The Hunters 1996

Erik Bäckström Rolf Lassgård, a Stockholm police officer, returns to his family in Norrbotten after the death of their abusive father. There he reconnects with his brother Leif Bäckström Lennart Jähkel, who never left the family home. The dynamic is uneasy: the father’s iron control molded Leif’s life, suppressing his obvious musical talent and keeping him under a suffocating, rusted routine. The reunion unfolds against a quiet, foreboding backdrop, where the surface peace of a northern town masks old wounds and new dangers.

Erik has already carried the burden of trauma from a justified lethal shooting on duty, a wound that has left him with post-traumatic stress and a transfer to a local field office. He arrives with a wary patience, trying to rebuild a sense of purpose while the past refuses to release its grip. The narrative slowly reveals how life in this remote corner of Sweden is shaped not only by the cold climate but by a code of silence and loyalty that binds the men around him.

From the outset, Erik begins to sense that Leif’s circle—led by Tomme Harela Jarmo Mäkinen—is deeply involved in large-scale illegal hunting of reindeer and moose. The suspicion hardens when Erik spots illicit activity near a pub: illegal weapons in Tomme’s car, a clue that hints at more extensive illegality. When Tomme nearly attacks Erik, he is saved at the last moment by Erik’s brother Leif, a moment that lays bare the protective yet fractured bond between the brothers. The truth, however, remains buried: Leif is the power behind the poaching ring, a secret he guards even from Erik.

As pressure mounts on the local police to address the escalating poaching, Erik’s persistence drives him to gather evidence. He breaks into Tomme’s house and uncovers a grim cache of weapons and animal carcasses, a discovery that could bring the gang down. But before he can alert colleagues, he is knocked unconscious, a stark reminder of the danger that stalks those who pry too deeply into the operation. The investigation stalls under political pressure and fear of retribution, and Leif decides to pause operations, a choice that infuriates the gang members who have taken on substantial financial commitments, like car loans, in the hopes of profits from the illegal trade.

The situation escalates when a raid intended to recoup earnings goes wrong: Tomme accidentally kills a Russian bilberry worker, and another witness sees the body and the car being dumped in a lake. Leif chases the witness and brutally slits her throat, a murder that compounds the sense of inescapable guilt in a community already on edge. The five men decide to keep silent, a choice that seals their fate as more violence looms on the horizon. Ove, Erik’s kind but intellectually disabled childhood friend, becomes a silent witness to the truth—though he remains unaware that he has become a figure in the widening web of danger.

Erik’s suspicions about Leif grow sharper when he witnesses the gang harassing a Filipina barmaid, Nena Editha Domingo at the local bar. Erik intervenes during the altercation, and later he and Nena share a night together. In the aftermath, Erik attends a ceremony to receive an award for returning to his hometown, leaving Nena behind in the house. That moment becomes a turning point: Leif and the gang return, subject Nena to verbal abuse, and then rape her on the kitchen table. Nena disappears, only to be revealed later as returning to the Philippines. The violence marks a turning point for Erik, who realizes the danger extends far beyond the moral rot of poaching.

A female prosecutor from Stockholm, Anna Helena Bergström, arrives to lead the case, bringing a glimmer of institutional pursuit into a landscape defined by family loyalties and fear. As the investigation deepens, the body of the Russian woman is found, and with information from Ove Tomas Norström—whose quiet actions indicate he knows more than he can say—the police locate the body of the male Russian, a clue secured by a bullet fragment. Erik urges Ove to stay inside and secure his door, but Leif and the others, tipped off by a police partner, descend on Ove’s house under the guise of a hunting trip, taking him away with the promise of safety but instead delivering an execution.

The chase to bring the killers to justice reveals a bitter truth: Ove is the half-brother of Erik and Leif. The revelation heightens the film’s emotional stakes, turning a case of illegal hunting into a family tragedy. Erik must locate the rifle that could convict the killers for the Russian man’s murder. In a climactic confrontation, Erik is fired at but manages to strike Tomme with an iron bar, enabling authorities to arrest him. The pursuit of accountability is tormentingly slow, and the interrogation of motives—loyalty to family versus duty to the law—takes center stage.

In a final, devastating twist, Leif offers Erik a sum of 200,000 Kronor as a share of their father’s estate and asks for permission to surrender. Erik agrees, granting him one hour to do so. Instead of turning himself in, Leif detonates their childhood home, choosing to end the cycle of violence and control that has defined their lives. The blast is both a literal and symbolic end to an era, and Erik, returning to Stockholm, resolves to pursue a different life—one that moves away from the shadows of his father and the brother who chose brutal survival over confession.

The film’s mood remains cool and restrained, its pace deliberate, allowing the tension to simmer as the violence grows more intricate and the moral calculus more fraught. The landscapes of northern Sweden act as a quiet counterpoint to the brutality at the story’s center, underscoring the distance between Erik’s ideals of justice and the hard choices demanded by an unyielding code of silence. The performances, anchored by Rolf Lassgård as Erik and Lennart Jähkel as Leif, give the narrative a human center: a tale of frayed loyalties, hidden crimes, and the heavy price paid when families protect their own at the expense of the truth.