In The Wages of Fear, a crack team has to make a deadly desert crossing with nitroglycerine in tow, to save a gas pocket from potentially killing thousands of lives in a village near an oil well. The film is currently streaming on Netflix.
Warning: This article contains heavy spoilers
Plot summary
An explosion at an oil well in an unspecified Arab country leads to a perpetual fire that only becomes more perilous as time passes by. Beneath the well is a gas pocket that feeds the fire.
Beneath that gas pocket is another, even larger pocket that stands to destroy all of the village that is located on top of it. To prevent that, the wall between the two pockets must be destroyed.
To do that, a 100 kilo of Nitroglycerine is required for an explosion, which will also extinguish the fire. The local NGO rep working in the village and nearby areas, Clara, agrees to help.
Her sexual fling there, Fred, is a former bodyguard who now guards the oil well from the militants. He is met by the oil company’s representative, Anne.
She offers him good money, extradition of his and his loved ones, as well as the release of his brother Alex, should he accept the job.
He has no choice but to accept after Alex’s wife, whom he has been looking after along with his niece, asks him to.
Alex is an explosive expert so he’s released from the prison, and joins Fred, who he bears a lot of grudge against because Fred’s insistence on robbing a vault had gotten Alex arrested for cop murder in the first place.
However, he calms down and decides to work for the sake of his wife and daughter. On their mission to transport Nitroglycerine from a Solar Plant 500 miles away, back to the oil well, they are joined by Fred’s former friend Gauthier, and his men.
After contending with rough terrain, border checks, and trigger-happy militants, only four remain — Fred, Alex, Clara, and Gauthier. They split into two teams with one truck each.
However, Gauthier shows his true colors and backstabs Fred, leaving him for dead while failing to reach the destination by himself and throwing himself off a cliff with the truck.
Alex and Clara pick up Fred, who’s injured badly. At the oil well, Anne and her henchman threaten to kill Alex’s wife and daughter if they don’t drive their truck into the well themselves and stop the fire.
Fred takes Anne and her henchman out and before The Wages of Fear concludes, he makes a difficult decision to save the lives of his loved one and thousands of others in the village.
Ending explained:
The Nitroglycerine shipment
Fred, Clara, and Alex are the only three left of the contingent ordered to bring the Nitroglycerine stock from the Solar Plant back to the oil well in the village.
During their mission, Gauthier and his men operate with their ulterior motives. At first, one of their men gets into a fight with one of the Solar Plant guards, and a container of Nitroglycerine falls and explodes the whole building.
Later, when their convoy is stopped by a group of militants, Gauthier’s trigger-happy self initiates a cross-fire that costs Clara’s NGO co-worker’s life.
When most of his men are dead, and their number is down to just four, they decide to split into two teams taking with them one truck each. Gauthier accompanies Fred and shoots him to take all his share for himself.
However, he doesn’t last long alone and ends up driving the truck off the cliff, perishing in one giant explosion. Meanwhile, Alex and Clara reach the village after defeating some militants who give them chase.
On their way, they also learn about Gauthier’s actions and fate, as they pick up a wounded Fred with them.
Fred’s sacrifice
At the oil well, the trio is greeted by Alex’s wife and daughter, who are held at gunpoint by Anne and one of her henchmen. The orders from the top down are that she does whatever is necessary to blow up the oil well so the other gas pocket is not lost.
She orders Alex and Clara to go drive the truck into the oil well and cause an explosion. However, an injured Fred shoots the unsuspecting Anne and her man from inside the truck, and they die on the spot.
Fred promptly gets up and decides then and there to sacrifice himself to save his loved ones.
Despite Clara’s urges to stop, Fred drives the truck full of Nitroglycerine into the oil well and stops the leakage, also saving the villagers who rejoice as The Wages of Fear rolls the credits.