The film follows a main antagonist and his attempts to stalk a young women. The antagonist acts as an anti-hero because as the film develops we find out his reasons for his obsession and the audience can hopefully relate to them.
The start of the film is largely conventional within the thriller genre. It acts to set up the characters and establish the key locations of the film as well as to introduce the main plot devices; notes left by the antagonist that give the protagonist a choice of effectively handing out death sentences to total strangers. Although the protagonist doesn't take the first note seriously, she learns the hard way that they are deadly serious. During the film opening it seems quite clear who the villains are, but as the film progresses this distinction becomes hazy as the situation progresses and the methods used to try and catch the antagonist grow ever more extreme, to the point of rivaling the notes themselves.
Near the start of the film, we are introduced to the young womans boyfriend, who is leading the police investigation into the killings. Although the couple are united at the start of the film, the unconventional methods used soon start to draw a line between them and the boyfriend soon becomes as obsessed with catching the killer as the killer is with the main protagonist. This allows the audience to choose who to take sides with in the film; although the stalker is undoubtedly in the wrong, his motives are far more understandable than the methods employed to catch him. The start of the film also establishes that the antagonist and protagonist are childhood friends and ex-lovers. The reason for their split is left unsaid.
The turning point of the film arrives around half way through when the police manage to find a partially covered fingerprint on one of the notes left by the killer. Although this is seems promising at first, the antagonist turns out to not be on the database so he escapes and continues with his note writing and killing. Despite this lead not amounting to anything, it furthers the boyfriends obsession with finding the killer and it is at this point at which the protagonist decides to leave him. Active audience members may now see the antagonist's plan truly coming into effect.
The protagonist leaves to live with her parents and is followed by her stalker, who seems to know exactly where to go. When she arrives at her parents house, she finds another note on the door stating that they have been kidnapped and will only be returned on two conditions. The rest of the note is written on the back of the paper, but before she has a chance to read it, her mobile phone rings. She answers and we hear a muffled voice that she correctly guesses is the stalker. He orders her inside the house, but she refuses to do what he says. Angered, he tells her that unless that unless she complies she will never see her parents again. Reluctantly, she walks inside and finds a gun on the kitchen table.
The climactic scenes show the protagonist as she struggles to cope with the ever increasing stress of the notes and their consequences. She continues to cooperate with the police and even goes so far as to confiding her worries with her alienated boyfriend; however he can only think about his job and she grows frustrated with him. She tells him about the gun in the hope that this will help her cause, but it only pins suspicion on her, as the weapon perfectly matches the bullets found in the victims bodies.
The ending to the film takes place as we finally discover the conditions of the stalker: Hand in the gun after 14 days; collect a package from a certain address in 15 days.
The reasoning behind these demands becomes clear as the police first start to suspect the protagonist when she hands in the gun and then she is seen collecting a suspicious parcel from a known arms dealer. She is brought in for questioning, but does not mention the note or phone call to the police in fear of her parents life. She is held in the police station overnight and in the morning she is woken to the news that someone wants to see her. The antagonist walks in and delivers an ultimatum to her. Either go back to live with him, or go to prison for mass murder. She is left with no choice and he manges to pin the murders on someone else.
After a court hearing the two leave together. She sees for the first time his absolute devotion to her and how he has based his life around getting her back. She is taken aback by this, but before she can speak to him, the antagonist is shot by the boyfriend who has been lying in wait all along.
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