Destroyer

LAPD detective Erin Bell arrives on the scene of a John Doe murder and informs the responding officers that she knows the identity of the murderer.

At her police station, Erin receives a $100 bill stained from a dye pack in an unmarked envelope. Using a contact at the FBI, she confirms that the bill is from a bank robbery committed by a California gang many years prior that she and her former partner Chris were embedded in as undercover officers. She tells her superiors that she believes the bill and the John Doe murder to be proof that the gang’s leader Silas is once again active.

Erin is forced to work her way through the remaining members of the gang in order to find Silas. She begins with Toby, who was arrested but is now gravely ill and living with his mother on compassionate release. She manually stimulates him in exchange for the location of Arturo, a member of the gang who attempts to atone for his past crimes by offering pro bono legal services to immigrants. Arturo provides Erin with the location of Dennis DiFranco, a lawyer who launders the money from the original robbery and from whom Erin deduces that Silas is active again because the money from the heist is almost gone. After threatening him, DiFranco gives Erin the location of the next money hand-off, which is performed by Silas’ girlfriend Petra. Erin tracks Petra, eventually intervening in a bank robbery committed by Silas’ new gang, and kidnaps Petra.

Via flashbacks throughout the film, it transpires that Erin and Chris developed a romantic relationship while undercover, with Erin eventually becoming pregnant with Chris’ child. At Erin’s behest, they decided to become legitimate participants in the bank robbery and planned to take their shares of the heist, report to their superiors that they lost contact with the gang, and eventually quit the force. The robbery was botched when a dye pack exploded in one of the bags, and Silas killed the bank teller who placed it. When Chris attempted to intervene, he was shot and killed by Silas. Erin hid her share of the heist and returned to policing, disclosing neither her original plan nor her share of the heist.

In the present, Erin visits a self storage unit to retrieve her share of the stolen money, but finds that the majority of it is stained with dye. She receives a text message from Silas instructing her to meet him at the Sixth Street Viaduct, where she confronts and shoots him, avenging Chris. She returns the next morning to find the police investigating the crime scene: the John Doe murder investigation depicted in the first scene of the film. With Silas dead, Erin gives evidence of her guilt – Petra’s location, the stained bill, and the key to her storage unit to her partner Antonio. It’s revealed that Erin has been bleeding internally from the injuries she sustained through her investigation, and she dies while sitting in her car.

Classification: 15