From the director of Taken (2008) and District B13 (2006) comes Canary Black, which follows a CIA agent who has to comply with a rogue agent’s demands and steal a top-secret file from a secure server to rescue her husband, even if that means going against her organization and risking inviting their wraths.
Canary Black (2024) Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis
How do terrorists blackmail Avery?
Avery Graves (Kate Beckinsale) is an exceptionally efficient secret agent. She, however, doesn’t share that same expertise in her marriage, though her husband David (Rupert Friend) is very supportive and loving of her.
It is one of these days that her nightmare begins—her husband is kidnapped from their mansion in Croatia by a mysterious organization, who leaves behind a cell phone to help her communicate. They want the Canary Black file, apparently hidden inside a tooth of a CIA detainee named Lazlo Stoica. While patching a request to Agent Maxfield (Jaz Hutchins), the CIA agent in charge of that black site, she also contacts Sorina (Romina Tonkovic), an ex-hacker with whom she shares a contentious relationship. She asks for a favour—trace the last incoming call from that cell phone and send it to her.
She tries to ambush the kidnappers in that location. Unfortunately, the head of the organization has already suspected this and shifted bases, leaving behind a burner phone for Avery to communicate with, her husband’s wedding ring, and a Bouncing Betty explosive device. They also have access to her highly protected psych profile. Graves manages to use one of the legs of the table to destroy the Bouncing Betty; once she removes her leg, the explosive flies up, and she bashes it with the table leg, causing the explosive to hit the wall and explode outwards.
What is Canary Black, according to Director Evans?
At Maxfield’s Black site, Graves questions Stoica, while Maxfield monitors her suspiciously. While interrogating, she expedites the process by punching him and throwing him down—and in the process, she manages to break off the dummy tooth supposedly containing the file. However, she finds the tooth empty. As she stages an escape through the safe house, bashing agents left and right, a priority one warning is sent out against her.
Avery’s mentor and head of the CIA, Jarvis Hedlund (Ray Stevenson), understandably concerned, tries to find out about Canary Black with the aid of Maxfield and the head of the DIA, Nathan Evans (Ben Miles).
According to Evans, it is a master list containing the blackmail material for all governmental personnel, including higher-ups like Hedlund and Evans. This stops Hedlund from trying to assist Avery, whom he stubbornly believes isn’t a traitor. Meanwhile, Graves manages to bring Hedlund to her side by going to his house and calling from their landline, highlighting the close relationship Graves shares with Hedlund and his spouse. Hedlund, following Graves’ plea, searches her house and finds it spick and span, a sharp contrast to the mess that had been left by the kidnappers that morning. It is a setup.
Graves contacts a broker to get her information about every foreign agent, intel broker, and assassin in town. As she goes to her safe house to get the money to pay for that information, she finds the money missing and an assassin waiting for her, whom she manages to dispatch. However, she is contacted by the head of the terrorist organization again, who warns her that time is running out.
Who is involved in the terrorist organization?
Finding no way out, she contacts Hedlund and arranges for a meet in his car, but Hedlund, plagued by good intentions, betrays her to the organization. However, en route, the cordon, led by Agent Maxfield, is attacked by two cars where the mask-wearing bad guys stick landmines on the side of the heroes’ car to topple them over. Graves finally manages to get out of the car by cutting through her restraints with Maxfield’s knife, take out the gunmen by using one of the agency’s rifles, and then run towards the alley. She is followed by one of the masked assailants, and after cornering him in the alley, brutally kills him. Unmasking him, Graves recognizes the man—Klaus, one of her neighbours. She receives a phone call on Klaus’ phone from his wife, who is also part of the same sleeper agent cell presumably placed to keep watch on Graves and her husband.
At the meeting with the broker, she learns that high-profile assassins, including the mysterious Kali, have arrived in the town. Kali owes the Russians. He might have been orchestrating this entire search for Canary Black. Meanwhile, Deputy Director Evans meets up with Brezhnov (Goran Kostic), the director of the NSS, who, unbeknownst to Evans and Graves, though not the viewers, has been the head of the terrorist cell all along. As the head of the NSS, Brezhnov agrees to work with Evans and his agency.
Where is the Canary Black file stored?
At one of the swankier hotels of Zagreb, Graves checks in as wealthy socialite Olivia Oxley. She clambers from the window of her room and shimmies over to the room where Director Evans checked in. As Evans enters the room, she overpowers him, ties him to the chair, and attaches a mute mask on him to decrease the decibels of his voice so that he can’t call for help. This is her last resort to get the file back, and she is even ready to hit the deputy director black and blue or tie a detonator around his neck if that means the deputy director giving her access to the file. However, she soon learns that even granted access wouldn’t allow her to access the file unless also granted from a secure server.
Armed with the knowledge, Graves knocks Evans out and shimmies out the way she came. She contacts Sorina to ask for the address of the nearest CIA server. Once she gets the address, she calls Hedlund, who is already tiptoeing around Maxfield and fellow agents to aid her, in providing her schematics to the building that houses the server.
Once she receives them, she meets Sorina on the terrace of a building a block away from the building housing the server room. Sorina works at a drone company (ResQ drone), and Graves plans to use one of those prototype drones capable of carrying a person. Sorina uses that to transport Graves to the top of the building, from where she accesses the 42nd floor to the server room. She uses Evans’ password and copies the Canary Black file to a flash drive. Evans is discovered tied up inside his room. He orders security to immediately shut down the server and capture Graves. Graves orders Sorina to bring in the drone. As she manages to shoot at a fire extinguisher to engulf the corridor in smoke and attacks the guards, she rushes, and in “Bourne” fashion, shoots the window pane and jumps off, barely catching the drone. The drone is shot down by the guards, but Graves manages to survive by landing on top of a car.
What is Canary Black?
As she meets up with Sorina, the women look through the file only to realize this isn’t a blackmail list. It’s a doomsday virus capable of infecting all internet traffic, basically making an entire country inoperable. The virus has files specifically tailor-made for separate countries to launch an attack on. Graves realizes that such a file in control of a terrorist group is frightening and prepares herself to confront the kidnappers while rushing to the phone booth to call them. However, as she misses the deadline by a second, she is drugged and brought into the terrorist hideout.
Canary Black (2024) Movie Ending Explained:
What is Bezhnov’s plan to utilise Canary Black?
Brezhnov goes live at a Global Unification Summit and lays out his plan to use Canary Black to destroy a country’s economy and infrastructure. To make good on his threat, Brezhnov targets Singapore as patient zero and completely takes it off the grid. The ransom he asks is 1% of a country’s GDP, and by inducing panic among the world leaders, he wants not just enough money but to also upend the age of the global superpower. Hedlund manages to trace Graves’ last location and discover the terrorist base, but Brezhnov kills him in retaliation.
Who is Kali?
As David is brought in, his mouth taped and him looking the worse for wear, Brezhnov orders Klaus’ wife to “make it last.” However, David has a few tricks up his sleeve. Even though shot in the hip, David manages to knock out the terrorist in restraint before freeing his wife. However, Graves is shocked at the special set of skills depicted by David, to which David finally reveals that he is the mysterious assassin Kali. After having botched a job for the Russian mob, they saddled him with a debt to the tune of 20 million dollars and revealed his identity to Brezhnov. To secure leverage against Brezhnov, David/Kali revealed the existence of Canary Black. His source had informed him that the file was still on Stoica’s person. The entire plan went sideways once they learnt about Stoica not having the file. Brezhnov threatens to kill Graves unless she cooperates. David tries to convince her that their marriage had been very real, even if he had dealt in subterfuge throughout the times they had been together, but Graves isn’t open to listening to an apology. She orders David to cut the internet feed of the base, while Graves deals with Brezhnov.
Does Avery Graves manage to save the day?
As more countries bit the bullet and transferred the money, Kali disconnected the power, cutting their internet feed off. Graves, having just discovered her mentor’s dead body and filled with anger, starts a shootout at the base. With the routers being disconnected, Brezhnov ordered his main IT guy to move the laptop upstairs to regain connection Brezhnov’s priority was launching the virus, specifically towards those countries that had paid. Graves follows Brezhnov and his assistant upstairs, managing to shoot his assistant in the leg. Brezhnov tries to convince Graves to join him by bribing her, but to no avail. A furious battle between Graves and Brezhnov commences, while the assistant restarts the upload process. As the bone-crunching battle reaches its conclusion, Graves shoves a knife into Brezhnov’s neck, killing him instantly. Injured, she walks up to the top floor and barely manages to disconnect the computer, stopping the upload seconds before it attains completion.
Can Graves find peace after betrayal and revenge?
Meanwhile, Kali had been having her back, sweeping the area and killing off any stray terrorists. Rejoining Graves, he asks for forgiveness and a chance to start over, but for Graves, it is too much to process. Not only did she save the world, she was a fugitive despite it, and her life with her husband turned out to be a lie. She returns David’s wedding ring, believing in staying separated. The CIA agents led by Maxfield, having traced Hedlund’s phone enter the base, and Kali escapes by jumping out through the window and dropping in the canals, managing to escape.
Who is Elizabeth Mills?
At her interrogation, Graves is accused by Deputy Director Evans, who reminds her that she had been responsible for the deaths of her mentor, her husband, and bringing the world to the brink of war. She has been rescinded of her rights, and as Evans tries to exact revenge due to Graves’ actions that previous night, Graves headbutts him and frees herself. But before Evans could compose himself, he is interrupted by one Elizabeth Mills, who orders him off the interrogation room as he would be briefed by the president. Mills informs Graves that her actions towards protecting her country had caught the eye of the President and herself and would like to hire her for MC6, a top-secret agency interested in only handling the most critical missions that are beyond the scope and purview of other agencies. Mills promises that she will make all this unpleasantness disappear if Graves agrees to join. After all, the world needs saving.
Needless to say, the movie needs a sequel to set up a franchise, so Graves accepts. As she walks away into the blue light of dawn, she finds David’s ring, revealing he is alive and hopeful for a reconciliation. A potential sequel might explore those prospects as well.
