'Absolution' Movie Ending Explained & Summary: Is Thug Dead Or Alive?

Liam Neeson’s Absolution is the same old tale about a gangster trying to redeem himself of his past mistakes. And with that said, you already know how the film ends. Our aging gangster, named Thug, was once a celebrated boxer. After his professional career came to an end, Thug turned towards the world of crime and walked out on his family. For 30 long years, he had been working for a mobster, Charlie Conner, and even spent some time in prison. Thug’s life had been going just fine, until one day, he was diagnosed with CTE (Chronic traumatic encephalopathy). This usually happens to athletes who have taken too many blows to the head. During his meeting with the doctor, Thug tells her that he had his first blow to the head when he was six or seven. Well, it wasn’t a surprise that Thug grew up around a strict and toxic father, who couldn’t control his anger most of the time. Of course Thug was doomed to end up like his old man. Maybe that was the reason why Thug left his family, as he didn’t want his kids to see the monster inside him. But now, when his days are numbered, Thug wants to reconnect with the only daughter he was left with. The question is: will Daisy ever forgive her father for what he has done?

Spoiler Alert

Charlie had asked Thug to babysit his reckless and impulsive son, Kyle, who wanted to one day become a tough guy so that he could take over his father’s criminal empire. But on the very first job, Thug understood that Kyle wasn’t cut for this kind of business. He told Charlie in not so many words that his kid needed to learn a lot. Now, I am not sure if Charlie scolded Kyle or something, but he got really offended by how Thug had been treating him. He wanted the “boss’ son” treatment, but Thug wasn’t the kind of person who would give someone an ego massage because they themselves were insecure in their lives. Thug himself was dealing with his own health issues, so he didn’t have it in him to bother himself worrying about what his boss’ son thought of him. Long story short, Kyle imagined that Thug snitched on him and, therefore, hired three guys with the help of his new bodyguard to get rid of Thug on the job. Thug managed to survive the attack. When he interrogated one of the attackers about who sent them, he just told them that a guy with a big scorpion tattoo on his neck hired them. Later, Thug saw the same guy in Charlie’s den and was certain that it was Kyle who’d tried to get him killed. At that time, Thug had come to Charlie to request some money so he could help Daisy buy a house, but before Thug could make his request, Charlie fired him. He had found out about Thug’s illness and how he kept forgetting names and things. He had become a liability for the business, and therefore Charlie decided to just throw him out. For Thug, this was the man to whom he had been loyal for 30 years and never stolen a single penny from. He could have taken the 20,000 dollars that he picked up for Charlie during the shooting on the street. But he didn’t, and that’s how Charlie was going to repay his loyalty?

Thug didn’t think any further and shot Kyle in the leg, ordering Charlie to empty his safe and hand over all the money. Charlie knew his end was near , because if Thug had left him alive, he would obviously have come after Thug or Daisy. Thug didn’t want to take any chances, as he knew that his days were numbered, and in his state, he wouldn’t be able to protect Daisy against Charlie’s army of goons. Thug shot Charlie and killed him on the spot, but he fulfilled a father’s last wish and left Kyle alive. You see, Kyle, being an imbecile, wasn’t much of a threat, and with what he had witnessed, he wouldn’t dare come after Thug’s family after he was gone. Also, no one really knows that Thug has a family. He always seemed like the “loner” type. And yes, if you are wondering if that was Thug’s plan all along, i.e., to steal from Charlie, then the answer is no. He improvised when he found out that his boss and his son had stabbed him in the back and tried to kill him. 

Yolonda Ross’ character, who has been credited as “Woman” in the film, acts as a mirror in Thug’s life. With her, he can share the things that he wanted to tell his daughter but couldn’t open up about due to his own upbringing. You see, Thug was a completely different man before he met Woman. And when she told him about her past abusive boyfriends, Thug remembered his own past. I guess, it was Thug’s father who used to physically assault his mother, and he feared that one day he would turn out like him, which could be one of the reasons why he ran out of the family. It could be that Thug feared being in a relationship with anyone because he didn’t want the monster inside him to ever come out. It happened once when Thug got upset with Woman for telling his daughter about his condition. In anger, Thug raised his hand against her but quickly realized his mistake when he saw his grandson, Dre, standing near the door. In the past, Thug might have seen his own mother getting beaten up by his father, and he remembered how much it affected him, which was the reason why he met Dre after the incident and tried to apologize to him for what he’d had to witness. Thug didn’t want Dre to become like him or his old man.

In Absolution’s ending, Thug found out that Woman herself was dealing with depression and low self-esteem. She had told Thug that she liked the noise around her because, obviously, the silence made her feel lonely. I guess she was suicidal, too, and dating an alpha toxic male became her escape to deal with her loneliness. When Thug came into her life, things got better, but the tragedy was that Thug himself didn’t have long to live. He wanted to help, but he couldn’t. In the end, Thug found out that she burned herself with cigarettes because, with time, she had grown used to that pain and abuse. Thug was a different kind of guy, and when he tried to raise his hand against her, Woman just lost all her hope once again. She told Thug that he was helping just by being there, but he couldn’t stay for long. He had shot a mobster, and everyone would be looking for him the next day. Thug had to leave, but I guess, before walking out of Woman’s life, he left her some money so she could get the treatment she needed.

Thug told Dre that he was sent to prison once for not “walking away.” I guess Thug ended up killing a man at some point, and served time in prison for it. From thereon, he had made it his life’s mission to do the job and look away. He always walked out before he could give in to his anger, which he most likely inherited from his old man. But this time, things were different. Thug didn’t want to walk away from the fact that he’d delivered a truck full of innocent girls to a man named Gamberro. He was running a sex-trafficking ring and had locked up the girls against their will. Thug wanted to help, but he didn’t have the money to do so. However, after stealing from Charlie, Thug decided to buy Araceli’s freedom so that at least one girl could be freed from Gamberro’s prison. But it turned out that Thug arrived too late. One of the clients had strangled Araceli to death in his madness. Once again, Thug couldn’t control his anger and wanted to shoot Gamberro on the spot, but he refused to give in to the instincts he inherited from his father. Instead, Thug decided to do what was best for these girls and commanded Gamberro at gunpoint to let them all go. He even asked Gamberro to hand them a bundle of notes that he had brought, along with the cash that was inside the house. But Gamberro was not in the mood to see his empire crumble in front of his own eyes and, therefore, decided to retaliate to save what he could.

During Absolution’s ending, Gamberro stabbed Thug multiple times with a kitchen knife and was going to slit his throat when one of the girls picked up Thug’s gun and shot Gamberro in the head, therefore putting an end to his evil. But even though Thug had saved the girls, it was evident that he was going to succumb to his injuries, but before that, he had a little more business to attend to. Trying to staunch his bleeding, Thug quickly arrived at Daisy’s house and called Dre outside. He wanted to have one last conversation with him. You see, throughout the film, Thug had been trying to do just one thing: to protect Dre from becoming a person like his father, or his grandfather, or the “man” before him. Thug wanted Dre to be a better man, not some abusive, alpha male who would treat others like they didn’t matter. He didn’t want Dre to end up in jail for giving in to his anger. Thug wanted Dre to have a better life, and that was the only reason why Thug tried to change himself, so that he could leave a better example for Dre. We don’t know if Thug succeeded in his goal or not, but he just wanted Dre to know that “he tried.”

In Absolution’s ending, Thug drove to the house he often looked at from his window. Every morning he would hear someone playing the guitar in the house, but when he finally entered it, to his surprise, it was vacant. No one had lived there for a very long time. Well, you might have noticed blue color wind chimes outside the house, but I guess they weren’t real either. It might be a memory from Thug’s childhood that his brain wanted him to see and the music it wanted him to hear. Maybe it has something to do with his father. Even in his dreams, Thug saw his father steering the motorboat because his father never took him fishing again after he took the boat all alone while his father was locked in a cell for one weekend. Thug’s equation with his father after he “stole” the boat one Sunday had never been the same. Thug felt guilty for what he had done, and his entire life, he blamed himself for one silly mistake, but his old man (most likely) didn’t forgive him. In Thug’s dream, his father ultimately became Charon, the ferryman, who took his soul away to the underworld. So, is Thug dead? Well, he will die. But did he get absolution? Well, that depends on the two women in his life, if they will forgive him or not. Before dying, Thug left a cashier’s check for 70 grand for Daisy so she could pay the downpayment for the house. And I think after hearing about her father’s death and what he had done for her, she will not only forgive him for his past actions but also take the money so she could live the rest of her life in comfort, just like Thug wanted.