Set in the near future when the draft has been reinstated, DAY ZERO explores the thought processes of three young New York men as they grudgingly prepare to go off to war. The events of the film, which takes no single political side, happen over the 30 days leading up to the send-off, and follows each friend on a separate path toward making the most important decision of their lives. Elijah Wood plays Feller, a nerdy young writer more accustomed to hunching over an iBook than working out. To Feller, war seems a distant concept, and one he's nowhere near ready for. More than anything, he's scared he'll not physically survive the grueling training that awaits him. Dixon (John Bernthal) comes from a different philosophy. The most working-class of his friends, he sees serving in the military as a duty he is proud to fulfill--an eagerness that comes in part from the fact that he has little else going on in his life. A slacker cab driver not living up to his potential, Dixon only starts to question how he feels about the departure once he starts dating a girl he actually has feelings for. Meanwhile, high-powered attorney Rifkin (Chris Klein) panics over the prospect of being shipped off, calling it "bad timing" and enlisting his politically connected father's help to avoid what, for everyone else, is inevitable.

DAY ZERO offers several possible scenarios without ever preaching a message. While some parts of the story are stronger than others, the film does a good job of showing New York from the perspective of three people from drastically different social levels who are forced to face a harsh truth. By making the world of the film so like reality, director Bryan Gunnar Cole suggests that this scenario could happen any day.