J.J. Perry’s “Afterburn” (2025) doesn’t enter the post-apocalyptic genre with subtlety. It kicks the door open, fires a shotgun into the ceiling, and lets the guts rain down. Where most end-of-the-world films use survival as a canvas for humanity, morality, and broken systems, “Afterburn” takes the opposite approach. It strips humanity down to pulp, bone, and absurd levels of bloodshed, leaving Dave Bautista’s Jake standing in the middle like a man who would rather be anywhere else.
Yet, beneath the explosions, cannibals, warlords, and the world’s angriest train conductor, the film tucks in a surprisingly old-fashioned adventure mystery: a lone treasure hunter navigating a collapsed Europe, a world robbed of technology, and tyrants trying to resurrect the last great weapons of the 20th century. Jake is not a savior by choice. He is a soldier who survived the wrong war and a treasure hunter who chose the wrong employer. Every step he takes is the reluctant step of a man trying to keep one small piece of the world from disappearing. But “Afterburn” also asks a quiet question under the sound of tank shells: What do we lose when society collapses, and what do we become when power returns to the people who crave it most?
Spoilers Ahead
Afterburn (2025) Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis:
A solar flare ends the world not with fire, but with silence. Electronics die, governments fall, and Europe fractures into territories run by warlords. Six years after the flare, humanity is less a civilization and more a collection of bruises wearing clothes. Jake, a former soldier turned self-proclaimed ‘World’s Greatest Treasure Hunter,’ survives through skill, luck, and a dog named Smoke who loves teriyaki more than life itself.
Jake scavenges artifacts for clients, usually tyrants, because money no longer matters, and morality is a luxury no one trades with. His current employer is King August, a self-appointed monarch with a defense minister named Fuentes, who treats Jake like a valuable but disposable tool. Jake retrieves a priceless Stradivarius violin by cracking an anachronistic vault, but August wants something far more dangerous next:
The Mona Lisa
The real mission begins when Jake reluctantly accepts the job, leaps out of a bullet-riddled plane over France, and steps straight into the territory of Volkov, a towering, brutal warlord freed from prison the day civilization crashed. Where August plays king, Volkov plays god, executing chess opponents, rebels, and civilians with equal efficiency.
Jake is meant to meet a rebel contact in Saint-Quentin, but chaos follows him like smoke. Soldiers ambush him. Bodies hang in the streets. Rebellion simmers under Volkov’s boot. A mysterious woman named Drea kills one of the soldiers attacking Jake and brings him to a safe house, specifically, a ruined church guarded by Father Samson, one of the last good men left. The rebels fuel Jake’s mission with supplies and a monstrous off-road truck, because in “Afterburn,” you don’t just travel, you survive in style.
What Does Volkov Want?
Volkov is not merely a villain. He is the embodiment of what happens when a cultural collapse removes every leash society once held. Brutal, theatrical, and obsessed with power games, Volkov’s primary goal is access to the high-security vault where France stored its national treasures. This vault contains the Mona Lisa, or so he believes. But Volkov wants something deeper: a symbol of absolute control. If August wants artifacts to validate his monarchy, Volkov wants them to validate his dominance.
Volkov’s soldiers police Paris with executions, curfews, and tanks. He is building a proto-nation, not one of laws, but of fear. And the vault represents the last untouched remnant of the old world. Whoever controls it controls perception, politics, and legacy. When he learns Jake is after the Mona Lisa, Volkov sees a personal challenge. A game. And like every tyrant who sees the world as a chessboard, he kills anyone who plays poorly.
Who Kills Father Samson?
Father Samson is one of the few characters who still believes in decency, despite living in a world that punishes it. When Jake and Drea regroup in the church, Samson becomes more than a supplier. He becomes a symbol of humanity in a film where humanity is a dying resource. He gives Jake ammunition, shelter, the off-road trophy truck, and, quietly, a path forward
But when Volkov’s tank commander surrounds the church, Samson does something crucial. He steps outside alone, unarmed except for his faith and one last bullet of defiance. He calls the commander a sinner, shoots him in the arm, and is immediately executed by Volkov’s men. Samson dies as the film’s only true martyr, a man who refuses to bend, even when everyone else learns to break. His death is not just a plot point. It pushes Jake and Drea into the next phase of the mission: escape, speed, and survival.
Is the Mona Lisa Actually a Painting?
Jake, guided by a rebel-made cipher, reaches Simserhof, a ruined fortress crawling with ‘wraiths’ – cannibals released from maximum-security prisons. In one of the film’s most chaotic sequences, Jake and Drea fight through them and break into the vault through its air filtration system. Inside, Jake finds the truth. The Mona Lisa isn’t a painting. It’s a nuclear bomb.
A third atomic weapon, the U.S.-built after Little Boy and Fat Man, was meant for Moscow but never deployed. The French government hid it underground, disguised as the Mona Lisa, to ensure no desperate nation would access it during global collapse. Drea, who has been calm throughout the mission, suddenly becomes the most informed person in the room.
She reveals she has the safety plug, the only device that can arm or disarm the bomb. Jake is furious. He risked everything for a relic of destruction. Not for art, beauty, or culture. Just the final nail of an apocalypse already halfway hammered in. He abandons Drea, morally disgusted, but the rebels arrive to recover the bomb. Moments later, Volkov arrives with his train, massacres the rebels, and steals the Mona Lisa. The world’s most dangerous object is now in the hands of its least qualified owner.
How Does Jake Save the Mona Lisa from Volkov?
Jake tries to leave because he’s tired, disillusioned, and technically no longer owes anyone. But Samson’s death, Drea’s desperation, and Volkov’s brutality gnaw at him. He turns back. Jake reunites with Drea, learns Volkov is heading toward a bridge, and formulates a two-part plan: blow up the bridge to stop the train. Meanwhile, Drea retrieves dynamite and positions herself near the bridge. After that, board the train and retrieve the safety plug. Jake uses their monstrous truck to catch up and leaps onto the moving train.
Inside, he kills Volkov’s right-hand man and confronts the warlord himself. Volkov, impatient with the train’s speed, had earlier killed his own pilot and turned up the throttle, sealing his fate. Jake drives a knife through Volkov’s hands, pinning him to the table as Drea detonates the bridge. Volkov sees death coming and says the only line his entire personality has been building toward: ‘Checkmate.’ The train collapses into the gorge. Jake barely escapes and retrieves the safety plug.
Afterburn (2025) Movie Ending Explained:
Does Jake Actually Save the World?
Jake returns to August and hands over the plug, hoping, foolishly or optimistically, that August will not misuse the bomb’s location. August, for his part, smiles too easily. The kind of smile that suggests dictators never retire; they just rebrand. Jake walks away, unsure if he stopped a catastrophe or handed someone else the keys to a future one.
The film ends with Jake and Drea on a boat, drifting into the sunshine, the retirement he dreamed of. But the framing is ambiguous. Jake dreams a lot. Jake imagines escape even more. And the world of “Afterburn” does not reward hope so easily. Whether this ending is real or a fantasy is left to interpretation, but the tone suggests something bittersweet.
Jake may have changed the course of destruction, but he cannot undo the world that produced men like Volkov and August. He can only keep himself alive long enough to dream of quiet waters. So, does Jake win? On the surface, yes. He stops Volkov, saves the bomb from falling into the wrong hands, prevents nuclear annihilation, finds companionship with Drea, and finally walks toward the peace he longed for. But structurally and thematically: NO.
The system remains broken. Warlords still rule the ruins. August is still a king in a world without a crown. Humanity is still living on borrowed time. Jake’s victory is personal, not global. He cannot rebuild the world. He can only keep another apocalypse from happening today. And sometimes, in a dead world, that is the closest thing to a win anyone can afford.
