Christopher "Chris" (Daniel Brühl) is a German backpacker travelling on foot on his own in an African country. He gets the whim of buying a certain bracelet, but the stall seller (Mawuli Semevo) doesn't want to sell it, because he's kept it for somebody else. Chris steals the bracelet, and the man runs after him to pick the bracelet again. When the home police (Prince Yawson and Jojo Robertson) arrive, the man leaves and Chris is left alone. A police officer asks for Chris' passport and he complies. When the police officer asks for his visa as well, Chris gets cocky, punches him and runs away.Chris goes to a derelict bar when he finds the crew of a cargo ship about to leave for Marseille, France. They all get a bit drunk and Chris, who is now running away from the police, goes after them. He enters the ship and hides with the cargo, a shipment of African birds about to be bootlegged into France. He hears the conversation between Brookes (Peter Mullan), the captain of the ship and the investors (Babou Cham and Ely Niang) of the ship, saying that Brookes'd better reach Marseille with the parrots alive.The atmosphere in the hold of the ship is strange: there are shadows everywhere, strange noises are heard sometimes, there are fast movements captured always on the corner of the sailor's eyes. The crewmates seem to be afraid of going down to the hold on thier own, and that's the thing which most makes Chris weary. However, the exotic birds have to be fed regularly. One of the crew soon finds Chris out, especially because of his reflection on a broken mirror in front of which the sailor was trying to shave. They take him to Brookes, who asks him what passport he's got. When they learn Brookes decides to put Chris on room 9 - something which the rest of the crew finds eerie - and make him work for them until they arrive to France on 7 days.Chris' only friend among the crew seems to be Baptist (Luis Tosar), an ex-priest who tells Chris not to ask questions and work in silence. Chris is given the worst jobs, like letrin-cleaning, and he just obeys. However, he finds it upsetting to go down to the ship cellar. It looks that there are weird shadows, the exotic birds start all twitting in the weirdest moments, and there is like strange movements in the dark. The rest of the crew seem to find it upsetting, although nobody wants to speak about it. In spite of all this, Chris has to feed the birds on his own. When cleaning one of the walls, he finds scribbled on it the name Rebecca. Baptist tells him not to ask questions once again.The crew is strange, and not completely there. One of them goes up to the watchpole and starts shouting something about the gulls. The rest of the crew chants "jump, jump" in a chorus. Brookes tells the crazy one to go down safely. However, when they are all together having lunch, the crew picks on the weak one, until Chris shouts and tells them to stop.Chris also has to shave Brookes with a penknife. Chris and Brookes have a strange conversation in which Brookes tells Chris that it was courageous to defend the weaker one, and that there is always the situation in which a single person is agains everybody else. That night, Chris has overheard somebody throwing somebody else oberboard - the crazed guy-. Brookes asks him if he has dreamt something, because he doesn't seem like having slept all right throughout the night. Chris denies any knowledge. Brookes asks him about his dreams, and Chris says that he never has dreams. When he's on his own at the captain room, Chris finds weird pencil drawings of a scary man, and then a lighter drawing of himself.Later, Chris finds two other stowaways, Subira (Nikki Amuka-Bird) and Abrahim (Kwaku Ankomah), both of African passport. He gives them some food, leaving it in a plastic bag in the shipment room.Abrahim is soon captured. Brookes makes Chris watch as Rhombus (Samuli Edelmann), Herman (Gary Lewis) and the rest throw Abrahim overboard. Brookes tells him that Chris himself was who took them to Abrahim, and says that he can't afford to have the ship moored again and a fine given to him if immigration officers find other migrants again.Subira looks for a moment to ask Chris about Abrahim. He says he doesn't know, but Subira will be lead to believe that Abrahim is dead. Chris cries on his own in room 9.A search party is organized. Brookes has become convinced that there are more stowaways, so everybody looks for them. They don't find anyone, and Chris says that he's sure there is not anybody else. He is beaten, because the crew is convinced there IS somebody else.Chris and Subira run and hide among the cargo. The crew can't find them again. The captain says aloud something in Swahili, and Subira runs away from Chris because she is lead to believe that Chris was the one who killed Abrahim.Later on, Baptist tries to stop the madness. He tries to help Chris and Subira, and although there is an odd moment in which he looks like helping Brookes and Rhombus, he tries to stop them. Baptist tries to reason with Brookes, saying it's not too late to stop everything. Brookes ties and gags Baptist and lives him on a hammock on his room. Subira will hit Baptist with a hammer believing it was Brookes. Subira kills Baptist.Brookes traps both Chris and Subira. Brookes admits that the previous time, the only person who refused to kill the stowaways was his own son, so he had to kill him. Brookes says that there is not turning back or redemption after that, so that Chris must decide who he wants to support: the crew or the illegal immigrants. Brookes forces Chris to choose to throw Subira overboard or be thrown himself.First, Chris pushes Subira overboard, but then he jumps. Brookes is shocked, as he had been considering Chris as a surrogate son, in the hope that this time, everything turns out all right and he does not defend the immigrants. Brookes gets mad and first, he throws a rubber ring, and then, he puts the Gull, one of the rescuing boats, on the sea.Subira helps Brookes to take Chris to safety. Subira herself gets on the boat and roars away from the cargo ship.