On his birthday, Schneider is awakened by his wife Loetje and their two daughters—the Oldest Daughter and the Youngest Daughter—who bring presents and eagerly plan a birthday dinner for that evening. Yet beneath the domestic glow, Schneider is a contract killer masquerading as a simple handyman, and his boss, Mertens, phones in with a contract that cannot be postponed.
Schneider reluctantly accepts what seems to be an easy assignment: to kill Ramon Bax, a novelist holed up in a remote lakeside cabin. The boss is insistent that the job must be done today, and he adds a chilling claim: > Ramon Bax is a child killer. Schneider weighs the risk and the deception that comes with taking a job that feels both routine and dangerous.
But Bax is not a straightforward target. He turns out to be a hitman who also works for Mertens, and he’s dealing with his own demons, including serious substance-abuse problems. He has forgotten that he was supposed to kill Schneider that day, a memory reinforced by Mertens who once again insists with a separate warning: > Schneider is a child killer. The situation spirals as each man learns he is being played, yet the transformable web of loyalties, lies, and threats makes backing out nearly impossible.
Bax is not alone in his chaos. He is entangled with his younger lover, Nadine, and he also contends with the arrival of Francisca, his depressed adult daughter, who comes for a visit. On top of that, Gerard, Bax’s lecherous father, shows up with a young girlfriend, adding another volatile layer to an already dangerous day.
As the two men realize they’re being manipulated, they slip deeper into a tangle of strategic moves and personal vendettas. Schneider enlists an escort—someone he saved from a pimp—to provide cover while he fends off the complex moral and physical threats converging around the cabin. Francisca, arriving burdened by her own unhappiness, flees from her father and finds an abandoned shack within the wildlife sanctuary encircling the lake. In a brutal moment, she kills Gerard when he attempts to coerce her back and again shows that she is not merely a bystander in this deadly game.
Francisca’s discovery that her father is a professional killer, not just a novelist, shifts the balance of power and fuels her decision to help Schneider complete his mission. The plot thickens as Schneider abducts Mertens and uses him as a surrogate target for Bax. The miscalculation is swift and fatal: Bax shoots Mertens, believing he’s honoring the contract’s end, and contemplates leaving the house now that the supposed job is finished—potentially applying the same logic to Schneider, whom he sees as a rival who has witnessed too much.
Schneider, sensing a threat in Bax’s knowledge and audacity, kills Bax, ending that line of threat but not the larger shadow cast by the night’s violence. Francisca, revived with new inner resolve, arms herself with her father’s sniper rifle and turns it toward Schneider, determined to erase the last witness to his crimes. The hunter and the hunted circle each other, each trying to gain the upper hand as the cabin becomes a stage for a final reckoning.
The showdown reaches a stark, unsettling peak when Schneider manages to disarm Francisca from outside the shack where she had slain her grandfather. He steps inside for the ultimate move, but Francisca sits there, naked and calm, a stark counterpoint to Schneider’s grim mission. After a quiet moment of hesitation, Schneider chooses a different path: he withdraws, leaving the confrontation unresolved for the moment, and returns to his family to join the birthday celebration he had been anticipating all day.
In the end, the day’s deadly schemes yield another kind of conclusion—one built on the endurance of family bonds and the choices we make when violence and loyalty collide. The film closes on a note that blends relief with the persistent tension of a life spent under the sign of deception, power, and the fragile lines between protection and peril.
