12 Dire Plot Twists From Recent Hollywood Films
9. Patrick Wilson Did It - The Commuter
The Commuter focuses on Michael (Liam Neeson), an ex-cop and insurance agent, who is offered $100,000 by Joanna (Vera Farmiga) in exchange for carrying out a task: he has to locate a passenger on his commuter train who doesn't belong. Should he fail to locate this passenger, who faces death upon being identified, his family dies.
This is a great premise and The Commuter is a solid, tense mystery thriller that'll keep you guessing, but although it gets most of its twists right, one of the big twists is very obvious indeed.
The reveal that Alex Murphy (Patrick Wilson), Michael's former police partner, is a corrupt cop and the guy who suggested Michael to Joanna was predictable from very early-on in the film.
At the start of the film Michael is laid off from his job and the only person he tells about this, and therefore the only person who knows Michael needs money, is Alex. Additionally, Alex voices discontent about his police career and immediately sounds like a corrupt cop.
The person who Michael is supposed to locate is a murder witness and as soon as this passenger reveals that the men who carried out the killing were police, it put what most had probably already worked out beyond any doubt.