Reuniting with director John Swab for his fifth collaboration, the grizzled muscular badass (both on and off screen) returns for a well-made video-on-demand action fare, “Long Gone Heroes,” which works as a throwback to 80s action movies. In some instances, the film also works as a self-reflective measure for some characters, especially Grillo’s Gunner.
Long Gone Heroes (2024) Plot Summary and Movie Synopsis:
Who is Julia Peterson?
As the movie opens, we see political journalist Julia Peterson questioning a man named Fede Torres, who has extensive knowledge regarding the collapse of Venezuela, leading to the Venezuelan Crisis under the leadership of Hugo Chavez and then his successor Nicolas Maduro. Hyperinflation leading to the erosion of the country’s currency would lead to its collapse, and according to Torres, one of the primary reasons would be the discovery of crude oil. In 2017, after the US sanctions theoretically would stop the overexploitation and over-exploration of crude oil leading to the destruction of natural resources of the country.
According to Torres, a US private contracting group led by General Roman (Andy Garcia) works in partnership with Keystone Oil, a private North American oil company. However, the conspiracy is unveiled when Julia learns that the majority shareholder of Keystone Oil is Senator Olivia Peterson, Julia’s mother. Torres has proof of this complicity, and Julia intends to release this for the world.
What is Gunner’s mission?
Ex-Special Forces soldier Gunner (Frank Grillo) is at best a recluse. His only friends are his former war buddies, Matty (George Carroll) and West (Beau Knapp). He is however visited by his estranged sister-in-law Olivia Peterson (Melissa Leo), who reveals to Gunner that Julia has been kidnapped. Shocked, Gunner tries to recruit Matty and West to his cause, which they accept with trepidation because it’s Venezuela. At the same time, he asks a favor of his ex-wife, Mace, who works presumably high up in the US administration, to bring him information. What he learns is sobering.
It’s not enough that Gunner has a history with Roman and Roman’s right-hand man, Moreau (Mekhi Phifer). The three slugs embedded in his body had been enough of a history lesson for him. But the fact that Roman had been sent down to Venezuela to take control of that area three months before the sanctions were actually applied shows that this had already been pre-conceived. Now Roman has kidnapped Julia, clearly because Julia has possession of information that would reveal this insidious corruption.
As Olivia reveals to Gunner when further pressed for information, while her administration ensuring their presence in Venezuela was fourfold before the sanctions is standard operating procedure, she had not accounted for Moreau going rogue and setting up an export operation with the Maduro regime, forcing Olivia to set up a deal with Keystone Oil. Julia now has this video information, indicting her, Roman, and Moreau dead to rights. And that’s why she had been kidnapped. Now Gunner’s mission is to extract her inside the heart of Venezuela before it’s too late.
Who does Gunner and his team recruit?
Gunner and his team first would have to recruit someone good with the tech who can run satellite interference that would mask their entry into enemy territory. While their old teammate Danny is in Ukraine fighting, Matty recommends using Danny’s son, David (Josh Hutcherson) because he has some combat experience. In David’s own words, he is way better at tech than his father. It wasn’t too difficult for Matty and West to convince David to leave his job of running his mother’s strip club while wasting his talents at creating satellite phones for gangsters at the risk of not getting paid.
The second recruit the team would meet after landing in Venezuela, where they would take a somewhat harrowing route taken by Narcos towards a large mansion. That mansion, supposed to be hosting a birthday party for the daughter of Felix Nadin, the VP of PVDSA, is found to be massacred when Gunner and his team stealthily enter its grounds. They find El Guapo, peacefully going through the hors d’ouvres. Guapo is the local expert and Gunner’s former teammate, who had saved Gunner’s life twice in Caracas. According to Guapo, Moreau had been hard at work, cleaning up any mess and loose lips that would reveal their plans.
Guapo also reveals to Gunner that Julia had come down to Venezuela to interview a whistleblower, and thus indirectly the incident would lead to this surge of violence. Right now, however, she is imprisoned at a Keystone Black Site guarded by rebels. They would need to move quickly because Julia’s life has a ticking clock otherwise.
Does Gunner manage to rescue Julia?
As Gunner and his team move through the dead of the night in the densely forested area, they come across an armed group of rebels moving towards the black site, unaware of being noticed, and follow them. At the black site, Roman, under the watchful eye of Moreau, tries to question Julia and convince her to decrypt the phone. When she refuses, Roman shoots one of the migrants who hid in the forest areas and who had been captured by the rebels. As he proceeds to shoot one of the migrant women with a baby, Julia finally relents, unlocking the phone.
Meanwhile, Gunner and his team try to enter the black site, but realizing they can’t barrel through, they decide to enter the site stealthily. Keeping West as the sniper, with David keeping his roost guard, the rest of the team systematically shoots through the guards in the compound until they reach the jail cell where Julia and the rest of the migrant villagers are kept imprisoned.
However, Julia refuses to leave with Gunner without the rest of the villagers, and Gunner has to make a choice. He chooses the riskier one, which is to hike through the jungle and drop the villagers to their hiding spot. Meanwhile, Moreau locates one of the bullet casings from one of the slain guards and recognizes the markings as one very specific to the same gunsmith both he and Gunner utilized when they had been deployed in Kandahar, leading Moreau to deduce that Gunner is currently in Venezuela.
How is the video retrieved?
As the villagers along with the soldiers wash off near a spring, David expresses his admiration for Julia’s bravery, which isn’t reciprocated with much fanfare. However, David also learns that the video proving Roman, Moreau, and Olivia being directly involved in this debacle has been deleted. David decides to try to retrieve the deleted video by any knowledgeable means.
Gunner and his team manage to drop the villagers off to safety, and as a response to their good karma, one of the villagers named Luis, who used to be an ex-soldier, proposes to drop them off at Caracas, where they could hitch a boat ride (belonging to Luis’ cousin) out of the country. Guapo also reaffirms his commitment to the mission, choosing to accompany them up to Caracas to ensure a safe passage out of the journey.
While on the van journey to Caracas, we also learn about Julia’s strained relationship with her mother and Gunner, revealing that she is derisive about Gunner’s attitude towards the “right side” considering the amount of corruption she had witnessed firsthand. Gunner, meanwhile, reveals a strange sort of apolitical mindset but also begrudgingly admits to Julia that her mother is a very smart person. But she just hadn’t been smart enough to foreshadow herself falling into this dilemma.
Meanwhile, David had been trying to hack into the cloud and retrieve the deleted video from Julia’s phone. After a couple of hours, he manages to successfully recover the file, which is even more damaging when we see how it captures the brutality inflicted by Moreau’s men towards any dissension. Gunner advises her to do with the video as she pleases because now the ball is in her court.
What Will It Take for David to Overcome His Inner Turmoil?
Luis plans to stash the team for the night at his place, which turns out to be a family-owned brothel. That night, while Guapo and Gunner stood guard outside one of the rooms, the rest of the team took up the beds to rest. David is a bit wired but yet still insecure about his place in the team, uncomfortable with bantering with the rest of the group.
He is further jittery because he has more or less confirmed, exchanging conversations with Matty and West, that his father had gone off to fight in Ukraine as a mode of escape from the real world, and there is a high possibility that he might not return. His sojourn through the brothel leads him to presumably Luis’ grandmother, who seems to be a palm reader and priestess. She forcefully reads his palm and correctly deduces his insecurity, pointing out, “You are still yellow inside,” before blessing him from shotguns, knives, and “the evil that dwells beneath our city’s fingernails.”
How Far Will Gunner and His Team Go to Survive the Onslaught?
It seems that it might have worked because a sudden RPG attack would destroy the room the soldiers would be resting in and kill Luis. The team, led by Gunner, would shoot through the brothel, killing all the soldiers. Matty, however, would be stopped by another RPG attack and captured, whereby he would be interrogated by Roman and Moreau but refuse to divulge their extraction point, though not before reminding them that the video was now in Julia’s possession again. He would be burned alive.
Meanwhile, the trek to access the war-torn city of Caracas would be punctuated by brutal shootouts and an increasing body count in favor of Gunner and his men. Gunner would separate from the team and instruct Guapo to lead them to St. Ives to the harbor, while he would try to distract the forces away from them.
Gunner’s plan also has a personal touch to it. He manages to vacate a church after destroying one of the cars occupying Moreau’s men using a grenade as a calling card to finally call Moreau out. Moreau reaches the church, where Gunner’s rage over the Kandahar debacle finally reaches a boiling point. He knows Moreau’s MO of going rogue and establishing his own operations within a war zone that is insidious in its corruption.
When Gunner had tried to revolt against Moreau he had been awarded with those three slugs to the chest and a discharge from Kandahar via Olivia Peterson. All that rage now bursts open. An outright brawl resembling a street fight results in Gunner executing a leglock and then choking Moreau out, killing him. As he stands, exhausted and victorious, he walks out of the church and quickly shoots Moreau’s cordon dead before walking away towards the rendezvous point at St. Ives.
Long Gone Heroes (2024) Movie Ending Explained:
Who kills Roman?
Julia and David, flanked by West at the front with Guapo at the back, slowly inch out of the city towards St. Ives. However, they are roadblocked by Roman, armed with a cordon of men. As a shootout commences, Guapo, who had previously been injured, reveals himself to be fatally shot and losing blood, and he stays back behind the tree line. During the shootout, David, emboldened by the blessing, would manage to shoot Roman in the shoulder, dropping him, while himself being shot through the waist. As Roman writhes in pain, Julia walks up to the injured Roman, and interrupting Roman’s tirade about her mother having to pay, she shoots him dead.
Does Julia reveal her mother’s complicity in the sanctions?
Meanwhile, Gunner finally reaches the spot, only to find Guapo resting and, as he alarmingly learns, bleeding out and dying. Resigned to his fate, he informs Gunner that he completed his mission, but this is home, and he is not leaving. Gunner thanks him profusely before bidding him farewell. We can presume he dies looking at the Caracas shore and remembering the memory of Caracas being beautiful before Venezuela became a perpetual warzone.
As the four remaining survivors of this adventure climb on the boat (more of a ferry), Julia has a decision to make as she enters US soil. She decides to allow her mother to come clean. Olivia, finally relieved that her daughter is safe, decides to reveal to the world the mistakes she has made and how she intends to rectify them. Her first step is to step down from the post of Senator of the state of California. She also plans to face those legal proceedings regarding the allegations of corruption levied against her head-on, even acknowledging her willingness to be punished according to a court of law.
