Last Seen Alive Ending Explained- Why Was Lisa Taken And Who Took Her?

Gerald Butler plays a desperate husband in Last Seen Alive, a mysterious thriller that keeps you guessing until the very end.

The straightforward who-done-it is a basic story of addiction, opportunity, and unhappy marriages. Yet, despite all the red herrings in Last Seen Alive about affairs and depression, there is little unexpected about this action thriller. That doesn’t mean it isn’t a good watch. On the contrary, the easy breezy thriller requires little but time on your hands and a screen to watch. In the early moments, it is reminiscent of Kiefer Sutherland’s The Vanishing from 1993, but as the film unfolds, it becomes clear things are less dark and twisted and more about human frailty.

Gerald Butler’s Will and his wife Lisa(Jaimie Alexander) are not happy. She has cheated in the past, and there is trouble brewing now. He can’t forgive her, and she feels despondent about the direction of her life and marriage. They are emotionally distant, verging on combative. Then, on the way to her parents, where she will be moving to gain some perspective, she goes missing at a gas station. Will becomes frantic, ultimately taking matters into his own hands. What makes things more interesting is Will still loves Lisa despite his anger at her but everyone around her suspects him, including the police. Through flashbacks, we learn just how unhappy the marriage was.

Everyone acts shady from the beginning. Will has all the hallmarks of a jilted lover, but we quickly reject that notion as he becomes more panicked. The gas station clerk claims not to remember Lisa even though he had just rung her up. He later claims not to have working surveillance when Detective Paterson questions him, which is a lie. After Will assaults the clerk, he takes the surveillance system hard drive to the police. Will and Paterson see Lisa speaking to someone she appears to know and heading toward his car at the gas station. Unfortunately, a semi-truck obscures the view, and by the time the truck moves, Lisa, the man, and his car are gone. Armed with a grainy picture, Will begins questioning everyone.

Later at her parent’s house, they seem more interested in placing blame than worrying about Lisa. Will’s erratic behavior doesn’t help, and he becomes a prime suspect. The confusing opening scene makes it appear the police might also be in on things. However, these things are just distractions from what is really going on. When Will shows the footage to Lisa’s parents, they know there is something more to her disappearance.

The ending of Last Seen Alive explained

Lisa’s parents recognize the man Lisa talks to at the gas station as Knuckles. He is a handyman and former classmate of Lisa’s when they were kids. Will tracks down Knuckles and beats him until he reveals Lisa’s next known whereabouts. That leads him to Frank, a backwoods drug dealer, and Oscar, the gas station clerk who knows more than he is admitting.

The opening scene of Detective Paterson(Russell Hornsby) squeezing Knuckle’s neck while asking about Lisa is actually a scene from the third act. Paterson realizes Knuckles is responsible for Lisa’s abduction and tries to get him to talk. He eventually tells him everything he knows, including what he thinks happened to Lisa. At the same time, Will is questioning Frank, who is trying to extort twenty thousand dollars for her location. Will agrees to give him the money, but he is blown up in the barn explosion.

Unfortunately, anyone at Franks who knew where Lisa was is now dead. Will inadvertently kills most of Frank’s henchmen, and Frank is blown up, meaning no one knows where Lisa is. Luckily, Knuckles admits to the entire scheme and tells the detective where to find Lisa. Knuckles thought she was dead, and Will and the detective feared the worst. While Paterson checked the hole, Will started investigating a weird noise. He finds her in a shed, tied up but alive.

Paterson visits Will later and tells him Knuckles admitted to the scheme but blamed it all on Frank. He also says all of the bodies were recovered from the farm, but not all of them died from the explosion. He tells Will he has chosen to keep that part of the report quiet, however. We last see Will and Lisa happy to be together and very much alive. The implication is that being involved in a traumatic kidnapping was enough for the couple to get that much-needed perspective.

Why was Lisa taken?

There is no grand conspiracy here. It is just a half-baked plan by a drug addict desperate for money. Knuckles was low on funds, and Frank wasn’t keen on giving him more product without payment. Also, because Knuckles had done work for Lisa’s parents recently, he knew she was coming home and had a wealthy husband.

Knowing Lisa was coming home and that she had a rich husband, he decided to kidnap her and hold her for ransom. Once Frank found out, he ordered Knuckles to dig a pit for her dead body as he wasn’t down for holding someone hostage. Knuckles was not a long-term planner and didn’t realize Frank wouldn’t want to deal with kidnapping when he could kill her and be done with it. Instead of sticking around for her murder, Knuckles went home, which is where Will found him hours after her kidnapping.

Frank had ordered Knuckles to kill Lisa and put her in the pit but because he ran away after digging the hole, she was able to stay alive long enough for Will to find her. Evidently, Frank was too busy cooking meth to kill Lisa. Of course, it’s also possible Frank thought she was dead and in the pit and was going to trick Will and then kill him.

By the end of Last Seen Alive, Lisa and Will are back together, and the criminals involved are either dead or behind bars. The police are ignoring everything illegal Will did to get Lisa back, and their marriage has been fixed. It’s a tidy ending like only movies can provide. With the quick run time and fast-paced action, this is a movie worth seeing once. It is currently streaming on Netflix and VOD almost everywhere you stream movies.