Trailer:
Retribution is a action thriller film directed by Nimród Antal and written by Chris Salmanpour. It is the third remake of the 2015 Spanish film El desconocido, which follows a brooding man (Neeson) who gets trapped in his car after receiving a threat that it will explode should he get out.
When a mysterious caller puts a bomb under his car seat, Matt Turner (Neeson) begins a high-speed chase across the city to complete a specific series of tasks. With his kids trapped in the back seat and a bomb that will explode if they get out of the car, a normal commute becomes a twisted game of life or death as Matt follows the stranger’s increasingly dangerous instructions in a race against time to save his family.
Retribution has grossed $6.9 million in the United States and Canada, and $11.8 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $18.7 million!
Plot
Matt Turner works as a financier at Nanite Capital under his friend and CEO Anders Muller and lives with his wife, Heather, and two children, Emily and Zach, in Berlin. While driving his kids to school, Matt receives a call from an unknown number with a distorted voice who says that there is a bomb under his seat, which was already armed when Matt sat on it. The bomb is triggered by both pressure plates placed on all the seats and a radio frequency. He also threatens to detonate the bomb if Matt tries to get help. Matt finds the device and is forced to follow the bomber’s instructions in order to keep them alive.
The bomber forces Matt to watch Sylvain, the latter’s client who is also receiving a bomb threat, being killed in an explosion when Sylvain’s panicked girlfriend attempts to escape. The bomber tells Matt to call Heather to retrieve €50,000 from his safety deposit box at the bank and deliver it to him. After Heather retrieves it, the bomber changes the plan by telling her to give the money to a man in a blue suit. When she does, the police arrive and arrest the man.
After seeing the news implicating Matt for the bombing, Europol agent Angela Brickmann calls him; Matt tries to convince her of his innocence and requests that cellular signals be jammed to prevent the remote trigger. The bomber reveals that Matt and Anders have a €208 million slush fund from the clients deposited in Matt’s “emergency collateral account” in a bank in Dubai. He arranges for Matt to meet Anders at a power plant. Arriving there, the bomber forces Matt to order Anders to liquidate his collateral account. Despite Anders reluctantly complying, the bomber orders Matt to kill Anders with a revolver in exchange for his life and his children. When Matt refuses, the bomber blows up Anders’s car; the shrapnel injures Emily’s leg.
After a police chase, Matt is eventually surrounded by them with Angela and Heather arriving at the scene. Once they realize that the pressure plate is only located under Matt’s seat, the bomb squad safely removes Zach and Emily, who is treated for her injuries. Interrogating Matt, Angela suspects the bombing might be related to the heist. After talking to Heather for the last time, Matt drives away and evades the police, determined to find the bomber by himself. Matt demands the bomber to meet him in person if he wants the money.
The bomber is revealed to be Anders all along. Anders reveals that he wanted to make Matt the fall guy for the series of bombings to cover up his scheme of embezzling €208 million wired into his crypto account. To end this, Matt deliberately crashes his car, causing it to cling on the side of a bridge. Matt unlocks his seat belt and falls into the river, allowing the bomb to activate and kill Anders. Angela and the police arrive at the scene, with Angela nodding at Matt before allowing him to walk free.
During the credits, the news reports state that the bombings were part of the heist perpetrated by Anders, and Matt cooperates with Europol to resolve the incident.
