Bullhead 2012

In Sint-Truiden, a cattle farmer named Jacky, who runs the family business, lives a hard and isolated life. He is in his thirties, physically powerful, and has become deeply addicted to steroids. In the Limburg region, a pervasive network of illegal growth hormones controls much of the cattle and meat trade, and farmers end up selling cows to this mafia. The cows are injected with hormones before they are slaughtered for food, a system that feeds Jacky’s anger and loneliness while fueling his dependence on performance-enhancing substances.

A separate thread follows a West Flanders mafia thug who returns a car to two bunglingWalloon mechanics who had previously stolen it for him. The thug tells them to disappear the vehicle, but they discover a bullet hole in the car and catch a news report about a murdered police detective, realizing the car’s troubling involvement with criminal violence.

Jacky’s veterinarian arranges a deal for him with Marc, the mafia boss who dominates West Flanders. At this meeting, Jacky meets Marc’s right-hand man, Diederik, who appears to have ties to Jacky’s shadowy past. Diederik is also serving as a police informant, working under the direction of Eva, a detective who is investigating the hormone mafia. The web of loyalties and betrayals grows heavier as the past begins to intrude on the present.

Twenty years earlier, Jacky and Diederik were childhood friends. Their fathers, both cattle farmers, had dealings with the same criminal circles, and Jacky harbored a crush on Lucia, the daughter of a mob boss. A disturbing incident changes everything: Bruno, Lucia’s would‑be protector who is intellectually disabled, tries to pimp Lucia. After a troubling confrontation, Bruno brutalizes Jacky by smashing his testicles with rocks, effectively mutilating him. The friends abandon Jacky, and Diederik’s own father, fearing the mafia’s reach, forbids his son from cooperating with the police. To cope with the injuries and to pass through puberty, Jacky begins injecting testosterone, a choice that binds his fate to the world of crime and violence.

In the present day, Jacky encounters Lucia in a store and soon begins following her. He slips into a nightclub after her, where she is interrupted by a male admirer who tries to flirt and dance with her. After the man leaves, Jacky stalks him and brutally assaults him. Lucia, meanwhile, visits Bruno, who is now disabled and living in a care facility, and when she leaves, Jacky confronts Bruno. Lucia starts to suspect that Jacky was the boy involved in the childhood assault, especially after noticing bruises on Jacky’s knuckles.

The police finally connect the stolen car to the crime scene and arrest the two mechanics, who are implicated in the murder of the detective. Diederik rushes to Jacky’s farm to warn him that police are coming to arrest him. When Diederik reveals his role as a police informant, Jacky and Diederik decide to go on the run together, each aware that their paths are entangled with the mafia and with Eva’s investigation.

Jacky makes a last attempt to see Lucia, but she resists at first. She eventually agrees to meet him, and during their confrontation she reveals that she had called the police and that she knows he attacked her friend’s associate. Inside Lucia’s bathroom, Jacky administers a powerful dose of testosterone, a final choice that intensifies his rage. The police arrive, and in a moment of fury, Jacky turns on the arresting officers. He sustains a fatal wound to the stomach as the confrontation ends, leaving his volatile story unresolved but etched into the memory of those who crossed his path.