In 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, a Canadian Arctic unit stumbles upon a crashed plane that holds three Soviet soldiers with abilities beyond normal human limits. They rush the unusual cargo back to a remote base for examination by government scientists, hoping to learn what makes them so different. But the prisoners break free, slaughter a large portion of the troops stationed up north, and vanish into the brutal wilderness of ice and wind.
Fifty years later, a joint Canadian military and scientific expedition uncovers the soldiers buried beneath the Arctic ice. The team, led by Michael Ironside as Col. Desmond Trump and including Dominic Purcell as Malraux, along with Dr. Lobokoff, confront a startling truth: the Soviet fighters were genetically modified by political extremists during the Crisis, with aid from a captured Nazi scientist, and were meant to unleash a terrorist strike on New York City to trigger World War III. As the bodies are studied, the scientists realize the soldiers are still alive and slowly regenerating. The trio of Soviet fighters are identified in the archives as Gabriel Hogan's '#1', Matthew G. Taylor's 'Frozen #2', and a third unnamed operative, all embedded in the ice and waiting to be awakened.
Malraux’s fear proves tragically warranted when the super soldiers come to life and go on a brutal killing spree, taking down much of the military and scientific personnel, including Lobokoff. Surviving the assault, Malraux escapes into the wilderness and teams up with the Cree ex-con, Adam Beach as TC Cardinal, who agrees to act as a guide because his father was one of the few survivors of the Soviets’ first rampage in the 1960s. With TC’s local knowledge and the drive to stop a renewed threat, the pair sets out across the frozen landscape.
Their pursuit leads them to a small oil drilling town, where they learn from a patron in a Russian Strip club about a mine that could supply the explosives the soldiers need. As the investigation unfolds, Malraux and TC are suddenly arrested for the theft of the explosives and the murder of the town’s miners. Malraux tries to warn the sheriff that the three soldiers are carrying out a preprogrammed military exercise they had previously rehearsed, but his warnings are dismissed.
That night, the soldiers execute their plan, blowing up the town’s power plant and massacring local government officials and much of the police force. In the chaos, Malraux and TC escape and pursue the soldiers’ truck on a snowmobile. After a tense chase, they force the truck to crash into the side of a mountain; the ensuing fire detonates the remaining explosives and kills two of the soldiers, though the third is missing.
Realizing the last soldier is en route to hijack a small plane bound for New York, Malraux races to the airport and, in a final confrontation, manages to force the soldier off the plane. The two of them fight in a brutal struggle, and Malraux emerges with the upper hand, stabbing the final soldier to death. Later, as they cremate the last soldier’s remains, Malraux reveals that his mother was one of the scientists who examined the soldiers in the 60s and that she had been raped by the very man they are burying, making Malraux the super soldier’s son. He says his mother lived in worry about who he might become. TC tries to comfort him, insisting that Malraux is not defined by his father, but in the end, Malraux remains unsure of what kind of man he will be.
