Plot

A fishing boat captain juggles facing his mysterious past and finding himself ensnared in a reality where nothing is what it seems.

Baker Dill (Matthew McConaughey) is a fishing boat captain leading tours off a tranquil, tropical enclave called Plymouth Island. His quiet life is shattered, however, when his ex-wife Karen (Anne Hathaway) tracks him down with a desperate plea for help. She begs Dill to save her - and their young son - from her new, violent husband (Jason Clarke) by taking him out to sea on a fishing excursion, only to throw him to the sharks and leave him for dead. Karen's appearance thrusts Dill back into a life he'd tried to forget, and as he struggles between right and wrong, his world is plunged into a new reality that may not be all that it seems.

A lone fisherman, Baker Dill, who escaped from his past to a remote island, meets with his ex-girlfriend Karen. She asks Dill to kill her cruel husband, who also comes to the island. The swirling neonoire against the backdrop of exotic landscapes "Serenity" was shot by British director and screenwriter Stephen Knight. The captain of a fishing vessel, Baker Dill, spends his days, indistinguishable from each other, on a tropical island, earns money from wealthy tourists and sees the purpose of his life in catching one particular tuna called Justice.—Peter-Patrick76 (peter-patrick@mail.com)

Macho fishing boat owner and 'captain' Baker Dill, assumed name of a decorated Iraq veteran actually called Ray, supplements his income in kind by renting it to tourists on quiet (fictious) Plymouth Island, Florida, and even earns cash for his exploits in the bed of nymphomaniac client Constance. he is is however tormented by the memories of, and a weird psychosomatic link with his smart, equally fishing-obsessed kid son Patrick. who lives as unhappy recluse with Ray's ex-partner Karen and her abusive tycoon partner Frank Zariakas. His obsession with catching at all costs a huge yellow tuna fish takes a backseat after Karen arrives, to hire the boat and him for a fishing trip, during which she wants him to 'accidentally' drown Frank. Ray reconsiders his initial refusal after sex with her and a mind-shattering meeting with a weird, suited character who insists to represent a game constituting most of what Ray and his fellow islanders considers reality, the rules of which are being changed drastically, and so does Plymouth reality, with parallel consequences.—KGF Vissers

While living a quiet life on the island of Plymouth, local fisherman Baker Dill (Matthew McConaughey) begins to receive strange visions that he can't explain. He drives a fishing boat called Serenity and sails with his mate Duke (Djimon Hounsou) to catch a large tuna he calls a beast. Day after day he goes after the tuna only to return empty handed. He has sex with his town girl Constance (Diane Lane).

One day, Baker's ex-wife Karen (Anne Hathaway) shows up to his residence. she calls him John Mason and tells him about her abusive husband Frank. She says Dill & her son Patrick gets real scared when she fights with Frank and plays with the computer for hours on end. She tries to persuade Dill with killing Frank (Jason Clarke), her abusive and sexist husband. Dill laughs off the suggestion.

Frank is visiting Dill's island, to hook up with Karen for their vacation. Karen wants Dill to take Frank out on a boat ride and throw him overboard for $10MM. Dill refuses. But when Frank offers him $10 K for a boat ride, he accepts, as he and Duke need the money to overhaul the boat. On the boat, Frank tells Dill how Patrick spends all day running a video game designed to catch fish through a guy on boat. After a brief scare with a shark, the 3 men return to shore, much to the disappointment of Karen. The night Karen comes over and offers herself to Dill. Dill has sex with Karen and accepts her offer but wants to meet Patrick in exchange for killing Frank.

Meanwhile, Baker appears to have a telepathic connection with Patrick (Rafael Sayegh), the son he had with Karen in their previous marriage, and through that decides to put aside his goal of catching a large tuna called "Justice" to help Karen and Patrick.

When businessman Reid Miller (Jeremy Strong) finds Baker, he explains that he is in partnership as a fishing equipment company sales rep and wants to give him a complimentary fish tracker. However, in an unexpected turn of events, Reid inadvertently reveals to Baker that he is a character in a video game Patrick is playing. Patrick had designed the game and Dill's character to focus on catching the fish, but now with Frank's entry, Dill is focusing on killing Frank and Reid is there to persuade Dill to stick to catching the tuna fish. Reid further reveals that represents the rules of the game, one of which was the no one dies on the Island, but he is perplexed that now the creator has changed one of the rules.

Dill looks at all the maps of the Island and figures out that the maps are empty about the rest of the world. It's as if, Plymouth is the only living world there is. Slowly Dill realizes that he is inside a game, since everybody in his social circle seems to know what's going on and keeps throwing obstacles in his way, so that he follows the rules. For e.g., Duke pays a sailor to break Frank's hand so that he can't go sailing with Dill the next day.

The scenes of Patrick playing the game were not flashbacks, but concurrent events dovetailing the events of the film. The real Baker died during military service, and his son has reprogrammed him into a fishing game to live out a fantasy of killing his abusive stepfather. Baker is able to communicate with Patrick through the game's code and decides to follow his son's wishes and kill Frank.

Karen again has sex with Frank and gets him heavily drugged to make him go back on the boat, which Dill takes out to sea. Just as Baker kills Frank by throwing him off the boat, Patrick picks up a knife to finally confront the real-life Frank who has been abusing his mother for years. The film ends as Patrick programs himself into the game and reunites with his father.