Filmmaking is not an easy job, and telling a story the way you want to is more difficult. Blair Moore fails to do so in his Kane (2023) as he tries so hard to put together a story of multiple personality disorder. Sadly, the script itself suffers from some form of disorder. We have seen films like Fight Club, Shutter Island, Split, and many more such masterclasses on this subject, and Kane lacks earnestness in its storytelling process. It starts with a notion of Usual Suspects but ends with a very childish approach. Watch it or skip it; it will do you no harm.
Spoilers Ahead.
Kane (2023) Plot Summary and Movie Synopsis:
The film starts with Benny describing the events of a particular night to the detectives. He talks about his boss, Abe, who runs a drug cartel in town. Benny is his driver, and as he describes Abe, he talks about his multiple personality disorder. He creates characters in his mind and fights amongst them without any proper reason. His insecurity looms larger when Frankie enters the scene. Frankie runs a drug business of his own with Tony, and together they are making survival harder for Abe.
What happens to Richard?
Just like Abe suggests Richard is one of Abe’s imaginary characters who helps him with financing and stuff. Since Richard is not answering his phone calls, Abe decides to kill him. He interacts with another one of his personas, Kane. Kane is rogue and only cares about the assignment. However, deep inside, he feels remorse for all the killings he has done so far. Anyway, as the assignment approaches, he goes for the kill.
Meanwhile, Richard prepares himself to meet with one of his wife’s friends. They are having an affair which Pam, Richard’s wife, is unaware of until very recently. So, Pam follows Richard, and she calls her best friend Kelly. Well, she doesn’t know that Kelly is the ‘Lollipop’ in Richard’s contact with whom he is about to meet. Anyway, now the point here is if Richard is a delusion of Abe’s mind then Kelly doesn’t exist for real since we are shown Pam’s existence in the upcoming events.
So, Kane arrives at the car parking zone to kill Richard. He shoots a couple of bullets at him, and when the job is done, Kane looks at a distance only to find out that one of the bullets hit Pam on her head and she is dead. Well, in fact, as the climax suggests, Pam is just an ordinary woman passing through the parking area at the wrong time. She sees Kane shooting at a blank space, perhaps, and pauses to find out what is happening. Kane doesn’t like that and shoots her in the head. The woman, whom we think to be Pam, is killed without any reason by Kane.
How does Abe take full control of Frankie?
After these events, we see Benny driving Abe to the Lucky Saints Bar; perhaps owned by Abe himself. He sets up a meeting with Frankie there, and he repeats the same phrase of words again and again ‘Today is a good day’ to Benny and his other associates. When Frankie comes to the scene, things start to get a bit more tense than everyone thinks it to be. Abe asks Frankie whether he is any good at playing chess and he tells him that he is a very good player.
But, soon, Abe proposes that whoever wins the game lives and whoever loses dies. Frankie at first thinks of this as a joke, but soon he realizes that Abe is very serious about the rules. He then tells him that his men await his command and they will kill Abe’s family. Abe tells him to call them and ask them to go inside while Frankie keeps the phone on speaker. The boys enter the house and find nothing but a showbox. They try to open it, and the whole house blasts.
Frankie is now left with no other option but to play the game. They start off with Frankie being the nervous one and Abe controlling the atmosphere. They share a couple of drinks and smoke together, and after a close battle, surprisingly, Frankie wins the game. He celebrates much too hard since his life was on the line. This humiliates Abe so much that he brings out his gun and shoots Tony right in front of Frankie.
Kane (2023) Movie Ending Explained:
Why does Abe let Benny Live?
After killing Tony, Frankie fears Abe, and so do the rest of Abe’s associates. They feel like Frankie has won the game fair and fine. Abe is now taking charge of everything, and since he has an illness and has stopped taking medicines, Benny knows that things will only go wild from here. Just as he thinks, Abe no longer exists in the body. Benny sees Kane holding the gun and kills Frankie in an instant.
Kane is the most superior personality that Abe has created in his mind. Kane takes over Abe right after the game was lost. There is no going back from there. He has already killed everyone who is present there except Benny. He thinks that only Benny is not a monster, unlike the rest of them. He gives Benny a pistol and asks him to shoot at him on the count of three. Benny sees Abe as Kane now since there is more determination to kill in the eyes.
On the count of three, Kane removes the magazine from the gun while Benny shoots him in the head. While bleeding, Benny sees Abe, which means that Abe is the real identity of the person. Kane and Richard are created by him because of all the insecurity that runs in the drug business. Benny screams at Abe like a monster howling after killing his target. This means in other circumstances, Benny has always wanted to kill Abe, but he wasn’t just brave enough to do so. In other words, Benny is a worse human being than Abe as he has always pretended to be a good person, which he is not.
