Jessica Alba leads the new thriller on Netflix.
It’s been a long while since Jessica Alba last led the cast for a new film, but in Netflix thriller Trigger Warning she does just that – playing a skilled Special Forces commando who returns to her home town following the suspicious death of her father.
Directed by Indonesian filmmaker Mouly Surya and inspired by both John Wick and Rambo: First Blood, the film follows Alba’s character Parker as she finds herself locked in a violent battle with a gang of criminals who are running rampant in the town.
What’s more, these criminals are related to a shady politician – played by relish with Anthony Michael Hall – who she suspects might have something to do with her dad’s sudden death.
As the film plays out, more revelations about the town come to light and Parker’s quest for revenge becomes increasingly violent – leading up to a few epic showdowns in the final act.
Watched the film and need those events recapped and spelled out? Read on to have the Trigger Warning ending explained.
Warning: full spoilers for Trigger Warning ahead.
Trigger Warning ending explained: How did Parker’s father die?
It doesn’t take long after Parker’s arrival back in her home town of Creation for her to realise that it is now run by a gang of lawless thugs headed up by Elvis (Jake Weary), the son of powerful politician Ezekiel Swann (Anthony Michael Hall).
Meanwhile, Elvis’s brother and Parker’s former boyfriend Jesse (Mark Webber) is now the town sheriff, and although she initially doesn’t want to believe that he is involved in all the criminal activity, it quickly becomes clear that he is also in the pocket of his father.
As Parker continues to investigate the death of her father in a mine system where he had set up his own literal “man cave”, the town’s many criminals become increasingly desperate to stop her from snooping and resort to increasingly violent means in an effort to prevent her from making any progress.
In a conversation between Jesse and Elvis, we learn that the latter had been storing weapons in the cave system and selling them to a man on the domestic terrorist list.
We later find out that Parker’s father had become aware of this, which is why he had been killed off. It also becomes clear that they are running behind on providing the weapons to the buyer, which has put the whole Swann family in danger.
Anyway, more determined than ever to get her revenge, Parker gets herself a gun and various other weapons – including a machete – and sets off after Elvis and co. She breaks her way into their home and finds herself face to face with Ezekiel, asking him: “What really happened to my pops?”
Ezekiel unconvincingly tells her he had nothing to do with the death, but she is not to be dissuaded that easily and takes out her machete, saying: “Now tell me the truth.”
What happens next happens off camera, but it is heavily implied she kills him, euphemistically telling her ally Mike that she “made him talk” and extracting a confession that her father had been shot in the back after finding out what the cave system was being used for.
Parker has not finished with her revenge mission just yet, and her Special Forces colleague Spider (Tone Bell) has now shown up in town after becoming concerned about her safety. A major fight between the Swann family and the terrorists they had been selling to breaks out, with Parker sneaking up and watching them argue.
Taking advantage of the situation – and putting her impressive knife skills to good use – Parker finds the weapons before she spots Spider being apprehended by the criminal gang. The bad guys are no match for those knife skills, though, and she saves him, telling him, “‘Sup damsel in distress,” after doing so.
She then tells him her plan is to blow up the cave system using the weapons she has seized, but the gang are not done yet, and following an explosion she finds herself separated from Spider again.
Armed with her machete, Parker fights her way out of danger by killing several gang members – including Elvis – and eventually finds Spider struggling under a pile of rocks, saving him with help from Mike and his family.
She hears footsteps belonging to Jesse, and is told by her allies to finish the job. He appears to have escaped into a government facility, and so Parker pretends to need medical help to get access to the compound before continuing her pursuit of him.
She catches up and they fight, with Parker clearly having the upper hand, before Jesse takes out a grenade and says that he is “calling the shots now”. She tells him that “everyone in town knows what you’ve done” but he insists that he’s “getting out of here”.
And so, despite Parker’s attempts to talk him out of it, he blows himself up with the grenade and dies.
We then jump forward in time, with a radio message explaining: “It’s been four weeks since the death of the now-disgraced Swann family. But change is already in the air, with a new ballot initiative to rename the county.”
Driving away from the town, Parker is told by Spider that he had found some files, which turn out to be home video footage that her father had been backing up before his death.
She opens the folders and watches various videos from her childhood and adolescence before she receives a call from Mike and we find out that she has bought her father’s old bar, which she is now redeveloping for Mike to run.
Trigger Warning is now streaming on Netflix – sign up from £4.99 a month. Netflix is also available on Sky Glass and Virgin Media Stream.
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