If you’ve just finished Hans Petter Moland’s new crime drama “Absolution” (2024), and wondering what the hell happened there, this is the right place to scroll. The Liam Neeson starrer crime drama never really convinced me to take it seriously, and I’d be damned if anyone else did either. Moland goes out of his way to make people believe that Neeson still is the guy you want to see, but who are we kidding here? The sloppy script fails to provide us with any substance one can expect from a movie, and the weak acting from the supporting cast only accelerates the sinking of this ship.
Absolution (2024) Plot Summary and Movie Synopsis:
Can Thug Escape His Past?
Liam Neeson plays Thug in Absolution – an enforcer for a local gangster named Charlie. Charlie’s son Kyle wants to prove himself to his father, and he gets Thug as his right-hand man. Kyle is clearly an entitled brat trying to pass off as someone who can follow the crime legacy of his father. But even Charlie knows that his son isn’t cut out for the underworld. Thug is not someone who respects Kyle either, and after working for 30 years for his father, the job has clearly taken a toll on him mentally and physically.
Thug grew up with an abusive father who taught him to use violence as a medium of survival, and the man just continued the cycle of toxicity in his own life as well. Father of two kids, Daisy and Colin, Thug walked out on them faster than a bullet. Now as an aging broody man who lives in a cheap rental near the ocean, Thug gets diagnosed with CTE (Chronic traumatic encephalopathy). Multiple head injuries cause this brain disorder, and it’s pretty common among boxers. Unable to remember things as simple as his boss’ name and daily to-do things, Thug tries to right his life’s wrongs before he completely loses his memory.
How does Thug get back in touch with his daughter?
Thug decides to end his life after the diagnosis, but a young girl in another car stops him from pulling the trigger. He then tries to contact his daughter Daisy over the phone, but Daisy has clearly moved on with her life and doesn’t want her father to ruin things for her. Daisy is a single mother raising a boy, and even though she’s not financially well off, she makes it up by being a great mother to Dre. Thug decides to pay a visit anyway and sees his grandson probably for the first time in his life. Daisy isn’t impressed by the heritage of awful fathers in the family, and she’s stern about not wanting Thug in her and Dre’s life.
But Thug’s constant efforts come to fruition and Daisy allows him to give company to Dre from time to time. Thug takes Dre to the boxing gym and gives him the first lessons in boxing. It makes sense how an abusive father would want to be a good grandfather and think everything is forgiven. Just to emphasize how terrible he was as a father, nobody cared to inform him when his son Colin died of an overdose two years ago. While Colin was alive, Thug wasn’t really thrilled by his son being gay, and it only shows how his callous behavior towards his own children caused them to drift apart.
Why did Thug push his love interest away?
On a random drinking night at a cheap bar, Thug knocks out a guy who was about to raise hands on his partner after a heated argument. The woman (credited as the woman as well), more than delighted to see an older man stand up for her, takes him home. Thug and the woman start to bond, and it’s the lady who puts effort into turning the hookup into something less casual and more intimate. Thug in his usual Liam Neeson way warns her how it would end badly, but the woman is not exactly an advocate for self-worth either.
She decides to stick with him anyway and Thug too, falls for her a tiny bit. But the eventual doom comes forth when the woman decides to tell Daisy about Thug’s brain condition behind his back. You can’t really blame her considering how Thug was only growing more erratic with time, but Thug takes it as a sign of betrayal. He humiliates her in front of Daisy and Dre and even shoves her off. The woman stands her ground and gives Thug a mouthful before leaving, and the brooding old man finds himself alone once again.
Absolution (2024) Movie Ending Explained:
Who is trying to kill Thug?
Earlier in the film, Thug was ambushed by three gunmen while picking up cash for his boss. The henchmen accidentally killed the priest Thug was meeting, and that gave him the opportunity to take the goons down. Thug got to know that a big man with a spider tattoo on his neck hired them. In a career this long, it’s hard for him to track his enemies who might want revenge. But things become as clear as daylight when Thug decides to fix his mistakes and try to save Daisy’s house from being sold off. He plans to borrow money from his boss Charlie, but he is in for a surprise.
A big man welcomes him to Charlie’s den, and Kyle tells him that he no longer wishes to keep Thug as his henchman and that the big guy is his replacement. Thug is taken aback and tries to understand why would Charlie do that to him after he’s given all his life to Charlie’s needs and demands. Charlie is a clever fox too, and he knows Thug’s memory issues make him a risk to the business. Betrayed by his boss and his idiotic son, just when Thug is about to leave, he notices a spider tattoo on the new henchman. Suddenly Thug realizes it all and punches the man right in the throat, possibly killing him on the spot.
Did Thug seal all loose ends in his ruthless pursuit of power?
As it turns out, Charlie knew about the killing attempt and he still let his son do as he wished. Thug pulls his gun out and shoots Kyle in the legs, making it simpler for Charlie to open his safe and give Thug a lot of cash. Even though Charlie tries to negotiate his life instead of Kyle’s, Thug kills him instantly and most possibly kills Kyle as well. Thug never seemed like a man who’d leave loose ends to bite him back someday, and he wouldn’t be alive in the business for three decades if that was his usual course of action.
How does Thug save the women?
Thug sees a helpless Spanish woman begging for help when he is on a delivery job earlier, and the cry for help manages to somehow nudge some empathy out of his cold, barren heart. The thought of not being able to help her somewhat haunts Thug, and when he visits Gamberro (the shady businessman who gave Kyle and Thug his first delivery job) to see a sex worker, he decides to help her.
After looting Charlie dry and killing him, Thug goes to Gamberro’s hoping he could pay him to free the girl. But it was all too late, and one of Gamberro’s customers got a bit too rough and killed her. Thug obviously gets infuriated after seeing his shot of redemption lying dead on the floor, and he takes Gamberro hostage and forces him to free every girl he uses to run his brothel. Unfortunately, things do go south a little and Gamberro repeatedly stabs him. Thanks to one of the women, Thug’s life is spared and Gamberro’s brain gets scattered all over the floor.
What does Thug do before dying?
Thug makes sure that Daisy gets most of the money to save her house and entrusts an old friend to help his daughter through the process. After being a terrible father for his whole life, he does his best to be of some use to Daisy and her kid. Before the whole Gamberro situation, he also went to the woman’s house to check up on her. After their breakup the woman has clearly lost it and Thug finds her passed out on the bathroom floor, with cigarette burns on her body. We have to remember that both Thug and the woman are self-destructive individuals whose actions don’t always make perfect sense.
However, Thug does manage to patch her up, and they share a hug the night Thug is going to die. He sees Dre moments before his passing and tries to tell him that for him to do something good, he has no option but to choose the good way. Now here’s a conundrum: is Thug really worthy of redemption for his last few deeds? He’s been getting visions where his dad takes him on these fishing rides, and while it’s evident that Thug’s dad isn’t mad at him anymore, he’s still an awful person.
When Thug sees the Spanish woman asking for help in the dream, the dad asks him to silence his head and look the other way, even advising him to “enjoy the music.” So we have to go back to Daisy’s remark about the cycle of awful fathers. When Thug tells his grandson to not be like him and does his best to earn forgiveness, it won’t be an exaggeration to say that Dre might turn out different than the other men of his family.
