After the rape and murder of five elementary schoolgirls shocks the nation, a fleeing suspect is shot by the police, creating a wave of negative publicity as guilt cannot be proven and the real attacker may still be at large. Under intense pressure from the Blue House, a senior police official assigns Choi Cheol-gi [Hwang Jung-min] to a highly sensitive mission: to find a former child rapist who can take the blame. In return, Choi is promised a promotion and the dismissal of an internal investigation sparked by his brother-in-law taking money from Jang Seok-gu [Yoo Hai-jin], a corrupt businessman. As the case unfolds, the intertwining web of corruption and cover-ups sets a grim tone for what follows, testing loyalties within the force and exposing how high the stakes can be when power is on the line.
Choi combs through profiles of rapists and settles on Lee Dong-seok [Woo Jung-kook], a school-bus driver, convincing him to participate in a carefully staged confession. He enlists Jang Seok-gu and his henchmen to kidnap Lee and coach him on how the confession should be delivered. Meanwhile, Jang launches a calculated blackmail scheme by taking photographs of Kim Yang-su [Jo Young-jin] and Joo Yang [Ryoo Seung-bum] playing golf, then dispatching a henchman to approach Kim and murder him. The incriminating photographs are mailed to Joo to ensure that Jang will never be prosecuted. At the police station, Lee is denied immunity from the death penalty, refuses the deal, and instead tells Joo the truth. In response, Jang sends an earlier henchman to arrest and murder Lee from within the jail, further entangling the conspirators. Joo grows increasingly furious as he uncovers Choi’s possible collusion, prompting him to press for answers with the aid of a corrupt journalist, and a tense, uneasy truce forms between Choi and Joo.
Tensions escalate as Jang, tired of being blackmailed by Choi, holds onto recordings of Lee’s coaching and uses them to threaten Choi. In a bid to silence the threat, Choi murders Jang in a rigged elevator and pretends to reach a peace with Jang’s assistant before killing him as well. The brutal act is witnessed by Choi’s lieutenant, who struggles to intervene; in the ensuing scuffle, Choi inadvertently kills the lieutenant and then tries to cover the crime by stabbing the body so it appears the two men killed each other. Despite the turnover of power and the celebration of a promotion for Choi, suspicions simmer within the force. Choi’s subordinates quietly nab another one of Jang’s henchmen who served as Jang’s videographer and who captured Jang’s death and the ensuing fight, hoping to preserve a sliver of truth.
In a cruel twist of forensic science, DNA testing confirms that Lee is the real attacker, unraveling the elaborate scheme. Yet the subordinates leak the coaching video to expose Choi’s connection with Jang, complicating the case further. They also order Jang’s henchman to ambush Choi at a charnel house and murder him in revenge. The final act reveals that they also released the golf photographs, and though the media initially suggests charges will be filed, Joo Yang’s father-in-law steps in, offering a calm reassurance that everything will be all right for now. The film closes on a note of moral ambiguity, underscoring how power, corruption, and deception shape outcomes even when truth might emerge from the wreckage.
