The film opens with Costa-Gavras' statement that the events of the film are true. At first, when Ed Horman arrives in the unnamed Latin American country, which is clearly meant to be Chile, where his son Charles worked, Ed blames his son's and daughter-in-law's radical political views for his disappearance. He is later crushed when discovering that the government he reveres so highly has been involved with Charles's disappearance and possible death as a witness in the killings by the Pinochet Junta, aided by the American government.