Prey
We see a wooded area at night and someone is moving there, as we see from its point-of-view. It slowly passes the forest periphery and approaches a city in the distance-- apparently a wild animal is s…
Prey
We see a wooded area at night and someone is moving there, as we see from its point-of-view. It slowly passes the forest periphery and approaches a city in the distance-- apparently a wild animal is straying into the city of Amsterdam, the Dutch capital. A small farm of an elderly couple in the city's outskirts first faces the animal's trespassing. A little girl is sleeping in her room in that house, as a big shadow (seemingly of that animal), runs past in the outside corridor. The elderly couple's young daughter returns home late in the night with her boyfriend in a bike, which is when a clanking noise draws their attention. The old man dislikes the guy his daughter has chosen and comes out from his bed to 'greet' him, but finds the bike tripped down with engine still running. He soon finds his daughter and her boyfriend being killed by the animal and himself is killed too-- all done off-screen. The mother hears the cries, tells the little girl to hide inside, and comes out with a gun, but she is killed too. The little girl closes herself in her room in extreme fear. Next morning, at the zoo of Amsterdam, veterinarian Lizzy Storm (Sophie van Winden) is operating on a crocodile specimen, when her boyfriend Dave (Julian Looman) who works as a cameraman in the local news channel AT5, meets her under the pretext of shooting some baby hippos at the zoo. They talk about their relationship issues, Dave's cheating, their date tonight, etc. Lizzy gets a call, seemingly from the police at the farm site for her expertise with identifying animal traits. Lizzy reaches the crime scene where the police in-charge Olaf Brinkers (Rienus Krul) meets her, the two having met previously on occasions like handling pandas. The police have found 4 severed bodies, with distinct mauling signs, but no footprints because of overnight rain. The little girl is missing. Soon in the distance, from the bird chirps, they find another body. One look at the bodies and Lizzy strongly suspects it to be an act of "man-eater lion", though it's hard to believe for everyone and Olaf tries to rationalize otherwise. Lizzy tells Dave, during their date in a restaurant that evening, about the lion, in effect gifting him a news scoop. He doesn't believe her, but keeps it from his co-reporter Marten. They talk about their trust issues, as Dave tries to convince her that he is trying to 'improve' and appears to half-succeed, until she catches his recent misdeeds from some people outside and she angrily leaves in her car. Next day, three golfers are playing in an open green field, one of whom named Hendrick mishits the ball and goes searching for it in the bush. The other two in the meantime have planned behind his back to oust him from their common business project, and try to give him the papers to sign there itself. As they argue standing amongst the bush and Hendricks takes his eyes off into the papers for a moment, suddenly something comes out and takes away the 2nd man, leaving bloods on Hendrick's spectacled face. But it happened so fast he hasn't seen what caused it, only that it was 'some animal'. The two survivors search for the 3rd and find blood trail over the green field, ending with his severed body. Olaf and Lizzy arrive and this time it's a confirmation- there are lion footprints. Lizzy estimates its size to be ~2 meters excluding the tail, and 200 kg in weight. In short, it's a big lion, plus it's running fast, having traveled 40 km from the site of first attack to there in one night. Lizzy hints that it may have found a taste for killing people (as a habitual man-eater) and unfortunately they happen to be the people of Amsterdam. Olaf is stunned and reports to the police Chief Mr Zalmberg (Theo Pont) who outright rejects it, with some valid questions like where a lion may come from and why no missing reports from any zoo, say. Lizzy tries to convince him, with her knowledge of Europe's lion presence & presents the plausible scenarios. The Chief says, should it indeed be a lion, the police can do little, as they can't fence a whole city. Lizzy says this lion hides in the day, targets its victims in twilight or night, and is unlikely to stop now, given the psychology of a predator in being fearless towards another animal after preying it once, so the police have no option not to act thinking the problem was a one-off. She suggests: one, it should be left to professional hunters and suggests a man from England she knows; and two, the public must be warned with honest information. The Chief dismisses both suggestions: announcing it openly would create public panic, so there shall be complete media silence, and the police itself would search for it discreetly. Then Lizzy gets an SMS from Dave to switch on his channel AT5, seemingly about a news piece he has made on the lion attack based on her inputs. She switches on the TV in the room and there people are claiming to have seen a lion. The Chief, now with no other way, calls a press conference to declare to public about the lion threat, advising people to stay indoors unless necessary. The media doesn't appear to take it seriously, recalling several false alarms previously. On the sidelines, Olaf informs Lizzy that the Chief is hiring some professional hunter, but not the man from England she suggested. That evening, a couple is walking in a cycle-track underpass and notices what looks like a roadkill or fleshy object in the low-lit side. They leave in disgust, but it's actually a severed human hand, and sitting nearby in the corner is the lion- a big male lion. That night, Lizzy returns home to find Dave is waiting for her nearby and they walk till her house, all the while Dave trying to woo her, quipping that they should enjoy the last moments when a lion is on the prowl. Suddenly Lizzy is suspicious finding a big shadow coming from a lane, but it turns out to be a man. A food delivery guy shoots past them dangerously on his bike, so Dave shouts at him. He stops the bike and begins to rage, but Dave ends up coolly buying some of what he was to deliver- 'roti', meat and wine. Dave and Lizzy go inside her house and spend the night. The delivery guy faces an angry customer when the latter finds less than what he ordered, not to mention the free wine offered. While answering his boss on phone about the customer's complaint, the delivery guy sees in his bike's mirror, a lion approaching from behind. Immediately he flees on his bike, with the lion in pursuit. The chase carries on at full speed in the night lanes of Amsterdam, until his bike slips and he falls into a water canal. He sneakily comes out of water, but the lion appears before him within blink of his eyes dropping their guard, and rips his head off. Next morning, while Lizzy & Dave chat about their relation, Lizzy informs him she has called up Jack Delarue (Mark Frost), the skilled hunter from England, even though the Chief is hiring someone else. Dave knows Jack is her ex-boyfriend and the pair hadn't parted coolly, so is mildly concerned. He says Jack is the best, but only in hunting lions and hope he comes to hunt only lions. Meanwhile a morning sweeper has found lion poop and human heads on road. The police, now desperate, have indeed hired a professional hunter, called to work that very afternoon. He happens to be the Chief's cousin* and has a retarded son who wants to follow him to the hunt but dad won't allow. [*The movie mentions "neef" in Dutch, which can mean both "cousin" and "nephew" in English] The cousin hunter presents his plan before the city's authorities, notes this lion's attack pattern, marks the Vondelpark of the city to be the lion's likely place tonight, and gets the official approval by showing his credentials in killing lions in Africa. Lizzy fears that he is an amateur hunter, of the kind who kill drugged lions in African safari and take photos for fame. She informs her apprehension to Olaf, but the plan stays on. Police empty & lock the Vondel Park by 6 pm under the pretext of maintenance work (though they later reveal that it's for a lion hunt) and the cousin hunter goes ahead with his plan there. He sets a bait of deer head, some foothold traps with nails, remote controlled speaker producing specific lion roars, and waits in a tent nearby with night vision camera and guns at ready. A helicopter tracks from above, while police and media including Olaf, Dave and Marten stand on guard outside the park gate, though Lizzy is elsewhere doing her veterinary work. After much waiting and mating calls played in the speaker, the lion's real roar can be heard, but that's when the hunter sees his son has come there, armed to hunt. He comes out to protect his son, who runs away hearing a roar and he hurries back to his tent, but immediately feels a lion there at his back. The lion attacks him, brings out his entrails while he, still alive, asks his son to shoot it. The son panics and falls victim to the foothold-trap. Informed by the helicopter, Police rush into the park & find the two men dead. Dave and Marten too had forced their media car into the park following the police car and are arrested for entering a prohibited area. The tracking helicopter is able to intermittently locate the lion to be still inside that park, but quickly they lose it. Last seen it was moving eastward towards Eeghenstraat end of the park and the police team outside that end prepare to intercept it. But they don't. The lion has actually entered the tram that makes a stop at that Park end, apparently when the automated door opens for the sparse public late in the night. A young boy notices the lion which has snuck in to the tram's empty back-end, calls it 'cat' and everyone's attention is drawn. They panic, jostling for space and safety from the lion's advance, clutching at straws like using their umbrella for saving themselves, yet it's a bloodbath in the tram while it moves in the heart of the city, the carnage visible to people outside. Olaf phones Lizzy requesting to call the hunter from England as soon as possible and is pleasantly surprised to know he is arriving next morning. In return, she gets Dave released from detention and the couple recall the carnage in her home as well as the arrival of her ex-boyfriend tomorrow. Dave returns to reporting, while Lizzy lovingly surfs her album with photos of Jack from years back. Jack arrives next morning in a flight, but Olaf is surprised to find him to be a wheelchair bound man, disabled with one leg. Jack's special chair is battery powered and has tank-like caterpillar-track bottom, giving him high speed, maneuverability and reach across slopes. He reaches the spot where the hunter father-son were killed and notes their mistakes: bait hung too low, hunter stationed downwind at that spot at that time of last night, foothold traps wrong, a tent befitting newbie scouts, and using the radio & chopper as giveaways. Lizzy smiles knowingly, indicating that the man is meticulous and knows what he is doing, just as she expects and knows him to be. He examines the lion's footprints and droppings and guesses it to be male, 7 ft, weighing 400 pounds. He leaves to have some light moments with Lizzy. Later they watch the tram footage and he is surprised how the lion could reach the tram within two minutes from being at the spot inside the park. Either it's moving too fast, or something else. When Olaf asks him how do they find the lion where it makes the next kill, other than to wait for it to actually kill, Jack replies it would be the other way- the lion would find them. But the bait can't be any non-human flesh, given that this lion having tasted human blood once, is likely to stick to that only. He says lions are possessive killers, so it would come back to eat its kill, i.e. the cousin hunter's body, which thus can be used as bait at a suitable place. The chief is angry at this 'disrespect' to his dead cousin & fires Jack from that job. Jack leaves with Lizzy to a bar where he jokes that the girls he is seeing now are the nurses of the hospital, revealing that he has liver cancer and has 1-2 years left. But he continues to present a jolly, casual and humorous face and shares laughs with the people there about hunting women and 'bait'. Meanwhile Dave and Marten reporting, find the streets far from deserted; even some people express bravado to kill the lion themselves as the police is coward. Marten teases Dave to be careful about Jack lest he hunts Lizzy. Daytime. A babysitter somewhere in the city is in charge of a boy and girl, to make sure they are inside the house. She checks their room, finds the window is open and the two have snuck outside to play in the slide game at the playground. The boy reaches the bottom first, but there is the lion, who drags him away, so the girl coming down behind him tries to climb back up, but eventually slides down. She is rescued by the babysitter and they find blood trails going away. The news of the boy's killing is shown on TV as the latest victim of the lion, prompting Lizzy and Jack to return back from bar to the site of police action. The police have surrounded the lion in a forested area of the city, have called in a SWAT-like army to search & kill the lion there, and the operation gets underway in the evening. The Chief informs Jack to get done with his bills, set for return flight next morning. Now almost out of the case, Jack meets Dave and they chat courteously along with Lizzy. Jack warns that the proposed army operation might end up in the men shooting each other. Dave is surprised Jack is disabled in legs, a fact that should relive him of insecurity from Jack, but Lizzy cheekily replies that Jack has other organs which are working, like....brain. Dave invites Lizzy and Dave for dinner, where Jack narrates his experience of fighting a lion and living to tell the tale, but which took away one of his legs. Dave exclaims "a great story!", as Jack is emotionally charged at the end of the narrating and shoots the room's chandelier down. Meanwhile, the army men surround the forest and close in from all directions, but the lion manages to keep its cover among the bush. Meanwhile some amateur enthusiasts have set some traps there including a pit dug on ground, tripping wire & bombs, themselves waiting nearby to kill the lion. When some army-men fall in the traps and sense movement of the strangers, they end up shooting around, killing many of their fellows, including those amateur citizens. Now the Chief, with a formal declaration of city-wide emergency hanging over his head, sends Olaf to recall Jack from his half-asleep state in his hotel room, waiting to fly back next morning. He re-engages in the job, with the cousin hunter's body hung as bait in that park, though they note that it's one day too old and the lion may have moved onto another hunt as its possessive kill. Dave gets some exclusive photographs of the scene, with a deal not to make them public until job done and then he leaves along with others after wishing Jack to come back with another "great story" to tell. Jack checks the wind direction, positions himself accordingly, alone, in the open without cage, without chopper patrolling above, and soon he switches off his radio device for complete silence on his part. Now and then he keeps uttering sounds of wild animals like buffalo to lure the lion in, and waits. Suddenly he senses movement, but it turns out to be a dog, apparently of a lady who meanwhile is complaining outside the park that her dog has been left inside. Jack whistles the dog away, but suddenly the lion is behind him. He shoots it while moving himself away in his vehicle-chair and soon is chasing behind/beside the lion and shoots it several times. But he loses it and switches on his radio to inform the team waiting outside the park gates. They inform him that the bait body is gone, and Jack is surprised by how fast a lion could possibly move between the bait spot and his location in the south of the park. Lizzy is worried since Jack sounded surprised, implying risks unaccounted for by him, so she decides to help him and goes inside. Finally Jack trailing behind the lion tracks, reaches near the medical unit of Amsterdam University and meets Lizzy there. He gives her a gun and the two enter the University building, having found several dead bodies and a hole in the wall indicating the lion's forceful entry inside. They sneakily look for it inside the lobby and Lizzy takes out her phone to try message the police team. Suddenly the lion jumps out of the side walls and manages to bloody Jack's shoulders. Lizzy shoots it and then hides under a sofa when attacked herself. Jack shoots it diverting it towards himself, onto the auditorium and waits outside the exit door, gun at ready to blast, but it doesn't appear there. Meanwhile Lizzy, with her mobile phone crushed in the previous attack, was trying to inform her location to the police team using a dead security guard's radio device, when she finds the lion come back silently and has to hide. That's when her radio receives calls giving her position away and she faces the lion's attack, while the caller on the other side probably hear it and get to know the location. She finds her gun is out and hides into a room, but the door seems brittle under the lion's persistent slams, so she opens the roof tiles to try escape. On other side, looking for the lion, Jack reaches a corridor and finds the lion at the end of it, who runs at him, despite taking bullets. He wheels back but his uncut leg is clawed by the lion and he falls down from a high, losing both his chair and gun. He drags himself to the nearby morgue, ties his severely bleeding leg with clothing, and secures the door handles with his belt, anticipating that the lion would come there trailing his blood on the floor all the way. Meanwhile Lizzy escaped her room and falls crashing near Jack, now hiding behind a table trying to nurse his injuries. They share some moment, notably Jack wishing to see her naked one last time, which she starts to oblige, but for Jack to say he was kidding. Finally Jack explains her their course of action: the lion would come looking for his bloody leg, its possessive prey 'of now', so let her sever his leg, to be now used as bait to kill the lion, using toxic gas present in the university's lab. He convinces her that it's the only way left to kill the lion, otherwise they themselves are sitting ducks in that room when the door gives way. With the door slamming and little time left, she reluctantly does so: cleans up the blood trail from Jack upto some safe distance, cuts his leg with a saw, takes the leg making a bloody trail into a closed chamber, herself hiding above, ready with gas cylinder and breathing mask. The lion soon breaks open the door, trails the blood on the floor, missing the severely injured Jack behind the side table and enters that chamber to find its desired leg. Lizzy quietly locks its door, sprays the toxic gas on the lion's face and it passes out soon, but not before tearing her mask partially. Lizzy is now herself breathing in the gas and fails to open the door. Meanwhile police and media reach outside the university building having been clued in by Lizzy's call before and Dave boldly goes inside. He trails the destruction and noise to reach that room, where Jack, though almost passed out out of blood loss, just manages to guide him towards Lizzy's chamber. Dave unlocks its door from outside, Lizzy comes out just in time, but soon so does the lion and attacks Dave, pinned to the ground with only a chair in between. Lizzy uses all her strength to pierce a nail through its head out into its mouth, killing the lion finally. Dave and Lizzy mourn the dead Jack, before the lion's body is carried in a vehicle for the relief of the terrified city and the Chief takes some 'trophy' photos. Jack stays back for some shoots while Lizzy accompanies Jack's body in the ambulance. On the way, they stop at a railway track crossing and Lizzy phones Dave inviting him for the night, but curiously it unfolds during their conversation that there is another hole in the university wall, with lion-tracks going away from the building. Suddenly they hear some roar, suppressed under the noise of heavy rains falling and railway bells, and soon the driver's door is attacked by a lion-- it's now revealed that there were two lions, at least. As the lion enters their vehicle, seeming to be still after Jack's body there, Lizzy & others run out. Lizzy takes the vehicle behind them whose driver had run away in panic and hits the ambulance with her vehicle, drawing the lion to now attack her front glass. She keeps at it for just enough time for the train to arrive and pushes the ambulance into the train's path, thus the explosion and fire apparently kill the lion therein. Lizzy falls to her feet, exhausted physically and emotionally, as she sees the locket made of lion-tooth that Jack used to wear dearly, has "Lizzy" inscribed in it. Next morning, peace is back in the city, with couples like Dave and Lizzy and their dogs enjoying in the open. Lizzy thanks Dave for his timing in opening the door thus saving her life and says she trusts him a little now. Dave welcomes the 'start', but creepily asks why her dog's name is 'simba', the famous lion and whether there were only two lions. In the bush nearby, some leaves rustle, followed by a faint roar.
Prey
Comedy,Horror,Thriller
Film Details
We see a wooded area at night and someone is moving there, as we see from its point-of-view. It slowly passes the forest periphery and approaches a city in the distance-- apparently a wild animal is straying into the city of Amsterdam, the Dutch capital. A small farm of an elderly couple in the city's outskirts first faces the animal's trespassing.
A little girl is sleeping in her room in that house, as a big shadow (seemingly of that animal), runs past in the outside corridor. The elderly couple's young daughter returns home late in the night with her boyfriend in a bike, which is when a clanking noise draws their attention. The old man dislikes the guy his daughter has chosen and comes out from his bed to 'greet' him, but finds the bike tripped down with engine still running.
He soon finds his daughter and her boyfriend being killed by the animal and himself is killed too-- all done off-screen. The mother hears the cries, tells the little girl to hide inside, and comes out with a gun, but she is killed too. The little girl closes herself in her room in extreme fear.
Next morning, at the zoo of Amsterdam, veterinarian Lizzy Storm (Sophie van Winden) is operating on a crocodile specimen, when her boyfriend Dave (Julian Looman) who works as a cameraman in the local news channel AT5, meets her under the pretext of shooting some baby hippos at the zoo. They talk about their relationship issues, Dave's cheating, their date tonight, etc. Lizzy gets a call, seemingly from the police at the farm site for her expertise with identifying animal traits.
Lizzy reaches the crime scene where the police in-charge Olaf Brinkers (Rienus Krul) meets her, the two having met previously on occasions like handling pandas. The police have found 4 severed bodies, with distinct mauling signs, but no footprints because of overnight rain. The little girl is missing.
Soon in the distance, from the bird chirps, they find another body. One look at the bodies and Lizzy strongly suspects it to be an act of "man-eater lion", though it's hard to believe for everyone and Olaf tries to rationalize otherwise. Lizzy tells Dave, during their date in a restaurant that evening, about the lion, in effect gifting him a news scoop.
He doesn't believe her, but keeps it from his co-reporter Marten. They talk about their trust issues, as Dave tries to convince her that he is trying to 'improve' and appears to half-succeed, until she catches his recent misdeeds from some people outside and she angrily leaves in her car. Next day, three golfers are playing in an open green field, one of whom named Hendrick mishits the ball and goes searching for it in the bush.
The other two in the meantime have planned behind his back to oust him from their common business project, and try to give him the papers to sign there itself. As they argue standing amongst the bush and Hendricks takes his eyes off into the papers for a moment, suddenly something comes out and takes away the 2nd man, leaving bloods on Hendrick's spectacled face. But it happened so fast he hasn't seen what caused it, only that it was 'some animal'.
The two survivors search for the 3rd and find blood trail over the green field, ending with his severed body. Olaf and Lizzy arrive and this time it's a confirmation- there are lion footprints. Lizzy estimates its size to be ~2 meters excluding the tail, and 200 kg in weight.
In short, it's a big lion, plus it's running fast, having traveled 40 km from the site of first attack to there in one night. Lizzy hints that it may have found a taste for killing people (as a habitual man-eater) and unfortunately they happen to be the people of Amsterdam. Olaf is stunned and reports to the police Chief Mr Zalmberg (Theo Pont) who outright rejects it, with some valid questions like where a lion may come from and why no missing reports from any zoo, say.
Lizzy tries to convince him, with her knowledge of Europe's lion presence & presents the plausible scenarios. The Chief says, should it indeed be a lion, the police can do little, as they can't fence a whole city. Lizzy says this lion hides in the day, targets its victims in twilight or night, and is unlikely to stop now, given the psychology of a predator in being fearless towards another animal after preying it once, so the police have no option not to act thinking the problem was a one-off.
She suggests: one, it should be left to professional hunters and suggests a man from England she knows; and two, the public must be warned with honest information. The Chief dismisses both suggestions: announcing it openly would create public panic, so there shall be complete media silence, and the police itself would search for it discreetly. Then Lizzy gets an SMS from Dave to switch on his channel AT5, seemingly about a news piece he has made on the lion attack based on her inputs.
She switches on the TV in the room and there people are claiming to have seen a lion. The Chief, now with no other way, calls a press conference to declare to public about the lion threat, advising people to stay indoors unless necessary. The media doesn't appear to take it seriously, recalling several false alarms previously.
On the sidelines, Olaf informs Lizzy that the Chief is hiring some professional hunter, but not the man from England she suggested. That evening, a couple is walking in a cycle-track underpass and notices what looks like a roadkill or fleshy object in the low-lit side. They leave in disgust, but it's actually a severed human hand, and sitting nearby in the corner is the lion- a big male lion.
That night, Lizzy returns home to find Dave is waiting for her nearby and they walk till her house, all the while Dave trying to woo her, quipping that they should enjoy the last moments when a lion is on the prowl. Suddenly Lizzy is suspicious finding a big shadow coming from a lane, but it turns out to be a man. A food delivery guy shoots past them dangerously on his bike, so Dave shouts at him.
He stops the bike and begins to rage, but Dave ends up coolly buying some of what he was to deliver- 'roti', meat and wine. Dave and Lizzy go inside her house and spend the night. The delivery guy faces an angry customer when the latter finds less than what he ordered, not to mention the free wine offered.
While answering his boss on phone about the customer's complaint, the delivery guy sees in his bike's mirror, a lion approaching from behind. Immediately he flees on his bike, with the lion in pursuit. The chase carries on at full speed in the night lanes of Amsterdam, until his bike slips and he falls into a water canal.
He sneakily comes out of water, but the lion appears before him within blink of his eyes dropping their guard, and rips his head off. Next morning, while Lizzy & Dave chat about their relation, Lizzy informs him she has called up Jack Delarue (Mark Frost), the skilled hunter from England, even though the Chief is hiring someone else. Dave knows Jack is her ex-boyfriend and the pair hadn't parted coolly, so is mildly concerned.
He says Jack is the best, but only in hunting lions and hope he comes to hunt only lions. Meanwhile a morning sweeper has found lion poop and human heads on road. The police, now desperate, have indeed hired a professional hunter, called to work that very afternoon.
He happens to be the Chief's cousin* and has a retarded son who wants to follow him to the hunt but dad won't allow. [*The movie mentions "neef" in Dutch, which can mean both "cousin" and "nephew" in English] The cousin hunter presents his plan before the city's authorities, notes this lion's attack pattern, marks the Vondelpark of the city to be the lion's likely place tonight, and gets the official approval by showing his credentials in killing lions in Africa. Lizzy fears that he is an amateur hunter, of the kind who kill drugged lions in African safari and take photos for fame.
She informs her apprehension to Olaf, but the plan stays on. Police empty & lock the Vondel Park by 6 pm under the pretext of maintenance work (though they later reveal that it's for a lion hunt) and the cousin hunter goes ahead with his plan there. He sets a bait of deer head, some foothold traps with nails, remote controlled speaker producing specific lion roars, and waits in a tent nearby with night vision camera and guns at ready.
A helicopter tracks from above, while police and media including Olaf, Dave and Marten stand on guard outside the park gate, though Lizzy is elsewhere doing her veterinary work. After much waiting and mating calls played in the speaker, the lion's real roar can be heard, but that's when the hunter sees his son has come there, armed to hunt. He comes out to protect his son, who runs away hearing a roar and he hurries back to his tent, but immediately feels a lion there at his back.
The lion attacks him, brings out his entrails while he, still alive, asks his son to shoot it. The son panics and falls victim to the foothold-trap. Informed by the helicopter, Police rush into the park & find the two men dead.
Dave and Marten too had forced their media car into the park following the police car and are arrested for entering a prohibited area. The tracking helicopter is able to intermittently locate the lion to be still inside that park, but quickly they lose it. Last seen it was moving eastward towards Eeghenstraat end of the park and the police team outside that end prepare to intercept it.
But they don't. The lion has actually entered the tram that makes a stop at that Park end, apparently when the automated door opens for the sparse public late in the night. A young boy notices the lion which has snuck in to the tram's empty back-end, calls it 'cat' and everyone's attention is drawn.
They panic, jostling for space and safety from the lion's advance, clutching at straws like using their umbrella for saving themselves, yet it's a bloodbath in the tram while it moves in the heart of the city, the carnage visible to people outside. Olaf phones Lizzy requesting to call the hunter from England as soon as possible and is pleasantly surprised to know he is arriving next morning. In return, she gets Dave released from detention and the couple recall the carnage in her home as well as the arrival of her ex-boyfriend tomorrow.
Dave returns to reporting, while Lizzy lovingly surfs her album with photos of Jack from years back. Jack arrives next morning in a flight, but Olaf is surprised to find him to be a wheelchair bound man, disabled with one leg. Jack's special chair is battery powered and has tank-like caterpillar-track bottom, giving him high speed, maneuverability and reach across slopes.
He reaches the spot where the hunter father-son were killed and notes their mistakes: bait hung too low, hunter stationed downwind at that spot at that time of last night, foothold traps wrong, a tent befitting newbie scouts, and using the radio & chopper as giveaways. Lizzy smiles knowingly, indicating that the man is meticulous and knows what he is doing, just as she expects and knows him to be. He examines the lion's footprints and droppings and guesses it to be male, 7 ft, weighing 400 pounds.
He leaves to have some light moments with Lizzy. Later they watch the tram footage and he is surprised how the lion could reach the tram within two minutes from being at the spot inside the park. Either it's moving too fast, or something else.
When Olaf asks him how do they find the lion where it makes the next kill, other than to wait for it to actually kill, Jack replies it would be the other way- the lion would find them. But the bait can't be any non-human flesh, given that this lion having tasted human blood once, is likely to stick to that only. He says lions are possessive killers, so it would come back to eat its kill, i.e.
the cousin hunter's body, which thus can be used as bait at a suitable place. The chief is angry at this 'disrespect' to his dead cousin & fires Jack from that job. Jack leaves with Lizzy to a bar where he jokes that the girls he is seeing now are the nurses of the hospital, revealing that he has liver cancer and has 1-2 years left.
But he continues to present a jolly, casual and humorous face and shares laughs with the people there about hunting women and 'bait'. Meanwhile Dave and Marten reporting, find the streets far from deserted; even some people express bravado to kill the lion themselves as the police is coward. Marten teases Dave to be careful about Jack lest he hunts Lizzy.
Daytime. A babysitter somewhere in the city is in charge of a boy and girl, to make sure they are inside the house. She checks their room, finds the window is open and the two have snuck outside to play in the slide game at the playground.
The boy reaches the bottom first, but there is the lion, who drags him away, so the girl coming down behind him tries to climb back up, but eventually slides down. She is rescued by the babysitter and they find blood trails going away. The news of the boy's killing is shown on TV as the latest victim of the lion, prompting Lizzy and Jack to return back from bar to the site of police action.
The police have surrounded the lion in a forested area of the city, have called in a SWAT-like army to search & kill the lion there, and the operation gets underway in the evening. The Chief informs Jack to get done with his bills, set for return flight next morning. Now almost out of the case, Jack meets Dave and they chat courteously along with Lizzy.
Jack warns that the proposed army operation might end up in the men shooting each other. Dave is surprised Jack is disabled in legs, a fact that should relive him of insecurity from Jack, but Lizzy cheekily replies that Jack has other organs which are working, like....brain. Dave invites Lizzy and Dave for dinner, where Jack narrates his experience of fighting a lion and living to tell the tale, but which took away one of his legs.
Dave exclaims "a great story!", as Jack is emotionally charged at the end of the narrating and shoots the room's chandelier down. Meanwhile, the army men surround the forest and close in from all directions, but the lion manages to keep its cover among the bush. Meanwhile some amateur enthusiasts have set some traps there including a pit dug on ground, tripping wire & bombs, themselves waiting nearby to kill the lion.
When some army-men fall in the traps and sense movement of the strangers, they end up shooting around, killing many of their fellows, including those amateur citizens. Now the Chief, with a formal declaration of city-wide emergency hanging over his head, sends Olaf to recall Jack from his half-asleep state in his hotel room, waiting to fly back next morning. He re-engages in the job, with the cousin hunter's body hung as bait in that park, though they note that it's one day too old and the lion may have moved onto another hunt as its possessive kill.
Dave gets some exclusive photographs of the scene, with a deal not to make them public until job done and then he leaves along with others after wishing Jack to come back with another "great story" to tell. Jack checks the wind direction, positions himself accordingly, alone, in the open without cage, without chopper patrolling above, and soon he switches off his radio device for complete silence on his part. Now and then he keeps uttering sounds of wild animals like buffalo to lure the lion in, and waits.
Suddenly he senses movement, but it turns out to be a dog, apparently of a lady who meanwhile is complaining outside the park that her dog has been left inside. Jack whistles the dog away, but suddenly the lion is behind him. He shoots it while moving himself away in his vehicle-chair and soon is chasing behind/beside the lion and shoots it several times.
But he loses it and switches on his radio to inform the team waiting outside the park gates. They inform him that the bait body is gone, and Jack is surprised by how fast a lion could possibly move between the bait spot and his location in the south of the park. Lizzy is worried since Jack sounded surprised, implying risks unaccounted for by him, so she decides to help him and goes inside.
Finally Jack trailing behind the lion tracks, reaches near the medical unit of Amsterdam University and meets Lizzy there. He gives her a gun and the two enter the University building, having found several dead bodies and a hole in the wall indicating the lion's forceful entry inside. They sneakily look for it inside the lobby and Lizzy takes out her phone to try message the police team.
Suddenly the lion jumps out of the side walls and manages to bloody Jack's shoulders. Lizzy shoots it and then hides under a sofa when attacked herself. Jack shoots it diverting it towards himself, onto the auditorium and waits outside the exit door, gun at ready to blast, but it doesn't appear there.
Meanwhile Lizzy, with her mobile phone crushed in the previous attack, was trying to inform her location to the police team using a dead security guard's radio device, when she finds the lion come back silently and has to hide. That's when her radio receives calls giving her position away and she faces the lion's attack, while the caller on the other side probably hear it and get to know the location. She finds her gun is out and hides into a room, but the door seems brittle under the lion's persistent slams, so she opens the roof tiles to try escape.
On other side, looking for the lion, Jack reaches a corridor and finds the lion at the end of it, who runs at him, despite taking bullets. He wheels back but his uncut leg is clawed by the lion and he falls down from a high, losing both his chair and gun. He drags himself to the nearby morgue, ties his severely bleeding leg with clothing, and secures the door handles with his belt, anticipating that the lion would come there trailing his blood on the floor all the way.
Meanwhile Lizzy escaped her room and falls crashing near Jack, now hiding behind a table trying to nurse his injuries. They share some moment, notably Jack wishing to see her naked one last time, which she starts to oblige, but for Jack to say he was kidding. Finally Jack explains her their course of action: the lion would come looking for his bloody leg, its possessive prey 'of now', so let her sever his leg, to be now used as bait to kill the lion, using toxic gas present in the university's lab.
He convinces her that it's the only way left to kill the lion, otherwise they themselves are sitting ducks in that room when the door gives way. With the door slamming and little time left, she reluctantly does so: cleans up the blood trail from Jack upto some safe distance, cuts his leg with a saw, takes the leg making a bloody trail into a closed chamber, herself hiding above, ready with gas cylinder and breathing mask. The lion soon breaks open the door, trails the blood on the floor, missing the severely injured Jack behind the side table and enters that chamber to find its desired leg.
Lizzy quietly locks its door, sprays the toxic gas on the lion's face and it passes out soon, but not before tearing her mask partially. Lizzy is now herself breathing in the gas and fails to open the door. Meanwhile police and media reach outside the university building having been clued in by Lizzy's call before and Dave boldly goes inside.
He trails the destruction and noise to reach that room, where Jack, though almost passed out out of blood loss, just manages to guide him towards Lizzy's chamber. Dave unlocks its door from outside, Lizzy comes out just in time, but soon so does the lion and attacks Dave, pinned to the ground with only a chair in between. Lizzy uses all her strength to pierce a nail through its head out into its mouth, killing the lion finally.
Dave and Lizzy mourn the dead Jack, before the lion's body is carried in a vehicle for the relief of the terrified city and the Chief takes some 'trophy' photos. Jack stays back for some shoots while Lizzy accompanies Jack's body in the ambulance. On the way, they stop at a railway track crossing and Lizzy phones Dave inviting him for the night, but curiously it unfolds during their conversation that there is another hole in the university wall, with lion-tracks going away from the building.
Suddenly they hear some roar, suppressed under the noise of heavy rains falling and railway bells, and soon the driver's door is attacked by a lion-- it's now revealed that there were two lions, at least. As the lion enters their vehicle, seeming to be still after Jack's body there, Lizzy & others run out. Lizzy takes the vehicle behind them whose driver had run away in panic and hits the ambulance with her vehicle, drawing the lion to now attack her front glass.
She keeps at it for just enough time for the train to arrive and pushes the ambulance into the train's path, thus the explosion and fire apparently kill the lion therein. Lizzy falls to her feet, exhausted physically and emotionally, as she sees the locket made of lion-tooth that Jack used to wear dearly, has "Lizzy" inscribed in it. Next morning, peace is back in the city, with couples like Dave and Lizzy and their dogs enjoying in the open.
Lizzy thanks Dave for his timing in opening the door thus saving her life and says she trusts him a little now. Dave welcomes the 'start', but creepily asks why her dog's name is 'simba', the famous lion and whether there were only two lions. In the bush nearby, some leaves rustle, followed by a faint roar..