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Coldwater

Coldwater tells the story of abused teenaged inmates of a "wilderness rehabilitation" facility in California. Run by a former Marine, Colonel Frank Reichert, who suffers from chronic alcoholism, after his wife left him for her yoga teacher and son committed suicide at the end of his second tour. Reichert has hand picked his staff members who are either former military or ex residents/graduates of the facility. Rather than make any attempt at true rehabilitation, the residents are instead subjected to the whims of the staff, who take a might makes right approach in an attempt to break the inmates.

The story centers around Brad Lunders, a teenager who has a tenuous relationship with his mother and her new boyfriend, incarcerated for low level drug dealing and for his role in the death of his girlfriend Erin. Brad's best friend, Gabriel, joins him there later after he is sent to the same camp. Conflict develops between Brad and Josh, a staff member, which intensifies after an inmate is maimed and permanently injured during an ethically questionable, overnight punishment where they are left handcuffed to a ceiling. During Brad's time at Coldwater, he manages to escape, but is returned to Coldwater by a sheriff's deputy who is concerned by what Brad tells him has been occurring there. The deputy is nonetheless forced to return Brad to Coldwater.

Following the injury to the inmate, which initiated a lawsuit and an investigation by his superiors, Reichert's alcoholism becomes worse, and he begins day drinking. With a lack of proper leadership, the staff "turn up the heat" on the inmates, who push back. Josh loses his cool one day, and angrily challenges Brad to a fight. Despite being younger, Brad is larger, stronger and a better fighter, and quickly beats Josh into submission and only the intervention of other staff members keeps him from more severe injury. Josh is further humiliated the next day after a vehicle containing a drunken Colonel Reichert runs out of gas, and Josh is tasked with refilling it, only to find the gas can had been filled with water. Josh is forced to help push the car back to camp, while Brad sits in the drivers seat, steering. Meanwhile, Reichert passes out drunk in the passenger seat.

While putting the drunken Reichert to bed, Brad steals a master key, allowing him access to the entire facility. Meanwhile, biding for time, but unable to include anyone in his plans, he reports Gabriel as the one behind the water-in-the-gascan prank. Having regained the trust of the staff, Brad moves around the facility collecting evidence of abuse.

That night, Brad frees Gabriel from the torture shed, and steals the medical files which detail injuries to each inmate. He then combines each medical file with his own notes about what he observed happening, and mails them to the sheriff's department using a mail drop at the end of a hiking trail. The next day, the inmates rise up against the staff, killing them. Brad follows Reichert to his office and shoots him dead, posing the scene as a suicide.

The film ends with Brad being released from police custody without charge, at which time he is picked up by his mother while the news media show footage of the carnage that occurred at Coldwater.