A Kiwi soldier, now working for a private security firm in Iraq, returns home to see his mother, who has been newly diagnosed with cancer. She wavers between melodramatic pessimism and denial, while her son is suffering his own crisis of faith. Having found no satisfactory answers in the religion and Māori culture he was brought up with, he has now come to see that his faith in the worth of his military action is also misplaced. Only love remains as a possible source of meaning. Untroubled by any such doubts is Simon, a highly successful TV presenter turned producer turned evangelical pastor. He believes the son to be a religious warrior, destined to help him in his quest to bring the world closer to the Second Coming of Christ.