Bob Lee Swagger (Wahlberg) is one of the few snipers in the world whose sharpshooting abilities allow him to "take out a target from a mile away." He reluctantly leaves a self-imposed exile from his isolated Wyoming mountain home at the...
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Bob Lee Swagger (Wahlberg) is one of the few snipers in the world whose sharpshooting abilities allow him to "take out a target from a mile away." He reluctantly leaves a self-imposed exile from his isolated Wyoming mountain home at the request of retired Colonel Isaac Johnson (Glover) and a team of agents. Johnson appeals to his expertise and patriotism to help track down a purported presidential assassin who plans on shooting the president from a great distance with a high powered rifle. Johnson gives him a list of potential locations that the president is scheduled to visit.

Swagger assesses each of the locations given to him by Johnson and determines that a site in Philadelphia would be most conducive to a long range assassination attempt. He passes this information to Johnson, who purportedly arranges for a response.

In Philadelphia, the Ethiopian archbishop is instead assassinated, while standing next to the president, during a speaking engagement, while Swagger is consulting with the group of Johnson's agents to find the rumored assassin. Swagger is immediately shot twice by a police officer, but manages to escape, realizing that he has been framed. The agents tell the police and public that Swagger is the shooter, and stage a massive manhunt for the injured sniper. A lengthy chase scene takes place, but Swagger manages to escape and take refuge with Donnie Fenn's widow Sarah Fenn (Mara). She saves his life by removing the bullets embedded in Swagger's body, and a healing Swagger later convinces her to help him contact novice FBI agent Nick Memphis (Peña). Memphis was blamed for allowing Swagger's escape, and in the process of being disciplined for negligence has independently learned that Swagger may have been framed for the assassination by rogue elements of an unnamed federal agency, possibly the CIA.

Once the rogue agents realize their secret has been compromised, they kidnap Memphis and attempt to stage his faked suicide. Swagger tails the agents and kills Memphis' captors. Swagger and Memphis then join forces against the rogue agents. Together they plot to capture who they think is the real assassin, an ex-sniper allied with Colonel Johnson. Once they find him, he commits suicide after revealing that the Ethiopian archbishop was actually the real target of the assassins, and he was murdered in order to prevent him from speaking out against U.S. involvement in the genocide of an Ethiopian village. The genocide occurred in order to advance the aims of a consortium of American corporate interests headed by corrupt U.S. Senator Charles Meachum (Beatty). Swagger tape records the ex-sniper's confession as proof of the involvement in the African genocide, and he and Memphis escape from the trap set to ensnare them by the agents and their consortium allies.

Meanwhile, other rogue agents have found and captured Sarah Fenn in order to entrap Swagger. With his new evidence and cat-and-mouse strategy, Swagger and Memphis are able to rescue her when Colonel Johnson and Senator Meachum arrange a meeting to exchange their hostage for Swagger's evidence of their wrongdoing. After killing several enemy snipers in an isolated mountain range, Swagger and Memphis finally surrender to the FBI. Later appearing in a closed meeting with the head of the FBI and the United States Attorney General present, he clears his name by loading a round into his rifle (which is present as evidence as it was supposedly used in the killing), he then aims the rifle at the Colonel and pulls the trigger, but the shot isn't released. Swagger explains that every time he leaves his house, he replaces the firing pins from all his rifles with slightly shorter pins, thus rendering them unable to fire until he replaces them again. Unfortunately, although Swagger is exonerated, there is no solid evidence to convict Colonel Johnson and he walks free. Afterwards, Swagger murders both the Colonel and the Senator in the Senator's vacation house, as well as one of the Colonel's aides and two bodyguards, before planting a weapon on the Colonel, blowing up the house, getting into a car with Fenn and driving away.