A man can run away from his past but he cannot erase it. He is forever destined to spend the rest of his life with the past mistakes. But what happens when a man cannot remember the past itself, and only knows a version of it, as told by people around him. Is that story is his reality or just faux he keeps on believing? In the film, Trigger Point, the director Brad Turner had tried to plunge into a similar perspective with his action thriller drama.
‘Trigger Point’ Summary
A retired special agent Nicolas Shaw (Barry Pepper) is living his life in hiding in the countryside. His consciousness is constantly haunted by flashbacks of an encounter where he was drugged and strangled. Nicolas was forced to give away the names of his colleagues, but he doesn’t remember whether he gave the names or not.
The United States special agency found Nicolas guilty of betrayal. His colleagues were all murdered by an unknown assassin. Since then, Nicolas has been on the run. His life in hiding was going smooth without any hassle until his former boss, Elias Kane (Colm Feore) shows up.
Elias’s daughter Monica Kane (Eve Harlow) went missing while pursuing the assassin who killed off Nicolas’s colleagues. According to Elias, Monica was on the verge of finding out the true identity of an unknown man named Quentin who was suspected of giving up all the names. Though it was only Nicholas who know the real identity of Quentin. Elias requests Nicolas to find out his daughter and reveal the truth about Quentin to the world. Nicolas, however, remembers nothing, yet decides to take the mission.
After dodging a series of hurdles, Nicolas finally rescues Monica. Instead of thanking him, Monica points a gun at Nicolas forcing him to retrieve encrypted information. The file had the real identity of Quentin and the salient assassin who has been hunting US agents. Nicolas turns the table around and kidnaps Monica instead.
Monica blames Quentin and Nicolas for giving out the name of the agents. Nicolas tries to defend himself saying he was drugged, but Monica tells him the reality that he wasn’t drugged but was injected with a solution called Sodium Thiopental. It is used to create memory loss, which means Nicolas gave away the name at his own will.
Feeling remorseful, Nicolas finally pursues a journey to find out the truth of his past and know the real identity of Quentin as well as the assassin who had killed his former colleagues.
Major Spoilers Ahead
‘Trigger Point’ Ending Explained
The encrypted file reveals that it was Monica’s father Elias Kane who drugged Nicolas. Elias wanted to know the identity of Quentin which was only known to Nicolas but when Nicolas failed to comply, he framed him for betrayal to his own agency. Elias hired an assassin named Fiona Snow to kill the US agents. In fact, it was Elias who was working for both sides. Nicolas hunts down Elias and reveals the same truth to Monica that it was his father who hired a gun to kill a former agent and Monica’s husband, Javier. All was done just to find one man, Quentin.
Near the beach, in a face-off between Elias and Nicolas, Elias reveals to him his intention of ruling both sides. He wanted to operate both the shadow and the light.
“I thought I could move the merchandise without anybody the wiser. Operate in both the shadow and the light.”
Nicolas ends Elias and a few days later visits a former colleague who now works as a teacher. She had all the ideas about Elias’s master plan but she kept quiet. Nicolas asks the teacher about Quentin’s real identity. She hints to him that the assassin Fiona Snow is the key to the puzzle. Nicolas and his operator, the librarian finds out Fiona Snow’s location. Nicolas trials her and leaves the town in search of Quentin.
The next installment of Trigger Point will explore Nicolas’s pursuit of Fiona Snow and Quentin. He will try to clear out his name from the agency hit list.
Trigger Point works like a bully. A narrative that creates an extravagant web of complicated details to exhibit its superiority. But at the dramatic level, it has a lousy foundation. No matter how hard it tried to act complicated or extremely detailed, the narrative fails the basic test of storytelling. The characters seemed like the miniatures straight out of a toy store. They had flashy titles and muscular words to speak, but their personality lacked flesh and emotions. There isn’t a singular interval in the entire film where the film portrays an emotional impulse. A narrative that fails to lure the audience to vouch or empathize with its protagonist is a failed narrative, no matter how chiseled or intricate it tries to appear.
Calling itself an action thriller film, Trigger Point fails at both action and thriller, yet if you would like to experience an unwanted facade, you can give the film a chance to lure you.
Trigger Point is a 2021 film directed by Brad Turner. It is available for Video On Demand.
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