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Aug 07, 2023

Retribution Ending Explained

Retribution is the latest in a string of action-thrillers starring Liam Neeson, but what is the big twist ending of this lone-location movie? WARNING! This article contains SPOILERS for Retribution!

Retribution is the latest in a string of action-thrillers starring Liam Neeson, but what is the big twist ending of this lone-location movie?

WARNING! This article contains SPOILERS for Retribution!

While Retribution’s ending promised a major plot twist that would surprise viewers, the conclusion of Liam Neeson’s latest thriller was surprisingly predictable. Retribution is an action thriller from director Nimrod Antal. The third remake of 2015’s Spanish sleeper hit El desconocido, Retribution stars Liam Neeson as a workaholic banker whose life is thrown into disarray during a school run with his children. After Neeson’s overworked antihero Matt Turner got into his car, he proceeded to ignore his children while finishing an important work deal with his colleague Anders. When Matt finished that phone call, a mysterious second phone in his car began ringing.

Matt answered this call and a distorted voice warned him that there was a bomb ready to explode beneath his seat. In Retribution’s poorly reviewed story, Matt needed to follow this unnamed tormentor’s commands lest his car and its inhabitants be blown to pieces if he tried to leave the vehicle. What followed could have been a mixture of Speed and Crank but, instead, the storyline remained conventional and rote. Matt’s co-worker Sylvain was similarly targeted, thus proving that this situation wasn’t an elaborate prank, and Matt was eventually coerced into meeting with Anders.

Matthew Modine’s shady Anders was the next co-worker drawn into this villain’s shady plot. The antagonist told Matt to shoot Anders, but Neeson’s heroic character couldn't bring himself to do this. As a result of his indecision, the killer took the option away by blowing up Anders’ car. In a twist that could have been borrowed from the infamously brutal Saw franchise, Retribution’s ending then revealed that Anders himself was the villain. By staging an explosion that didn’t actually kill him, Anders had dodged the bomb’s blast radius while simultaneously convincing Matt that the killer on the phone meant business.

Anders used his own fake death to force Matt to follow his demands, including transferring a significant sum of money into an offshore bank account. Anders hoped to start a new life with this money after using Matt to pull off his potentially lethal heist. However, Matt had other plans. When a police barricade stopped his car, Neeson’s antihero convinced the cops that he was following instructions from an unseen villain. Once the police safely removed his kids from the car, Matt gave them the slip and met up with Anders. With Anders in the car, Matt drove off a bridge while exiting the vehicle, thus activating the bomb.

Most of Retribution's cast of characters survived the movie's action, although Anders did die in the second climatic explosion. Matt, however, could be seen emerging from the river where he crashed his car. As he got out of the water, it became clear that the police knew he was innocent and Anders had used him as a pawn. However, this doesn’t explain how Matt knew that he would survive the explosion. To clarify, he survived the same way that Anders did earlier by moving away from the blast radius (in this case, swimming deeper into the river under the bridge). Matt didn't know this would work but was willing to sacrifice himself.

Early in Retribution’s story, it seemed as if Matt’s job as a banker could have some connection to his tormentor. Indeed, savvy viewers familiar with the thriller genre might have assumed that the villain was targeting a morally ambiguous figure like Matt much the same way that Saw’s murderous villains targeted insurance agents, corrupt bankers, and other untrustworthy white-collar professionals. However, it turned out that Retribution’s villain was also a banker and his motivation was much less morally complex than that. Anders and Matt were the only bankers who had authorization to access a secret offshore bank account and only the duo could transfer money into it.

However, both Anders and Matt had to authorize any transfers to this account together. As such, Anders needed to fake his death and set up this elaborate, explosive plan solely so that he could steal some money. While it seems unlikely that a banker would struggle to embezzle funds via an easier method, this is the lone reason that Anders offers for setting up Matt in Retribution. It is tough to see how the character thought he would get away with this, as the police would probably not assume that Matt blew up his own car after stealing the money. However, this plot hole might explain the Liam Neeson action movie’s bad reviews.

For the first two-thirds of Retribution’s story, the stakes were significantly higher for Matt. He was driving around with his two children, Zach and Emily, in the car’s backseat. Bizarrely, Zach and Emily spent a long time refusing to believe that the car was really rigged with an explosive device even long after their father had acclimated to this shocking reality. Fortunately, the children realized the gravity of the situation eventually. They were saved when Matt eventually drove straight into a police barricade at the end of a long tunnel.

The police helped Zach and Emily out of the car and offered to disarm the bomb and save Matt if he turned himself in. However, Matt instead drove off to clear his name once his kids were safely out of the firing line. This made sense since Matt didn’t want his unseen attacker to get away with the plan and torment him again. At this stage, Matt still didn’t know that Full Metal Jacket star Matthew Modine was the movie’s villain. Had he been able to name Anders as his attacker, he might have gotten out of the car and saved himself some injuries by letting the police deal with it.

Retribution’s ending struggles to find a profound message among all of the movie’s bone-crunching action and fast-paced chase scenes. One could argue that Anders represents the worst excesses of the contemporary finance industry, with the ruthless villain attempting to kill his co-worker solely for the sake of money. However, since Matt worked closely with Anders for years, was also a workaholic, and was portrayed as a hero, this reading is complicated. Ultimately, Retribution’s ending proves that Neeson’s character needed to spend less time on the phone and more time with his family, since Matt's attempts to establish himself as a major banker backfired badly.