'Diablo' Movie Ending Explained & Summary: Is Corvo Dead Or Alive?

Ernesto Diaz Espinoza’s action thriller, Diablo, might not have much to offer in terms of story, but it does pack a punch and makes for an entertaining watch. The story follows the life of a fugitive who decides to kidnap a girl right after he gets out of prison for some unknown reason. So, let’s find out what the fugitive wanted and if he was able to achieve what he set out for. 

Who kidnapped Elisa and why?

An anonymous man who had some sort of hidden agenda and, by the looks of it, seemed like a fugitive who was up to something, came to Colombia. This man started keeping track of the movements of Elisa, who happened to be the daughter of a criminal named Vicente. Vicente was an influential man, and that was why it was even more difficult to understand the motives of the anonymous man. Why would somebody want to go against such a powerful criminal and risk his own life? Well, this anonymous man turned out to be Kris Chaney, who not only happened to be Vicente’s ex-colleague, but he was also related to Elisa. Kris kidnapped Elisa, and the way he tackled her guards made it very clear that he was a trained fighter who was not to be messed with. He put Elisa in the trunk of the car and drove as far as he could. Meanwhile, Vicente announced that whoever captured his daughter’s kidnapper and brought Elisa home would be rewarded handsomely. Another thing that happened behind Vicente’s back was that his right-hand man, Nick, called up a psychotic murderer who was on the loose, and told him about Vicente’s missing daughter. At the beginning of Diablo, we had seen what this man was capable of. He’d killed a waitress and a policewoman for some unknown reason. He had a prosthetic hand made of steel that he used as a weapon most of the time. The eerie look on his face made it very clear that his savagery knew no bounds. 

Kris didn’t like the fact that he’d had to stuff Elisa in his car trunk. So he took her out and told her that if she cooperated, he would let her sit on the back seat. Elisa was a feisty girl, and she tried her level best to escape from the captivity of her kidnapper. Kris ended up telling her that he was her biological father and that, for the last 15 years, he had been behind bars due to Vicente. Kris also told Elisa that Vicente was the one who had killed her mother, but obviously Elisa didn’t believe him. And how could she? How could she believe that the man whom she believed to be her father, who loved her so much, who gave her the best life possible, was the one who had murdered her mother? 

What happened to Elisa’s mother?

Kris told Elisa that he loved Leonor Piamonte, her mother, and both of them were inseparable back in the day. He also told Elisa that the diamond necklace she was wearing was given to her mother by him. He said that Vicente, Leonor, and he robbed banks together, and they were pretty good at it. Kris said that Leonor made sure that nobody got physically hurt during their heists, but Vicente was a reckless man who didn’t care who got in his way as long as his pockets kept getting fuller. But then one day Vicente betrayed Kris’ trust, and he gave him away to the police. As a result, Kris was sentenced to 15 years, and in the meantime, Vicente built an empire for himself. Leonor had come to meet Kris once in prison, and she had told him that she was trying to run away from Vicente’s place with their daughter. Leonor, for some unspecified reason, didn’t want to live with Vicente, but she was well aware how much the man loved Elisa and to what extreme lengths he could go if he got to know what Leonor was up to. After that visit, Kris never heard from Leonor, and he was sure that Vicente killed her. But Elisa had a totally different take, and she felt that Vicente could never do such a thing. She told Kris that until she saw some evidence that proved that Vicente was guilty, she couldn’t believe him. But Elisa was wrong in assuming that her father was innocent, as she didn’t know about half the things the man had done or was capable of doing. 

Was Kris able to save Elisa?

The psychopath with a steel hand was named El Corvo, and we came to know at the end of Diablo that the man’s motives behind taking Elisa with him weren’t fueled by money. El Corvo didn’t care about the reward money; he just wanted to take revenge on Vicente. Apparently, Vicente had backstabbed El Corvo too. Though Vicente hadn’t killed Leonor, he had hired El Corvo to do it for him. He had asked Corvo to make it look like a suicide, but the latter had other intentions. I believe the psychopath physically abused Leonor before killing her. Vicente got infuriated when he got to know about it, and he also wanted to eliminate all loose ends. Vicente tried to kill Corvo, but the latter was able to make a near escape. From that day, Corvo wanted to get revenge on Vicente, and he finally got a chance to do just that when he got to know about Elisa. 

Corvo was able to overpower Kris, and he left the latter hanging from a tree with a noose around his neck. Vicente found Kris, and I believe he would have killed him had he not known that only Kris would help him fight Corvo and save Elisa. The strangest part of Vicente’s character was that the man actually loved Elisa more than anything else. He was a man who generally couldn’t be trusted, but he proved everybody wrong in the case of his daughter. That was the reason why Elisa had such a hard time believing that he could have killed her mother. So at the end of Diablo, Kris and Vicente, together with the latter’s men, reached the location where Corvo had called them to. 

Corvo had chained Elisa, one end of which was tied to a metal shredder. He told Vicente that he would free her only when he confessed to his crimes in front of her. Vicente could have done anything to save his daughter’s life, and so he did end up telling her that he was the one who had killed her mother because she was going to take his most prized possession away from him. Kris, who was gravely injured, got up and pounced on Corvo. Elisa stopped the shredder by throwing the diamond necklace she was wearing in it. 

In Diablo’s ending, both Vicente and Corvo, while fighting with each other, fell from a height and lost their lives. At one point, it felt like Kris too would succumb to his injuries, but he managed to survive. After everything was over, Elisa and Kris both went to pay their respects at Leonor’s grave, and that was where Elisa referred to Kris as “Dad” for the very first time. It was a happy ending, but what I couldn’t understand was how Vicente became so fond of Elisa when he knew she was not his child. I mean, generally in such cases, people do not treat a child very nicely, which was why it was a bit strange to me that the man didn’t have any hidden agenda. Also, the film made me wonder, had Kris and Vicente both survived, who would Elisa have gone with? Kris clearly didn’t have the resources to support his daughter, while Vicente had all the money in the world to give her a comfortable life. This point was even made by Elisa when she told Kris that she was happy with her life and she didn’t want to leave it behind. Maybe Elisa would have gone to live with her aunt, as Kris had stated. I think that though she would have stopped living with Vicente, she would have kept in touch with him because she loved him.

Is Corvo Still Alive?

Diablo ended on a cliffhanger, leaving room for a potential sequel. In the closing shot, Corvo’s body was missing from the spot. Vicente was still lying dead, but there was no sign of the contract killer, which could either mean that the man somehow survived the fall or someone else had removed his body for reasons unknown. El Corvo was fueled by pure hate, anger, and a need to make the lives of everyone who crossed paths with him a living hell. He didn’t cut off his own arm to survive; he did it to get revenge on Vicente. While he might’ve completed that part of his journey, as long as Kris and Elisa are alive, he won’t be able to feel at peace. Maybe that’s what motivated him to continue living despite falling from such a great height. He’ll surely need to recuperate. But once he regains his strength, or at least part of it, he’s bound to go after Kris and Elisa. As far as I can remember, Kris intends to take Elisa to Carolina, her aunt who lives in the USA. So, it’s possible that the next showdown between Kris and El Corvo will take place there.

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