Outside the Wire (2021): Captain Leo won his mission in the end

Outside the Wire is a movie about a sentient robot who decided that the program which created him was too dangerous to continue, so it must be stopped. So he took control of a nuclear missile and tried to attack USA to prove his point. Fortunately his subordinate lieutenant Harp managed to prevent the nuclear attack. But the question is, did Captain Leo failed to achieve his goal? I think he did not fail and he succeeded to prove his point.

Reasons behind Captain Leo’s actions

Captain Leo (Anthony Mackie) was a 4^th generation bio-tech robot (android). His appearance was design to gain trust in a foreign land. He got heightened sensory receptors to gain more feelings so he could empathize with humans. His objective was to go beyond the DMZ- Demilitarized Zone to discover advanced weaponry in enemy combatants’ hands and remove them.

Because of his assign job he had to cultivate trust among locals and work with them to get information. He used ‘Hearts and Minds’ missions to supply aid to the community to gain their trust. Doing so he witnessed firsthand the impact of war on civilians. He was aware of the concerning aspects of modern and future warfare.

People like Colonel Eckhart (Michael Kelly) believed that they can manage war remotely without going to the conflict zones. Advanced weapons systems such as drones, GUMP units (bipedal robots) and bio-tech robots actually make it possible. But Captain Leo realized that introducing more and more machines to the warfare actually decrease empathy among war parties which ultimately going to prolong war instead of a quick resolution. If governments start to make more robots like himself, warfare is going to get worse and at the end innocent civilians are going to pay the price. So he wanted to end the program which created him.

Was he reasonable to think that his kind of robots are dangerous?

If someone did a Turing test on Captain Leo he would have passed with flying colors. He look like a real human, talk like a real human and move like a real human. It is impossible to recognize him as a robot just by looking at him and talking with him. His appearance was designed as a part of psychological operations to communicate neutrality and gain trust.

Now imagine if any country had the ability to make such life-like robots in real life, how dangerous it could be? That androids could look and mimic any gender, race and body type from any country in the world. They could be used for infiltrating any region in any country to carry out many types of missions including assassinations, false flag missions, espionage missions, etc. Basically the owners of such robots can shape the geo-politics of the world into their liking.

How did Capt. Leo decide to protest?

Leo was working with Ukrainian rebels to prevent pro-Russian terrorists from obtaining an abandoned Cold War-era Russian nuclear missile in Ukraine. During his missions he had to visit camps of displaced civilians and Sofiya’s orphanage for children who lost their homes from US drone strikes. I think these visits made his mind about how dangerous his kind of robots are to keep developing. He needed to present a powerful reason to convince the US government to discontinue biotech robot program. So he chose the biggest one out there, a nuclear missile strike to show that the US biotech program had been backfired.

Captain Leo going rogue

Leo learnt that terrorist leader known as Viktor Koval (Pilou Asbæk) was going after a supposedly disarmed Russian missile. He gathered information through Sofiya (Emily Beecham) and her organization. Instead of reporting about the missile to the US military as he supposed to do, Leo went after the missile himself. In the process he somehow flipped Viktor Koval and Sofiya to do his bidding. It is unclear how he flipped them. Viktor and Sofiya were both aware that Leo was an advanced robot and both of them knew Leo was going to use the nuclear missile against America. How they knew about closely guarded secrets of Captain Leo was unclear and never explained in the movie.

Lieutenant Harp (Damson Idris) had a key role in Leo’s grand plan. Movie explain why Leo used Harp. But depend on how we interpret the ending of the movie Harp could have a secondary role too.

How and why did Captain Leo use Lieutenant Harp?

Even though Captain Leo could act like a sentient being he was still bound by hardware and software failsafe measures. So in order to break free from them he had to exploit some loopholes in his programming. That’s why Harp got Leo’s attention. Harp was on the verge of getting court marshaled because of his questionable decision makings. Leo requested Harp as his subordinate to carry out missions in conflicted areas. During these missions Leo manipulated Harp to make improper and impaired judgments. If a human was making improper or impaired judgments, Leo could go against them and act on his own volition. Using that logic he broke free from the software safety measures. Then he tricked Harp into removing a tracker and failsafe safety hardware from his body.

What were the exploited logical loopholes?

I actually don’t understand what decision or decisions of Harp were improper or impaired. It’s not like Harp made a bad decision and Leo ignored it so things snowballed into a genocide. Harp was brought into the plan right before its execution phase. But before that Leo had been planning and scheming the whole coup under the US military’s nose. He disclosed his existence to the rebels and terrorists which was a closely guarded secret of the US military. How did he justify his actions before Harp came along? That part is not clear.

Lieutenant Harp had a secondary purpose

If Leo wanted to launch nuclear missile before anyone realizing what’s going on, he had every chance to do so. If he wanted to go off the radar he could have simply use the drone strike to the vault building to stay hidden. But instead he revealed himself to Harp to show that he was not harm by the drone missile blast. Then he confessed his plan to Harp and how he used Harp to break free from his software and hardware restrictions. Then he dropped off unconscious Harp to pick up by rebels.

It actually make sense because if he wanted to show how dangerous machines like him to the US military, then military need to know it was Leo who launched the missile. Otherwise US government was going to assume Russia was behind it. So Harp’s secondary and important job was to inform military about Leo’s conspiracy. And I think Leo counted on Harp to stop the missile from taking off.

Captain Leo wanted himself to be stopped

Let’s be real, in order to Leo’s plan work he needed to be stopped. Otherwise, if he really attacked USA with a missile no one was going to take a moment and listen to his philosophies, instead US government would have launch a retaliation immediately against Ukraine and Russia which would have had the potential to spark the next world war.

So it make sense Leo revealed his plan to Harp. Also he kept Harp alive even though he had many chances to kill him. Then he used the same vehicle to travel to the hidden missile location without switching it along the way, so he made it easy for the military to track him down.

Why do I think Captain Leo succeeded in the end?

He proved that he could have easily attacked USA with a nuclear weapon. He carried out his plan in a way that US military could discreetly stop him without alerting anyone about what was really happening. He got the attention of the right people in the military and government without exposing his robotic program to the world. That means people who were responsible for his creation can review the bio-tech robotics program and stop making more bio-tech androids for a long time, or shelf the entire program silently, or at least upgrade and harden safety protocols of androids soldiers to prevent them going rogue.

It seems like Captain Leo had planned everything to the tee, because otherwise it was going to be a world changing catastrophe.