The film follows a trio of elite African mercenaries, the "Hyenas of Bangui", who, on their way by plane from Bissau to Dakar, try to lie low and find supplies in a resort near Saloum Delta in Senegal, where they must hide their identities and fight for survival.

[13] The Hyenas of Bangui, elite African mercenaries Chaka, Rafa, and Minuit, are hired to extract Felix, a Mexican drug lord, from Bissau, Guinea-Bissau amid the 2003 coup d'état and take him to Dakar, Senegal in exchange for a briefcase full of gold.

The four men, posing as gold miners, are introduced to Omar's trusted employee Salamane and the Baobab's other guests: artists Younce and Sephora, and Awa, a woman who is both deaf and mute.

Rafa forgives Chaka for lying, and the two, with Souley and Salamane, travel to the nearby village of Sira Bana-worshipping Diola people to find more ways to isolate themselves from sound and the resources needed for the plane.

Chaka and Rafa return to the Baobab, where both Younce and Sephora have died to the creatures; Minuit, still alive, is beyond saving, having let the entities affect him to hold them back with his spiritual powers.

[15] Richard Kuipers of Variety wrote that "[Saloum] freely mixes and marries the cinematic languages of spaghetti Westerns, samurai dramas and classic monster movies to tell an exciting and distinctly African story".

[11] According to Meagan Navarro of Bloody Disgusting, the film's "Spirituality, morality, mythology, and mysticism get thrown into a gritty crime thriller blender, culminating in a refreshingly unique type of genre-bender".