Bad Man Ending Explained And Movie Recap: Does Sam Manage To Save His Town?

Bad Man, directed by Michael Diliberti, has an action-comedy genre label attached to it, but in reality, the movie is so much more than that. A very strange concoction of hard-boiled noir, buddy-cop drama, and small-town vibe, this is a cocktail that just works right. Well-intentioned and very entertaining from the get-go, Bad Man actually tells the story of a guy who’s anything but ‘bad.’ And I genuinely appreciate when movies choose to not go for unnecessarily ambiguous endings just for the sake of it. Bad Man ends pretty neatly, without leaving much to ponder over. What we’re going to do in this article is run a discourse.

Spoilers Ahead

Murder in a small town

In the deadbeat town of Colt Lake, Tennessee, a group of four—Doug, Shuggy, Wayne, and the banjo-playing Destiny—beat the crap out of a man, Travis, before running him over. It seems to be the outcome of a drug deal gone wrong, where Travis tries to explain he’s only trying to negotiate and it’s all business, but to no avail. The town’s resident cop, Sam Evans, appears to be quite rudderless and lackadaisical; the once-popular former basketballer is now a washed-up cop whose father killed himself a month ago. Clearly, Sam is struggling with his grief, and he’s not really able to do a good job. He doesn’t have a shoulder to cry on either, except his best friend slash colleague, DJ, who just joined the police six months ago. The town sheriff, Sandy, also seems pretty chill. But with a murder in town, Sam has no choice but to buckle up. He also has to make way for Sergeant Bobby Gaines, a no-nonsense cop from the narcotics task force of Tennessee.

What’s Bobby’s deal?

Bobby is the opposite of Sam in every possible way. He’s driven to do the job and willing to go to any length to get it done. His methods are not at all supported by Sam, who’s absolutely not okay with the inclusion of this new guy—so much so that he would try to call Bobby’s superior and derail the investigation. That, of course, leads to Bobby confronting Sam—with a punch; the guy loves punching a lot—to not create a hindrance in the investigation. In Sam’s defense, Bobby is a bit too much, doing stuff like threatening to kill a pet rodent in order to get information from a local, Mr. Beale, who might know something, as he was out drinking that night. Bobby does manage to get the information, and he reveals he wouldn’t have let the rodent actually get hurt, so we don’t really have much to complain about! 

Thanks to Mr. Beale’s tip, Bobby, along with DJ and Sam, reaches the local  watering hole, The Poison Well, in search of this former rodeo turned drug dealer, Jasper. Instead of apprehending Jasper right away, Bobby makes friends with him, then (deliberately) gets involved in a bar fight with another man, then ends up in prison and spends the night with Jasper. By the time they leave the police station, Jasper has no problem telling Bobby to come to a spot where he would get some methamphetamine. To buy the drug (and make things look authentic), Bobby casually robs a local store, as the police don’t have that many funds at their disposal. With Sam and DJ as backup, Bobby reaches the location, but instead of selling him the drug, Jasper’s guy ends up attacking him, trying to take the money. Bobby, Sam, and DJ quickly neutralize the threat as they find out Jasper’s original plan was to scare the “new guy” in town and get some money. After this stupid act of epic proportions, Jasper had to get caught, and that’s exactly how it goes down. Trying to escape, he does fire a bullet at Bobby but ultimately gets caught by Sam. While he initially seems defiant and does not give away much during the investigation, after Bobby decides to go wild on him—by tearing up a laminated copy of Jasper’s rights and then forcing him to eat the piece of paper—Jasper coughs up what they want to know. According to him, he’s not directly involved, and the police should be looking for Doug—his lab, where he cooks the meth, in particular—instead. Soon after, Jasper is kidnapped from the police station, mostly thanks to Gary—the only person on guard—being high on weed. 

Who is the “Bad Man”?

If you think about it, there’s not really a mystery in the movie, except for Bobby and Sam trying to locate Doug’s lab. Bobby, given the hothead he is, doesn’t hesitate to unsubtly walk up to Doug and warn him. Sam sees this move as lunacy, but according to Bobby, all he’s trying to do is to instigate Doug so that he leads the police to his lab. It doesn’t come easy though, as Bobby and Sam struggle to find it, despite trying everything; that includes interrogating a bunch of school kids on Civic Day—Bobby’s logic is kids see everything, and at least one of them might have noticed something the adults missed. 

For a large chunk of the movie, it feels like Bobby is the savior who has arrived in Colt Lake to fix Sam’s life; the two bond really hard after the initial drama. Bobby instills confidence in Sam and even pushes him to pursue a romance with the mayor’s daughter, Izzy. While the movie never really delves deeper into it (not that it was needed anyway), you do realize Izzy and Sam go way back. He always had a thing for the girl, but Izzy got out of the town and made it big in the world, while Sam couldn’t go far beyond his early success as the town’s basketball star. Still known as “shooter,” Sam is practically a has-been, which the whole town, including Izzy—who’s here to help her father out a bit—knows. She might share a drunken kiss with him, but she’s regretting that on the very next day and not really objecting when Tammy—the promiscuous schoolteacher—makes fun of Sam and calls him a joke. Sam hears all of it, and it takes a toll on him as he goes on a bender. But he also wants to prove a point, so he knocks on Destiny’s door and intimidates her so that she gives away a possible location for Doug’s lab. Unfortunately, that lab turns out to be one where a few random crooks are doing shady stuff, and it’s not at all related to Doug. What’s even worse is DJ getting severely injured after setting off a trip wire. Chief Sandy and the mayor still praise Sam, though, while the latter asks him to not go on a wild goose chase (read, trying to find Doug’s lab). The mayor also leaves a Zippo lighter—that belonged to his father—with Sam to appreciate his effort.

Now, coming to the question I asked, were y’all really surprised when Sam finds out Bobby is not really who he claims to be? The man is not a state cop, or even a cop; he’s a mere security guard. That said, he does have a reason behind all this. The guy is out for revenge; it turns out the dead man, Travis, was his estranged brother. When Sam confronts him, Bobby tries justifying his whole “act” by saying he only went this far because the police wouldn’t do anything. That’s partially true, as even Sam can’t deny that he wouldn’t have come this far had Bobby not arrived in town and started causing all the chaos. I should tell you I also had my suspicions (while watching), given Bobby seemed a bit too cool to be a cop! However, that doesn’t take away anything from the twist, which is totally hard-earned and changes the course of the story. Had Bobby not been the “bad man,” Colt Lake proudly wouldn’t have gotten its “hero” back. Yes, I’m talking about Sam, of course! 

Does Sam manage to save his town?

Sam and Bobby may have been very different in terms of approach and ideology, but they do have a shared goal—catching Doug and making him pay for his sins. Not to mention, both of them have personal stakes; for Bobby, it’s revenge, and for Sam, he wants to save his town from all these bad men (or should I say “worse men”?). He also wants to prove that he’s not a broken-down loser by solving this murder case. That’s why it makes sense that even after knowing the truth about Bobby, he teams up with him and goes after the mayor. Yes, that’s a very trope-y thing to do—making the mayor a bad guy, especially when his daughter and our hero have something brewing between them. It turns out, the Zippo lighter (the one the mayor gave Sam) actually belonged to Travis. Once Bobby sees it, he knows where the rot originates from. Sure, a lot of people might have the same lighter, but the fear of Bobby going loose cannon on him compels the mayor to spill the truth. And no, it’s not all trope-y after all; the mayor is no mastermind, he was just trying to keep the “meth” out of town by making a deal between Doug and the Dixie mafia (Travis was representing these guys) and get some money out of it. Izzy is understandably disgusted after knowing what her father did, but she also seems to realize that Sam is not exactly the “loser.”

Bobby, meanwhile, tries to pull a “bad man” move on Sam—by handcuffing him at the mayor’s house—so that he can go to Doug’s, where the Dixie mafia deal is finally happening. When he gets there, Doug surprisingly doesn’t act like a villain. Instead, he appears all mature and even understands Bobby’s reason for pursuing him with this much tenacity. He also lets Bobby know that he suspects that Bobby is not really a cop. Bobby shoots the Dixie Mafia representative and confirms Doug is right. Doug then puts Bobby in an “either-or” situation; he has to choose between taking revenge for his brother—by killing Doug—or walking away with the Dixie Mafia money lying in front of him. Surely, Bobby came here for both, but Doug is only going to let him have one. It’s a given that if Doug dies, Bobby will not be able to escape, as he’s outnumbered by Doug’s men. So, like a true “bad man,” he chooses the money, swallowing his pride, but just as he plans to leave for good, Sam appears on the scene, pointing a gun at him (and everyone else). Bobby might have changed his mind, but being a cop and a “good man,” Sam can’t allow this to happen in his town. So he goes all guns blazing, risking his life, to take care of it all—Bobby, Doug, and everything. With everyone firing at everyone, Bobby gets shot, and Sam manages to catch Doug alive and beats him to a pulp in one of the most satisfying moments of the movie—especially if you remember how Doug assaulted Sam earlier. Just as Bobby tries to get away, Sam points the gun at him. Bobby still believes Sam wouldn’t do it, but Sam proves he has what it takes by shooting one of Doug’s men to death (the guy was trying to attack him from behind). In a nice little epilogue, we see Sam has made it to the front page—he is the hero and savior of Colt Lake; he and Izzy are finally in a relationship, and while DJ has left his job as a cop and joined the postal department, he and Sam remain partners for life. 

As far as Sam’s other partner goes, Bad Man fittingly ends with Sam paying a visit to Bobby in what seems like a high-security prison. The two sit with a glass barrier in between, and an orange jumpsuit-clad Bobby jovially puts his fist on the glass. So does Sam, implying they might be on opposite sides of the law, but their friendship remains intact, thanks to the fact that they took down all the bad men together.

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