Empire Of Lies Ending Explained And Movie Recap: Is The Youtuber A Real Person? 

It’s not a secret that men tend to isolate themselves after a big personal loss, and even though it’s not necessarily the healthiest way to deal with it, sometimes the world does feel too overwhelming to face head on. From Heathcliff to Bruce Wayne, to Jay Gatsby, to just any average male, grief-driven withdrawal is much more common than one would expect, and Matthew Hope’s psychological thriller, tries to explore a similar theme through its main protagonist, Dave, who finds solace in an isolated farm, after his daughter’s murder. “Empire of Lies” only has two central characters going back and forth discussing guilt, conspiracies, accountability, and justice, yet it never feels limited by its scale, which proves that making a great film has very little to do with a huge budget, and everything to do with good writing, compelling performances, and a film’s confidence in its ideas. It’s an incredible indie production that does more with two people in a room than many big-budget films manage with entire worlds at their disposal. The Guardian might tell you it doesn’t have enough depth to keep you hooked, but once you see Joseph Milson brooding and having full blown crashouts when he’s being questioned, as well as almost convincing you how the government controls us, you can’t help but sit straight and pay more attention. If you’re here scratching your head unable to fathom everything that happens in “Empire of Lies,” good job finding the article. 

Spoilers Ahead

What happens in the film?

Dave is a man in his fifties who lives in a camper van on a secluded farm, which belongs to an old friend of his, and it takes no time to guess how terribly alone and depressed the man is, and he often thinks about killing himself, as he looks up to a tree with a rope in his hand. But he gets an unexpected visitor one day; an independent journalist with a tripod comes to see him. The young lady introduces herself as a YouTuber who works for a channel called ‘Impact.’ Dave hides from her immediately, but the young girl knows that he’s hiding inside his camper. She wants to interview him about his dead daughter, who was mysteriously murdered, with Dave being the prime suspect who walked free due to lack of evidence. Dave insists that she should leave, but the YouTuber refuses to leave without talking to him. She assures Dave that she has no agenda of her own, and all she wants is his version of the truth, so that the people get to decide who is responsible for his daughter’s death. Dave has already been humiliated by the mainstream media, the court, and a documentary which painted him as a guy who killed his daughter and walked away without any consequences. Seeing that the YouTuber is pretty adamant, Dave comes out of hiding, and the first thing he does is stash her phone far from where they’re talking, as he believes that the government is listening to them. The YouTuber decides to record this interview as an audio podcast, and the two finally start talking to each other. 

Is Dave just a conspiracy theorist? 

After Dave comes out, the YouTuber starts introducing herself. She’s from the same town as Dave, went to the same school where Dave and his daughter went, and couldn’t attend college because her father thought that her mind would be poisoned by dodgy politics and ideology. Dave isn’t all that interested in her life, since he thinks that it’s a manipulation tactic to get him to open up. He remembers how his own town turned on him, and he has no wish to hear about that same town or its people. When the Youtuber reassures him that this interview won’t be twisted or edited, he tells her that the whole investigation was a big lie, a cover up to hide the truth. The system was protecting the actual killer, hence, he was persecuted unfairly and he never got justice. When the Youtuber tells Dave that she doesn’t believe in conspiracies, he starts naming the most popular conspiracy theories one by one, and he explains how nothing is just made up. Dave makes claims ranging from 9/11 being an inside job and the moon landing being fake, to the covid pandemic being nothing but a flu that got rebranded. When the Youtuber asks him if there’s any conspiracy he doesn’t believe in, Dave asks her if there’s any propaganda she doesn’t fall for, which kind of makes sense. She says that if everything is being controlled by the corrupt system and the people on top that Dave can’t shut up about, how come he is still free and not behind bars, and Dave claims that it’s because of the incompetence of the investigators that he is still free. Now, Dave says that he didn’t kill his daughter, and that she called him before she was killed, something the investigators couldn’t mess with. The Youtuber says that a detective inspector claimed that Dave was the one who killed her daughter and used her phone to call himself, before destroying the local phone towers. Now you tell me, who sounds more ridiculous, Dave, or the Detective? 

What makes Dave a genuine suspect in his daughter’s murder? 

When the Youtuber asks Dave who he thinks killed his only daughter, he thinks it’s the people who fund and control his daughter’s employers. She worked for an organisation called “The Guardians of the Planet,” and was about to blow the whistle on some huge secret which would bring some very powerful people down. Now, according to the Youtuber’s sources, nothing extraordinary happened to Dave’s daughter before she was killed, and Dave was the only one who went to see her and had a heated argument with her, before he left to buy himself alcohol. Despite Dave claiming that he did nothing out of the ordinary, the Youtuber knows that Dave showed up at his daughter’s workplace a couple of times, and her coworkers claimed that he harassed her. The co-workers also said that Dave was complaining about her mother – his ex wife – which triggers Dave, because that was the main theory the authorities used against him. But Dave goes off the rails when the Youtuber asks him what happens if the external forces that killed his daughter come for him as well? He immediately runs into his trailer and grabs his gun, which terrifies the young girl. Knowing that Dave might actually pull the trigger, she tells Dave that she believes all his theories, which calms him down. He tells her that the gun is an airsoft, and he only keeps it to scare people off. So when you see that the man doesn’t actually keep a real gun on him, despite the very real threats that loom over his head, that’s pretty much enough to tell you that he couldn’t have killed his own daughter in cold blood. 

Is The Youtuber A Real Person? 

After cursing Dave for scaring the life out of her with his fake gun, the Youtuber regains her composition immediately. She gets back to business, asking Dave once again, why was his daughter murdered? Dave keeps going on about his theory that the people at the top of the food chain eliminated her, fearing she was going to expose them. When the Youtuber isn’t convinced by his answer, Dave explains that stories like this are good entertainment for the masses, all of this is nothing but a distraction from the actual evil people running the system. Dave keeps insisting that this is an elaborate psychological operation by the very same people, but the Youtuber isn’t satisfied with him hiding out here, and she believes that if he didn’t kill her daughter, he should get back in the real world and get justice for her. She goes on saying that he can’t keep hiding out here and drinking coffee while he owes his daughter justice. Dave goes on to have a crashout, and he starts screaming about how badly he wants his daughter back. 

In the ending of “Empire of Lies,” the Youtuber slowly reaches out to Dave, who’s still grieving and holding his own head. She surprisingly knows that Dave knows exactly who the murderer is, and that he himself has investigated hard enough to find the killer. The Youtuber asks Dave to go have a chat with the killer instead of hiding, and tells him that she believes in him, addressing him as “dad.” It was never an independent YouTube journalist Dave was talking to, but an embodiment of his dead daughter all along. Staying isolated from society for all this time, after going through what he did, being suicidal everyday, pushed Dave to this point where he finally has the courage to face the truth. The daughter disappears, and an old picture confirms that his daughter looked just like the apparition. This finally pushes Dave to stop living his everyday life and finally get revenge for his daughter’s death, which is long overdue. As he starts the van, the credits begin to roll, you get the unmistakable feeling that the killer’s luck has finally run out, and Dave will get rid of the scum for good. 

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