Predators

In 1997, Los Angeles is experiencing a heat wave and a turf war between heavily armed Colombian and Jamaican drug cartels. A Predator watches a shootout between the police, Jamaicans, and Colombians, observing as Lieutenant Michael R. Harrigan charges into the firefight to rescue two wounded officers and drive the Colombians back into their hideout. The Predator assaults the Colombians, causing a disturbance that prompts Harrigan and detectives Leona Cantrell and Danny Archuleta to defy orders and enter the hideout, where they find the slaughtered Colombians. On the roof, the crazed gang leader gets a glimpse of the Predator and shoots at it before falling to his death after Harrigan shoots him, but the latter dismisses it as a mirage due to extreme heat and his acrophobia.

At the station, his superiors reprimand Harrigan for his disobedience. He is then introduced to Special Agent Peter Keyes, the leader of a task force investigating the cartels, and Detective Jerry Lambert, the newest member of Harrigan’s team.

Later that evening, Jamaicans invade the Colombian drug lord’s penthouse and murder him before they are killed in turn by the Predator. Upon their arrival, Harrigan’s team notes the similarities between the crime scene and the earlier Colombian massacre, including the flayed corpses, until Keyes’s team arrives and removes them.

Archuleta returns alone, finding one of the Predator’s spear tips before the creature kills him. As an enraged Harrigan vows to stop Archuleta’s killer, forensic analysis reveals the spear tip is not composed of any known element on the periodic table. Seeking answers, Harrigan meets with Jamaican drug lord King Willie, a voodoo practitioner who believes the killer is supernatural and that he should prepare himself for battle against it. Harrigan leaves before the Predator kills King Willie, taking his head as a trophy. Tracing a lead indicating Archuleta’s killer had recently been in a slaughterhouse, Harrigan arranges to meet his team at the warehouse district to investigate.

Cantrell and Lambert take the subway there, but are ambushed by the Predator, who kills Lambert and numerous armed passengers but spares Cantrell after its helmet’s scanners indicate that she is pregnant. Arriving in time to see it claim Lambert’s head, Harrigan chases the fleeing Predator, but Keyes’s men intercept him. Keyes reveals that the monster is an extraterrestrial hunter with infrared vision and active camouflage that has been hunting humans for sport, most recently one decade prior in Central America. Keyes and his team have set a trap in a nearby slaughterhouse, using thermally insulated suits with mounted ultraviolet lights and cryogenic weapons to capture it for study. However, the suspicious Predator, upon hearing their footsteps, uses its scanners to track, outmaneuver, and slaughter Keyes’s men via their lights.

Harrigan attacks and wounds the Predator, but it destroys his weapon. It prepares to finish him off before Keyes tries to freeze the creature, but the Predator kills Keyes by throwing a Smart Disc at him. The Predator then chases Harrigan to the roof, where they clash until they are left hanging from a ledge. The creature activates a self-destruct device on its forearm, which Harrigan severs with the disc, disarming it.

The Predator enters an apartment, where it treats its wounds and flees. Harrigan pursues it to a spacecraft hidden underground and engages it in combat, ultimately killing the Predator with its disc.

Just then, a small group of cloaked Predators arrives to collect their comrade’s body. Their leader, an elder Predator, gives Harrigan an antique flintlock pistol that is engraved with “Raphael Adolini 1715” on a brass plate, as a reward for killing the Predator. As the ship takes off, Harrigan escapes to the surface and meets with Keyes’ team. Despite their lost opportunity to capture the creature in the end, Harrigan privately muses that the Predators will return.

Last Updated: October 10, 2025 at 15:59