The Killer (2023) follows a contract killer who messes up a job and then is forced to retaliate when the life of his partner is threatened. The film is streaming on Netflix.
Warning: This article contains heavy spoilers
Plot summary:
A professional assassin is in France waiting patiently for his target to arrive at the designated location. He talks through his process as the minutes tick by.
The Killer contacts his handler, Hodges, and mentions that it has been days and the target hasn’t arrived yet. He intends on giving it one more day before he packs up and leaves.
As luck would have it, the target finally arrived that evening, and the Killer set up his rifle to get the perfect shot. However, he makes a minuscule error in his timing and misses his shot.
He immediately makes a break for it while dumping all the evidence of the hit. He remains cautious and alert and delays his return to the Dominican Republic where his hideout is.
When he does return, he finds evidence of a break-in and a struggle at his house. He panics and makes a call to find out where the person in the house might be.
He rushes to the hospital where his partner Magdala is admitted. Her brother tells the Killer everything that Magdala remembered about the attack to help him figure out how to find her attackers.
He has her transported to a private hospital and promises her that something like this will never happen again. He seeks out the taxi in which the attackers came in and threatens the driver.
After finding out the relevant information, he kills the driver and flies straight to New Orleans. He is visiting the Lawyer, Mr. Hodges, who recruited him into this job.
He successfully infiltrates his office and restrains him and his assistant Dolores. When he asks for information about the people who attacked his home, Hodges refuses to answer.
Another miscalculation leads to Hodges’ death, but Dolores tells him that she knows how to get the names he is looking for. He takes her back to her house while also carrying a long Hodges’ body to dispose of it.
Once he gets the names of the attackers and the client who ordered the original hit, he snaps Dolores’ neck. He travels to Florida where the Brute, one of the attackers resides.
Along the way, he gets rid of Hodges’ body which has been chopped up by now. The Brute lives in a nice condo with an aggressive pit bull. The Killer drugs the pit bull and waits for it to fall asleep so that he can break in.
The Brute is waiting for him and the two of them get into a scrap that moves all over the house. He finally kills the Brute and has to run away before the pit bull catches him. Once he’s outside the fence, he throws a Molotov cocktail to burn down the house.
The Killer (2023) ending explained in detail:
Who is next on his list?
The Killer heads to New York where the other attacker, a woman referred to as the Expert. He watches her closely and follows her to a restaurant.
He sits down with her and grabs her purse which has her gun inside. With no discernible escape, the Expert accepts her fate and decides to have a drink to soothe her final moments.
She asks him why he chose to confront her in this way and serves up her own opinions on his decision. She tells him that she will hopefully haunt his final moments since he initiated hers.
Hee walks her out to a place nearby. She trips on the ice and asks for some assistance but he shoots her in the head right then. As he walks away, she is shown to have a knife in her hand, pointing to the fact that she was getting ready to strike.
Who gets the final visit?
The last stop on his quest for revenge is Chicago, where his target is Mr. Claybourne, the client. This is the Killer’s riskiest target yet given Claybourne’s net worth, which means if he dropped dead, the authorities would pour in all of their resources.
He finds out where Claybourne stays, and where he works out, and makes all of the necessary preparations. He buys an unmarked pistol and makes a copy of Claybourne’s key card to enter his apartment building.
Does he go through with the hit?
He breaks into Claybourne’s house in the middle of the night, and his target is busy with a work call. He hangs up and pleads with the Killer to spare his life.
Once he realizes who is standing in front of him, Claybourne insists that it was only under the suggestion of Hodges that he hired the other two to clean things up and make sure there was no trail.
The killer decides to spare him, but not before letting him know that he needs to sleep with one eye open and expect to be killed at any moment if he crosses the Killer again.
The Killer then heads back to the Dominican Republic to live out his retirement with Magdala, but he accepts that he will never feel safe or secure in his life as long as he’s alive.
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