Year: 2014
Runtime: 92 min
Language: English
Director: Paco Cabezas
Nicolas Cage stars as Paul Maguire, a man whose quiet life is shattered when his teenage daughter disappears. Driven by desperation, he reassembles his former associates to find her, embarking on a dangerous search for justice. The investigation quickly escalates into a brutal quest for revenge, uncovering deeply buried secrets and exposing a web of deception and betrayal as he fights to protect his family.
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Paul Maguire and his buddies Kane and Danny move through the shadows of the Irish mob, their lives twisted by a single reckless strike: a daytime ambush on a Russian money courier. The score is large enough to promise a clean exit, but that moment of hunger for power cliques them into a brutal, protracted war between their Irish faction and the Russian empire they topple into a long, bloody feud. They stash the cash, hoping a quiet interlude will follow, and after five years of skirmishes and casualties, the trio reemerges to divide the spoils and carve out a new life.
Over the next two decades, Paul Maguire uses his share to seed a far more enduring ambition: legitimacy. He builds a steady construction empire in Mobile, Alabama, turning what began as a criminal gambit into concrete success. He marries Vanessa, a bright and driven partner who shares his hard-won resolve, and they raise a teenage daughter, Caitlin. Their world appears to bend toward law and order, aided by O’Connell, their former mob boss who has given Paul the space to go straight while maintaining his own influence and keeping a wary eye on Kane and Danny, who never quite shuffled the dice of crime for good.
But one night, while Paul and Vanessa head to a charity dinner, Caitlin is left at home with friends Evan and Mike. The Mobile Police, led by Detective St. John, come calling with grim news: Caitlin is missing. Evan and Mike tell a story of a home invasion, a struggle, and a violent kidnapping that leaves them battered and the girl gone. Paul’s instinct to act, sharpened by his past, overrides the police’s patient, methodical approach, and he brings Kane and Danny into the search, convinced this is a targeted reprisal for the sins of his youth.
Tragedy strikes when Caitlin’s body is discovered in a storm drain. At her funeral, O’Connell urges Paul to let the authorities handle the investigation, reminding him that he earned his second chance by leaving the mob life behind. But Paul’s grief hardens into a burning need for answers. He and his friends begin to rattle cages, pressing the violence directly onto Chernov, the legendary Russian mob boss whose money they stole years earlier. Their aim is to Bankrupt the man behind Caitlin’s fate, not to wait for the slow grind of police work. Vanessa, who initially backed Paul’s relentless pursuit, grows frightened as her husband slides back toward the ferocity that once defined him.
The war escalates as Paul and his crew target Chernov’s interests, wrecking businesses and drawing a ruthless response. Kane is captured and tortured, and in the heat of the confrontation, Kane tries to draw out Chernov’s guilt over Caitlin’s death. Chernov, furious that Paul has crossed yet another line, reveals a shattering truth: the man they killed years ago was actually Chernov’s brother, not the conspirator they believed. Meanwhile, Paul’s suspicion shifts toward Danny, whom he suspects of secretly working with O’Connell, aided by a drug-fueled lifestyle and a pattern of deception. The tension erupts in a brutal fight that ends with Paul killing Danny with a knife in a moment of blind anger.
Chernov responds with cold calculation, arranging a direct meeting with O’Connell and demanding discipline. O’Connell refuses to bow to the blackmail of vengeance and a deadly shootout follows, leaving Chernov as the sole survivor of the encounter. The realization that the war’s origins stretch back to the same raid that set everything in motion haunts Paul.
A crucial truth finally surfaces when Paul discovers a Tokarev pistol tucked away in his closet—the same relic from the robbery decades earlier. The quiet revelation comes from Mike: Caitlin’s kidnapping was a panic-driven lie born out of a drunken night when Mike himself accidentally shot his daughter. Confronted with the truth, Paul confronts a moment of mercy and spares Mike, choosing to end the violence rather than perpetuate it. He returns home to share the truth with Vanessa, speaking in a hushed, trembling voice about the first time he killed someone after receiving a knife in a bar fight. As he finishes the story, Chernov and his remaining men infiltrate the house. In a final act of defiance and despair, Paul stabs himself as he watches the armed intruders approach, a grim prelude to the men’s violent arrival. Chernov’s crew then shoot Paul, ending his life in his own home. Vanessa returns to find the room filled with the quiet aftermath of a life spent between two worlds—law and crime—before the police arrive to carry Paul’s body away, leaving her to endure the first, deepest realization of everything he sacrificed.
Last Updated: October 09, 2025 at 16:15
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A desperate father's search for justice spirals into a violent and tragic war.If you liked Rage, explore other movies about a father's desperate and violent quest for revenge. These films share a dark tone, fast pacing, and high intensity, focusing on the grim consequences of vengeance and the heavy emotional toll of protecting family at any cost. Fans of gritty action thrillers will find similar stories of moral collapse here.
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