The Plot review: Despite an intriguing premise, this thriller fails to weave a thrilling narrative

Starring Kang Dong-Won and Lee Jung-Suk, The Plot ironically struggles with the plot itself!

The Plot review: With the on-going Hallyu wave where I am guilty of consuming every single thing, I rarely come across content that has failed to connect with me. Lee Yo-Sup’s The Plot, unfortunately, makes it to that list. It revolves around a criminal group who call themselves ‘empty shells’ as they lack any birth record and technically do not exist in society. The teams consists of Young-Il (Kang Dong-Won) who is the leader of the group, Jackie (Lee Mi-Seok), a woman in her sixties who puts all the planning in place, Wol-Cheon (Lee Hyun-Wook), a queer man who likes cross dressing and finally, the youngest, Jeom- Man (Tang Jun-Sang), who makes sure the plan’s execution goes smoothly till the end. But what do they plan, you might ask? They make a living out of making murders look like accidental deaths. Every murder that they’ve been paid to commit so far all look like inevitable accidents but are actually very meticulously planned heinous murders.

But here’s where it gets tricky, the protagonist, Young-il has a psychological condition where he feels like he can still see one of their ex-gang mates Jacknoon (Lee Jung-Suk) and talk to him. He also feels that there is a larger contract killing group called ‘Sweepers’ who are behind him and are the ones responsible for Jjacknoon’s death. So when the empty shells are hired by a popular politician’s daughter to kill her father, the group has to come up with a solid plan for their biggest target till date. But it goes without saying that things go haywire and there’s more to all of this than one can think of. For a movie like The Plot that centers around suspense and thrill so much, there were barely any edge of the seat moments in the film. Since the story itself begins with no set up or introduction, it gets confusing to figure out who plays what role along the way and by the time you do, the film is over! 

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To top that, The Plot fails to give us a conclusive ending too and felt like it was up to us to figure out the answers to the very many questions this story leaves us with. As we’re seeing this story through the protagonist, Young-Il’s lens, we barely have any back story or any context around him to root for or feel connected to him as an audience. With no character development, plot twists and the story leading up to nothing big, this one feels like a miss in a swarm of Korean content that is setting the benchmark weekend after weekend!

The Plot is currently streaming on Lionsgate Play!

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