The Murderer Plot Summary
The premise is simple, revolving around a series of gruesome murders that have taken place in Roi Et. Seven people in total are found dead at a farmhouse in the Bung Klua district. Most victims lived together, but there’s a distinct fracture running down the middle, thanks in part to “farang” (white guy) Earl. Earl is married to Sai and he’s from Britain. None of Sai’s family trust him and see the guy as a dangerous outsider – and he just so happens to be the lead suspect in this massacre.
Determined to get to the bottom of what happened, fiery police investigator Nawat is on the scene. Described by many as the “Hot-Headed Crime Buster”, he’s determined to either incriminate Earl for the murders, or at least find out the truth.
Why does Boonluck think Earl is the killer?
Boonluck claims that he saw Earl murder Kai and Phet. Everyone in the house is prejudiced against Earl though because he’s a “farang”. The blood found on Earl’s shirt has a good explanation and Boonluck is jumping to conclusions.
While everyone argues outside, Par drops from the second floor and crashes to the ground. However, there’s blood found under her fingernails. That blood is from Earl’s wallet, which she took and stole the cash inside of. Something spooked her in the room though and, stumbling backwards, she toppled out the open window.
June happens to have been outside shooting a video on her phone and she saw everything. Boonluck was out looking for June but got spooked and rushed into the marshes. As for Phet and Kai, they tried to forge life insurance documents, with plans to force Earl to sign it. They’d be on course to earn a lot of money if they do and the pair even have a gun too.
When Earl showed up armed with a hammer, he began hammering in the wooden boards on Sai’s family home. With a storm incoming, a couple of boards seemed to be loose. Boonluck saw in the silhouette what looks like Earl beating Phet and Kai to death. In reality, he’s actually pounding the boarded up windows so its a big misunderstanding.
Why was Earl covered in blood?
Earl cut himself on the window with a shard of glass, resulting in him pouring out with blood. He took his shirt off, head upstairs and passed out in bed. Par falling from the window awoke Earl, but Par ended up seeing visions of her partner.
Earl woke up in bed and everyone was gone. Kai and Phet weren’t dead but actually just out for a drive. Earl is nearly struck down on the road as the pair weren’t paying attention. After, they stop the car and believe they’ve run over Earl. In reality, he’s just passed out by the side of the road.
Phet loads the gun and looks set to shoot Earl, but the truck (which is balanced precariously on the ditch) slips and runs right over Kai’s body.
Who killed Kai and Phet?
Lek, the police officer killed at the scene, received a call and shows up at Charlie and Tukta’s, looking for Boonluck’s farmhouse. On the road, Lek finds Phet has been shot in the head. A gun is in his right hand. Earl takes the gun from his hand and stuffs it in his back pocket. He runs into Kai, who attacks with a spade. Kai taunts Earl and shoots himself in the head, unaware that the gun is actually loaded.
Earl, now armed with the spade, is beside himself with shock and runs up the road back to the farmhouse. Meanwhile, the police car breaks down en-route, so Lek heads out to investigate. He finds Phet’s body but it’s been run over. But what happened to him? Well, it turns out this was actually Boonluck, who found the truck abandoned by the side of the road. He drove it out the ditch, unaware that Phet was underneath the wheels.
What happened with Lek outside the farmhouse?
Boonluck returns to the farmhouse, followed closely by Earl who drags a spade all the way back and starts washing the blood off him. Jan’s cries for help distract Earl, but it’s Boonluck who stabs Charlie with the pitchfork, spooked by the big man sneaking up from behind. Tukta promises to tell the police everything, but just as she rushes to leave, Boonluck stabs her too.
As for Earl, he smashes the window and runs for it, bumping into Lek and breaking his camera. With everything converged at the farmhouse, everyone decided to incriminate Earl. Sai is shocked, but footprints leading away from the house show that Boonluck was the one responsible. Boonluck hits Sai but it’s Jan who shoots Lek. Just before going down, Lek shot Jan in the shoulder and she passes out from blood loss soon after.
Boonluck gets up first and he takes the gun from Jan’s hand and switches it over to Earl’s. However, he sees a strange ethereal figure before him and gets spooked. “Pa, Ma, Save me now!” He shouts, clutching his heart before collapsing on the floor from a heart attack.
Is Earl found innocent?
Thanks to June’s statement and video footage, all charges are dropped against Earl. Sai is shocked and she heads off to pick up Earl, who’s in the waiting room now. He tells Sai not to believe what everyone else says and to make her own mind up. Sai starts weeping and throws her arms around Earl, hugging her partner tightly.
But what of Nawat? He heads speaks to June one last time, asking what she bought from the market. He holds up a bag of mushrooms but she’s defiant and claims that she doesn’t know what happened. However, this bag explains the hallucinations that Par and Boonluck suffered from. We now get a much bigger picture and understand how June plays into this.
How did June influence the night?
June overheard Jan and Boonluck speaking about how the girl is such a burden. In fact, Boonluck was going to give her up to Tukta behind Sai’s back. June concocted a plan to spike the food, having found mushrooms outside in the fields with her friend, Jamie. The pair actually took some mushrooms and hallucinated that afternoon.
June took a bag home and spiked the spicy food. If you’ll remember, the earlier dinner scene saw the entire family ravenously eat everything while June was eating a bowl of plain rice. Sai and Earl held back from eating anything. This explains all the hallucinations and what happened to Par as well. June was the one in the car as well and she actually reversed it into Phet.
How does The Murderer end?
As the film ends, June leaves the police station and is reunited with her Auntie Sai and Earl. Nawat gets the toxicology results back from the victims surrounding the mushrooms and believes this is the root cause of everything that occurred. The case is closed.
While Sai, Earl and June drive away, the camera pans back to Nawat who opens up the sweet jar and notices one sweet remaining. When he unwraps it, he finds it’s a trick and actually just the wrapper. His nostrils flare and he realizes he’s been duped.
Now, whether this trickery extends to knowing June spiked the food and caused her family’s misery is up for debate. Nawat does know that mushrooms were used in the food. He also knows that those mushrooms were on June’s possession. Plus, June forgot her phone on the way out the station, which points toward her guilt.
Then again, it could just be Nawat’s fiery temper, given we know he’s referred to as the “Hot Headed Crime-Buster”. The final scenes are left up for interpretation but we like the idea that Nawat knows he’s been tricked by June; looks can be deceiving after all!
Read More: The Murderer Movie Review