Southern Lebanon, 1990’s. A Cobra fighter helicopter hovers like a large, poisonous dragonfly above a narrow valley, senselessly spewing bullets from its Minigun in order to create a firewall and protect a terrified and wounded soldier lying on the rocky hill below.
Nir Charudi, the man and the legend, the wildest pilot in the entire Cobra squadron, sits in the pilot seat. At any moment he may be struck by a Strella rocket, the same weapon that brought down the helicopter of Rick, the wounded pilot he is now protecting.
Charudi however, revels in the face of danger, mocks the intimidating death, and keeps the Hezbollah fighters at bay, all the while directing a rescue chopper seeking to reach them.
Eventually he lowers the Cobra until it narrowly grazes the rocky hill, allowing Rick to wrap himself around one of the landing skids. And so, dangling between earth and sky, Charudi rescues Rick from the hill infested with Hezbollah fighters seeking his captivity.
Intro:
New York, 2011, Upper-Middle Class Suburbs. Rick is now 42-years-old, a handsome man in a suit and tie driving his 12-year-old girl, Maya, to school. Maya is eagerly awaiting her Bat Mitzvah ball, only two days away. Rick kisses her goodbye as she leaving the car and drives to the coffee shop, a diner with an Israeli look, where he usually stops for his morning coffee.
It is a place with an Israeli feel; signs in Hebrew, pictures of Israel, and maybe a flag. A plasma screen on one of the walls shows Hebrew-language news from Israel, some men, also on their way to work, stare at rick, a tension in the air. Rick ignores it; he orders his latte and casually chats with the barman. But it isn't possible to steer the conversation away from the burning issue, Israel is on the verge of catastrophe, on the eve of an all-encompassing war.