington), the head of the joint FBI/NYPD terrorism task force, is the man charged with keeping New York City safe from an array of threats that seem to grow more terrifying with every headline. As an officer of the court, his job is the apprehension and prosecution of criminals. Elise Kraft (Annette Bening) is a CIA operative, now undercover, with important sources in the Arab American community and ambiguous ties to the suspects. Her agenda, like that of her government's foreign policy, is more complex than Hub's. And yet these two are forced to work together, forging an uneasy alliance, as the incidents of terror threaten to paralyze the city.

But before they can accomplish their mission, the public's clamor for safety forces the hand of the President of the United States - whose only recourse is to declare a State of Emergency and ask help from the military.

General William Devereaux (Bruce Willis) is a thoughtful, cautious warrior who well knows the dangers of bringing the army onto the streets of an American city. Although he argues against it, when he's given the unenviable task of imposing military order he responds as a soldier must, with unquestioning obedience and purpose.

As the pursuit of the terrorists becomes more desperate, these three lives become intertwined in a terrible and frightening dilemma, a situation that threatens the very fabric of a democratic society and the central premises on which it is founded.

At what point does the protection of the country's citizens conflict with the protection of their rights? Faced with such grave danger, how will the members of a free society measure up? How quickly will the country abrogate the Constitution? How shallowly beneath the surface does the ugly spectre of repression and persecution reside?

Or more simply put: Will the people of this country be forced to become monsters in order to fight monsters?

February 26, 1993 is considered by many to be the day America lost its innocence. Until the moment a bomb exploded in the underground garage of the World Trade Center, terrorism in the United States existed only as an abstraction. But as rescue workers rushed to the scene, the unthinkable had become the undeniable. What was commonplace in cities around the world - London, Athens, Paris, Tel Aviv - had now become the concern of the U.S.

It was also a chilling wake-up call to our government and to every branch of law enforcement. New anti-terrorist statutes were rushed through Congress, and in 1997, the military joined with the FBI and local law enforcement for contingency exercises in every major American city.